THEY WERE allies in wartime, and often acerbic adversaries in peace, who, the occasional dig aside, came to deeply admire each other. But for all their differences in political outlook and temperament, Clement Attlee and Winston Churchill shared remarkably similar doubts about Christianity.

Leo McKinstry’s new joint biography, Attlee and Churchill (Atlantic Books), retells the story of a fading Attlee’s determination to attend Churchill’s funeral at St Paul’s. Churchill had not feared death; nor was he a fervent believer. As he famously said, he saw himself as supporting the Church as a flying buttress on the outside rather than a pillar from within.

Lord Moran, his doctor for 25 years, wrote that Churchill “did not believe in another world, only in eternal sleep”. His friend, Violet Bonham Carter, wrote that Churchill had told her that “eternal life seemed a nightmare possibility”. His friend and ally, Bob Boothby, complained of how with Churchill, “‘Thou shalt have no other gods but me’ has always been the first, and the most significant, of the Commandments”.