Barack Obama and Clement Attlee have in common their pasts as “community organizers,” in Attlee’s case as a charity worker amid the poverty of Edwardian London’s East End, a harrowing and intoxicating experience that drove him to socialism. More important still is their shared eye for the main chance.

By hiking taxes on "the rich" Attlee was able to bring socialism to the U.K. writes Andrew Stuttaford