Attridge dead at 100 July 4972
▲ Mr Attridge being interviewed by the Inquirer this JuneFORT WILLIAM, ORANGE — Former prime minister Ernie Attridge died yesterday, less than a month after his 100th birthday on the 20th of June. The cause of death was given by his family as simply 'old age': "He had a good, long run, and he died peacefully at home," said his son, George. Attridge served as prime minister from 4927 to 4936 in coalition with the National Movement, in the last year leading a caretaker government, having led the Luthorian Workers' Party from its founding in February 4913. He resigned his party's leadership following the inauguration of the Communist-Peoples' Revolution coalition with Conservative and Country support, succeeded by Tommy Brewer at party conference that July.
Attridge had been interviewed by the
Inquirer shortly before his birthday.
"It's disappointing that there's not a patriotic, working-class party in this country anymore. You've got the left, the Solidarity bunch that formed last year, but they're all a bunch of loonies. When the princess was born back in January, they were out there protesting about it - the birth of a child, for goodness sake," he had said. When asked if he planned to get back into politics and solve that, he laughed. "If I were just a few years younger, maybe."
"Unlike a lot of people, and this might come as a surprise, I think Brewer made the right choice in splitting with the National Movement. They threatened to drag us back into the wilderness with them, and ditching them to stop the communists and Pirates getting in was a good move. The last conference and what happened there was and is besides it: everyone knew the party was over by that point. What really put the party on the path to that, I think, was that Brewer made a terrible mistake when he tried to widen the party's base and rebrand as 'Ord'. We were the Luthorian Workers' Party for a reason, representing the working class in the Diet was our mission. When the party abandoned that, that was it."
His thoughts on the Prime Minister? "I don't like Paglesham. There's something of the night about him."