Memory: “The stars still shone in the sky”

Lost in the pell-mell rush to denigrate his memory was the 8oth anniversary of Churchill becoming Prime Minster, 10 May 1940. I thought of his words as I read the ignorant, ill-informed, false attacks on his character. They occurred amid protest over a tragic event that had nothing to do with him. He wrote at the end of Their Finest Hour:

And now this Britain, and its far-spread association of states and dependencies, which had seemed on the verge of ruin, whose very heart was about to be pierced, had been for fifteen months concentrated upon the war problem….With a gasp of astonishment and relief the smaller neutrals and the subjugated states saw that the stars still shone in the sky….

And now his defenders in far-spread association have concentrated on the slur problem. The battle for accurate information is still being fought. Who’d have thought his memory would ever be in jeopardy? Many faithful colleagues have joined the effort. The work goes on, the cause endures.

Letters to the Editors

“Donald Trump is no Winston Churchill, and the comparison is ludicrous.” John Ivison, National Post, 4 June 2020.

Mr. Ivison correctly writes that the comparison is ludicrous. Then he proceeds to state that Churchill was “massively flawed.” He says “Churchill ‘signed off’ on terms at the Yalta Conference that consigned tens of millions to Soviet Rule.” At that time Soviet troops occupied almost the whole of Eastern Europe. The only alternative for Churchill would have been to start a third World War. Next: “Churchill was prime minister at the time of the Bengal famine in 1943 when an estimated three million people died. His only possible defence was that he was preoccupied by the war in Europe.” The fact is that on 8 October 1943 Churchill sent an order to Lord Wavell, the Viceroy of India, on the “actual famine,” saying “every effort must be made, even by the diversion of shipping urgently needed for war purposes to deal with local shortages.” —Terry Reardon, International Churchill Society Canada

Churchill as Racist

“Was Churchill a racist? Yes, but he still deserves respect.” —Max Hastings, The Sunday Times 14 June 2020.

Max Hastings writes that Winston Churchill’s decisions at the time of the 1943-44 Bengal famine were “the gravest blots on his lifetime reputation.” In fact my great-grandfather felt strongly the responsibility of empire and saw himself as bound in duty to advancing the well-being of its indigenous peoples.

Of course Britain did not meet all requested food deliveries in the famine: not only was Japan in control of the Bay of Bengal at the time, as well as Burma, Thailand and Malaya, but as Dr. Tirthankar Roy, of the London School of Economics, wrote: “The war cabinet . . .  believed what the Bengalis told it: there was no shortage of food in Bengal.” And as Arthur Herman, nominated for a Pulitzer prize for his book Gandhi & Churchill, concluded: “Absent Churchill, India’s 1943 famine would have been worse.”  —Randolph Churchill, Kent

Bengal: What Did Gandhi Say?

A week later a reader quoted Viceroy Wavell that Churchill didn’t answer him about food relief, so I had a go. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel…

Mr MacShane should educate himself on what Gandhi not Churchill did about the Bengal Famine. As did Arthur Herman, Pulitzer nominee for Gandhi and Churchill: “For all his reputation as a humanitarian, Gandhi did remarkably little about the emergency. The issue barely comes up in his letters.” In February 1944, Gandhi finally brought himself to reply to British anxieties about food relief, writing to Wavell: “I know that millions outside are starving for want of food. But I should feel utterly helpless if I went out and missed the food [i.e. independence] by which alone living becomes worthwhile.” Which of them was the humanitarian?

India (again)

“How Has Winston Churchill Become a Central Figure in the British Black Lives Matter Debate?” —Alex Hudson, Newsweek, 17 June 2020. 

Since Churchill was manifestly not “a man of his time,” you incorrectly represent his racial attitudes. From his twenties to his eighties, his views on the rights of native peoples marked him as a dangerous radical to the establishment of the day. Most of his alleged slurs of Indians, for example, are hearsay from Leopold Amery, who crammed more racist epithets into one of his personal diaries than Churchill ever imagined. Churchill  meanwhile praised “the unsurpassed bravery” of 2.5 million “Indian soldiers and officers, both Moslem and Hindu [and] the response of the Indian peoples, no less than the conduct of their soldiers,” in World War II. —Richard M. Langworth

Africa

“The Churchill factor: Boris Johnson would rather everyone talked about Winston.” —Otto English, Politico, 15 June 2020.

Castrating people is a new Churchill outrage, and I thought I’d heard them all. Churchill did not advocate for Boer War concentration camps. In his maiden speech (18 February 1901) he complimented the Boers’ “unusual humanity and generosity” in the war and urged a generous peace. He did fruitlessly argue with his Boer jailer about equal rights for native Africans. He did say dreadful things about Gandhi, though the elephant crack is pure fiction. And he also said: “Mr. Gandhi has gone very high in my esteem since he stood up for the Untouchables.” (Gandhi replied with a “good recollection” of Churchill and “that I can always rely on his sympathy and goodwill.”) Gandhi took a regrettably detached view of the 1943 Bengal famine; Churchill didn’t. Arthur Herman, biographer of them both wrote: “Absent Churchill, Bengal’s Famine would have been worse.”

The Mau Mau uprising in Kenya had more native opponents than supporters. Both it and the local government indulged in atrocities, though the Mau Mau’s were worse. If Mr. English would consult the cabinet minutes, however, he would find only two instances where Churchill mentioned the Mau Mau. In one he was concerned over loss of life. In another he warned against “mass executions.” Jomo Kenyatta, father of modern Kenya, said: “Mau Mau was a disease which had been eradicated, and must never be remembered again.” —RML

Ireland and the Jews

“What Churchill’s legacy means for the country now.” Jessica Baldwin, Camden News Journal, June 18th.

Ms. Baldwin says it is immoral to look at the “reality” of Churchill “and still believe him to be unsullied.” Of course he was sullied. She correctly notes his support for the Dardanelles/Gallipoli operation and the Black and Tans. As to the rest of her catalogue, Churchill once said: “…it would hardly be possible to state the opposite of the truth more compendiously.”

Churchill didn’t “partition” Ireland. He negotiated the Irish Treaty which gave the Republic independence. Tanks to Tonypandy? They hadn’t been invented yet. In cabinet he spoke of the Mau Mau twice, once to warn against “mass executions.” Bengalis starved from several factors, despite Churchill’s efforts. (What was Gandhi’s position on the famine? Detached and non-committal.)

Britain didn’t go to war “to save the Jews” but to save liberty. Churchill jailed Britain’s leading fascist Oswald Mosley—an odd act for an alleged fascist. The colonial war effort was often cited by Churchill. He praised “the unsurpassed bravery” of 2.5 million “Indian soldiers and officers, both Moslem and Hindu.” Serious inquiry will show that Churchill believed people of all colors should enjoy the same rights, and that it was the mission of his country to protect those rights.

We can believe Churchill was always right, and we can believe with Ms. Baldwin that we’ve been “fed a line.” Churchill himself offered a middle approach: “It seems to me, and I dare say it seems to you, that the path of wisdom lies somewhere between these scarecrow extremes.” —RML

“Nuking the Maralinga people”

In March I published a modest glossary,  “Churchill Derangement Syndrome: A is for Aryans, R is to Racism.” How far “CDS” has progressed since may be seen by a correspondent who replied: “N is for nuking the Maralinga people.”

I seriously investigated this charge, which was new to me.  I carefully read the link above, and about Australians who witnessed and remembered the 1952 nuclear tests. The Churchill Documents and several scholars offer accurate data. Conclusions:

(1) You can’t have nuclear weapons without testing whether they work. (2) Australian permission for testing in the uninhabited Monte Bello islands was sought in 1950 by Prime Minister Clement Attlee. (3) Churchill had replaced Attlee when the tests occurred: two on the islands in 1952, two in the Great Victoria Desert in 1953.

* * *

Moral considerations were considered, but they involved wildlife, not people. On 21 May 1952 Lt. Col. Lipton (Lab., Lambeth Central) questioned Churchill over the destruction of animal life. Churchill replied, trying to be humorous:

The report of a recent special survey showing that there is very little animal or bird life on Monte Bello Islands was one of the factors in the choice of the site for the test of the United Kingdom atomic weapon. I should add, however, that an expedition which went to the  islands fifty years ago reported that giant rats, wild cats, and wallabies were seen, and these may have caused the Hon. Member some anxiety. However, the officer who explored the islands recently says that he found only some lizards, two sea eagles and what looked like a canary sitting on a perch.

Emrys Hughes (Lab., South Ayshire) was not amused: “There are still civilized people in this country who are interested in bird and animal life.” This finally produced a mention of humans—by Mr. Churchill: “Certainly I think everything should be done to avoid the destruction of bid life and animal life and also of human life.” Churchill may been referring to his well-known belief that the bomb’s apocalyptic nature might discourage its use.

* * *

(4) The next tests occurred in 1956, on the Monte Bellos and Australian mainland. These did produce fall-out exposure for some people (the numbers are uncertain). The buck stops with the Prime Minister, but the PM was now Anthony Eden. Churchill was over a year retired. (5) Therefore, Churchill did not “nuke the Maralinga people.”

(6) Massive deserts and uninhabited islands are obviously the best places for nuclear testing. (7) Sixty years later, some Australian veterans who witnessed the original tests developed cancer. Their opinions were divided as to why they contracted it.

(8) The tests led to the nuclear umbrella Britain and America provided Australia, close to two expansionist communist states. (9) The Soviet Union’s last nuclear test was in 1990, the UK’s in 1991. America stopped in 1992, France and China in 1996. The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty of 1996 placed a de facto moratorium on testing. India (twice), Pakistan (twice) and North Korea (six times) have since violated the moratorium.

“Subsidiary craters spouting forth”

Churchill said when attacked by the son of a harsh critic: “Isn’t it enough to have this parent volcano continually erupting in our midst? And now we are to have these subsidiary craters spouting forth the same unhealthy fumes!”

To Arthur Herman’s truths about the Bengal Famine, a reader asked about Japan’s post-invasion plans for India, on which I had offered the Japan’s occupation of the Philippines:

A better example would be Malaya where there was a large resident Indian community. How many Indians did the Japanese slaughter there? And how could the Japanese have topped the British record for allowing famines in its colonies? While you’re at it, could you please present any evidence that Japan had actually intended to conquer India? Did it have the capability to do so without compromising its main objective in China?

This is easily answered: Imperial Japan sought to change Malaya’s official language to Japanese. Malayans were expected to bow to Japanese. Chinese fared particularly harshly, but Malays and Indians were not exempt. The 11/43 Greater East Asia Conference did not include Malaya because the Japanese military wished to annex it. Japan’s plans for India are well detailed. Of course, in 1941, Imperial Japan believed it could do much that turned out to be a little optimistic.

The occupations moderated when Japan started to lose the war. Thanks, in part, as Churchill said, “to the unsurpassed bravery” of 2.5 million “Indian soldiers and officers, both Moslem and Hindu [and] the response of the Indian peoples.” As Arthur Herman wrote, in the 20th century in peacetime, the Raj “handled famines with efficiency.” For balanced pros and cons on Britain’s role in India see Dr. Tirthankar Roy, How British Rule Changed India’s Economy.

In our electronic Speaker’s Corner (the Internet), Winston Churchill is beset by haters. Their knee-jerk spouts are laced with out-of-context quotes and preconceived notions. Call it Churchill Derangement Syndrome. Where is the truth? Perhaps we need a Derangement Index. Click on “A” for Aryan Supremacy, “B” for the Bengal Famine, etc. A handy reference to every derangement you can access with a couple of clicks.

An e-zine called This is Local London, describing its offerings as “quality local journalism,” is a standard example. Well, maybe not so standard. “The Problem with Glorying Winston Churchill” was written not by a historian or researcher, but a student at Wallington County Grammar School. If this what they’re teaching in British grammar schools, the Prime Minister has a bigger problem than Brexit.

It’s a tongue-lashing for the ages. “Blind worship and romanticisation [sic] of Churchill…is dangerous to our understandings of race and understanding” [sic]. Especially given “the harrowing reality.” What is that? Why, you doofus, it’s Churchill’s “virulent racism, sympathy for fascist and extremist ideology.” Yet—can you believe it?—we still airbrush his “horrible actions and distasteful racist, xenophobic venom.” Why do we glorify “this self-identified white supremacist as a figure worthy of acclaim?”

Derangement Primer

Herein we encapsulate this episode of Churchill Derangement in alphabetical order. Young Reporter’s accusations are in italics. Incorrect, unsourced, inaccurate or otherwise false quotes are marked with curly brackets {like this}. They are not worthy of quotemarks.

“A” is for Aryans

Churchill’s conviction of the {superiority of the Aryan race} “is starkly reminiscent of Hitler’s.” Churchill said whites were ‘a stronger race, a higher grade race.’ ” Churchill’s “almost Nazi belief that ‘the Aryan stock is bound to triumph’…compelled him to engage in a number of imperial conquests.”

First, question: What imperial conquests?  Churchill said “The Aryan stock is bound to triumph” in 1901 when he was 27, the Empire long established. He spoke of “a higher grade race” to the Peel Commission on Palestine in 1937. Hardly reminiscent of Hitler and his plan for genocide. (N.B.: Unfortunately for him 100 years later, Churchill often said “race” when he meant “nation.” Just as he said “poison gas” when he meant tear gas—in retrospect, a bad gaffe.)

In “today’s political climate” such words sound bad. But saying “everybody thought that way in 1901 or 1937” is a poor defense of Churchill. The real defense does exist.  Anybody can read it. Perhaps “Young Reporter” should read it:

We spend a lot of time arguing that Churchill was remarkable. Then when something comes along that we do not like, we excuse it or explain it as typical of the age. I do not think Churchill was typical of the age on this question, if the age was racist…. You can quote Abraham Lincoln in precisely the same sense. The remarkable thing is that Lincoln, for the slaves, and Churchill, for the Empire, believed that people of all colors should enjoy the same rights, and that it was the mission of their country to protect those rights. Therefore to say that Winston Churchill was “a man of his time,” or that “everyone back then was a racist,” is to miss the singular feature.

“B” is for Bengal Famine

“Churchill orchestrated the Bengal famine, exporting grain and being responsible for the unnecessary deaths of four million Indians.”

This vicious, tired, and hackneyed accusation has been a routine derangement since an ill-researched book made the claim a decade ago. That book was reviewed by the distinguished Gandhi biographer Arthur Herman: “Absent Churchill, Bengal’s Famine would have been Worse.” How so? All you have to do is read.

“D” is for Dung Eaters

Churchill also likened the Palestinians to {barbaric hoards who ate little but camel dung}, Young Reporter writes..

This derangement is based on hearsay, though I wouldn’t dispute the context. Michael Makovsky, in his excellent work Churchill’s Promised Land, credited Malcolm MacDonald, then colonial secretary: “He told me I was crazy to help the Arabs, because they were a backward people who ate nothing but camel dung.” Makovsky wrote: “While these might not have been Churchill’s exact words the gist of the comment jibed with what he had thought of the Palestinian Arabs at least since encountering them in the early 1920s.” So Churchill had his prejudices—which didn’t stop him from urging fair treatment of Arabs and Jews in Palestine.

“E” is for Eugenics

Churchill was driven by a deep loathing of democracy for anyone other than the British and a tiny clique of supposedly superior races and warned the Prime Minister at the time, Stanley Baldwin, not to appoint him to Cabinet as his views on race and eugenics were so thoroughly antiquated and morally reprehensible.

Not much derangement here. Yes, circa 1912, young Churchill had a fling with Eugenics. He abandoned it within two years. Deciding it was an affront to civil liberties, he never spoke of it again. Churchill never warned Baldwin not to appoint him—from the mid-1930s he desperately wanted to be appointed. Baldwin excluded Churchill for his incessant rearmament demands. My book, Churchill and the Avoidable War, spends several chapters on all this. I would be happy to make a gift of it to Young Reporter—provided he promised to read it. By all accounts Baldwin was more of a white supremacist than Churchill.

 “G” is for Gallipoli

“Churchill was also at the helm of the diabolical Gallipoli campaign during World War II, in which tens of thousands of British civilians died unnecessarily as a result of Churchill’s needless competence.”

Yes, Young Reporter did say “World War II” and “needless competence.” He means World War I and needless incompetence. But Churchill’s diabolical helmsmanship was over the Dardanelles, not Gallipoli. He neither planned nor directed the disastrous Gallipoli landings. Also, he learned from his mistakes. After World War II he wrote of the Dardanelles: “…a supreme enterprise was cast away, through my trying to carry out a major and cardinal operation of war from a subordinate position. Men are ill-advised to try such ventures. This lesson had sunk into my nature.” Some derangement.

“H” is for Hitler

Churchill’s “sympathy for fascist ideology” begins with Hitler. In 1935, he wrote: “If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as indomitable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations.”

Churchill wrote that in the Evening Standard on 17 September 1937, after he had been attacked by the Nazi press as an enemy of Germany. He said he’d been wronged, mentioning all his overtures to Germany after World War I. These included shipping food to blockaded Hamburg, repatriating prisoners, opposing France’s invasion of the Ruhr, and so on.

Before the sentence quoted, he wrote: “One may dislike Hitler’s system and yet admire his patriotic achievement.” At the time, Churchill was walking on eggs. His article had to clear the Foreign Office, anxious not to insult dear old Adolf. Even so, there is nothing that suggests “sympathy for fascist ideology.” In fact, Churchill had Hitler’s number from the get-go. You can look it up.

“I” is for Indians

“Churchill openly admitted his visceral hatred of Indians, referring to them as ‘a beastly people with a beastly religion,’ and that it was their fault for dying in the famine because they ‘bred like rabbits’ and because they were ‘the beastliest people in the world, next to the Germans….’ Leo Amery, British Secretary of State for India, said Churchill ‘didn’t see much difference between his outlook and Hitler’s’ {regarding race and eugenics}. “But, whilst there is mostly a general consensus that Hitler is a white supremacist, authoritarian mass murdering [expletive deleted], this tag is similarly applicable to Churchill.”

Churchill Derangement has a feast of words here. WSC did make those outbursts, frustrated with disputatious demands from Delhi in the midst of all-out war. William F. Buckley put them in context: “I don’t doubt that the famous gleam came to his eyes when he said this, with mischievous glee—an offense, in modem convention, of genocidal magnitude.” Indeed so.

Amery did say that to Churchill, “which annoyed him no little.” It was Amery’s job to plead India’s case—and Churchill’s to set priorities in a war to the death. Yet in the end, Arthur Herman explained: “Even Amery admitted…the ‘unassailable’ case against diverting vital war shipping to India.” Churchill’s appointment of Field Marshal Wavell as Viceroy ultimately eased India’s famine. “Far from a racist conspiracy to break the country, the Viceroy noted that ‘all the Dominion Governments are doing their best to help.’”

This is the same Churchill who wrote of the 2.5 million-volunteer Indian Army: “the response of the Indian peoples, no less than the conduct of their soldiers, makes a glorious final page in the story of our Indian Empire.” Was that derangement?

“K” is for Kurds

Churchill “was a man who advocated gassing the Kurds and who declared himself ‘strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes.’”

This Golden Oldie has been around longer even than the Bengal famine nonsense. The quote is easy trap for the gullible—if they don’t read the surrounding words…

It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses: gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected. [Italics mine.]

For those of you in Rio Linda, or Wallington County Grammar School, “lachrymatory gas” is tear gas. 

“L” is for Landslide (1945)

“It is telling that as soon as those incredibly brave soldiers returned home, they helped to vote Winston Churchill out of office in large numbers, in what was a landslide victory for the most radically left-wing Labour government in history.”

It is telling, but not in that way. In 1945, Britons voted massively for the Labour opposition (hardly the most radical in history). Not because of Churchill, who was handily reelected. Voters rejected the Conservative Party, which who had brought them a decade of appeasement and war. And for Labour, which promised a grand future. “I wouldn’t call it [ingratitude],” Churchill said. “They have had a very hard time.”

“M” is for Mussolini 

Churchill was “a raving supporter of Mussolini.” He said {fascism has rendered a service to the entire world}. And: “If I were Italian, I am sure I should have been wholeheartedly with you from the start to finish in your triumphant struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism.”

My book, Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality, devotes a chapter to “Mussolini, Law-Giver and Jackal.” Churchill did praise Musso twice. The first time (correctly quoted above), was in 1927, when WSC was Chancellor of the Exchequer. His aim was to get Il Duce to cough up the Italian war debt. (He did get some of it.) The second was in 1940 when he tossed a few bouquets at the Italian, hoping he wouldn’t join the war with Hitler. He failed. For Churchill, Mussolini then became the “whipped jackal” yelping at the side of “the German tiger.” Early on, of course, lots of people who feared Leninism were praising Mussolini. But Churchill and the Italians delivered the final verdict. They must have suffered from Mussolini Derangement.

“N” is for Nuking the Soviets

“Churchill wanted to inflict nuclear holocaust on Soviet Union in peacetime,” Young Reporter breathlessly asserts.

The truth is less spectacular. Shortly after the war, Churchill speculated privately about taking out the Soviets in a nuclear strike. He said as much to Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King and New Hampshire Senator Styles Bridges. Often he voiced apocalyptic scenarios to visitors to gauge their reaction. He never formally proposed to bomb Moscow to American presidents or ambassadors.

Churchill’s formal statements took a different tack, as Graham Farmelo correctly wrote: “He soon softened his line. In the House of Commons he went no further than the words he used after British relations with the Soviet Union deteriorated again, in January 1948: the best chance of avoiding war was ‘to bring matters to a head with the Soviet Government…to arrive at a lasting settlement.’” He sought that settlement through 1955. When it continued to elude him, he retired as prime minister.

“O” is for Ordinary People

“Churchill just didn’t have the interests of ordinary working classes, or indeed anyone, other than a narrow circle of middle-class straight white men at heart.”

Granted, it was pretty hard to spot non-white folks in 1904 Britain, when Churchill began being called a “traitor to his class.” (Speaking of derangement.) Why? Because Churchill, and Lloyd George, instituted the most sweeping anti-poverty legislation in British history. Taxation, old age pensions, unemployment benefits, widows and orphans support—all initiatives of the great reforming Liberal governments. Churchill was in the vanguard. He shared an understanding of the actual causes of poverty, wrote Malcolm Hill: He did not believe the state should take all responsibility for retirement, education, health and welfare. But he showed “unusual stature” in his efforts to mitigate poverty.

Ordinary people? Churchill said in 1944: “At the bottom of all the tributes paid to democracy is the little man, walking into the little booth, with a little pencil, making a little cross on a little bit of paper. No amount of rhetoric or voluminous discussion can possibly diminish the overwhelming importance of that point.” Game, set and match.

“P” is for Prejudice

“Churchill’s rampant racial prejudice was considered backwards [sic], even by Victorian standards,” writes Young Reporter. “Indeed, even at the time, Churchill was seen as extremist in his ideology and at the most brutal and racist end of the British imperialist spectrum.”

By whom? Is this the same Winston Churchill who in 1899 argued with his Boer jailer in Pretoria about equal rights for black Africans? Or the Churchill remembered kindly by Gandhi for his efforts to ease inequalities for Indians in South Africa? The Churchill who, during WW2, said Americans could segregate their black soldiers if they liked, but not the British. Read the evidence. If you still want to call Churchill a racist, by all means do. But first “dig a little deeper.”

“S” is for Savages

Churchill referred to also Egyptians as “degraded savages.” He believed Pakistanis were “deranged jihadists” whose violence was explained by a {strong aboriginal propensity to kill}.

Ah, the wonders of the partial quote. By “degraded savages” Churchill was referring to a Cairo crowd which attacked the BOAC offices in January 1952. (Andrew Roberts, Eminent Churchillians, 214.) In The Story of the Malakand Field Force Churchill wrote (3): “The strong aboriginal propensity to kill, inherent in all human beings, has in these valleys been preserved in unexampled strength and vigour.” So… Some Egyptians are savages, but not all savages are Egyptians. Some Pakistanis have an aboriginal propensity to kill, but not all killers are Pakistanis. Do I have this right? Duh!

“T” is for Tonypandy

“Churchill sent soldiers to brutally crush the strikes of hundreds of innocent, oppressed Welsh miners in Tonypandy protesting for better rights, saying, and these were his own words: {If the Welsh are striking over hunger, then we must fill their bellies with lead.}”

This derangement has been around for 100 years. Neither the quote nor the assertion are correct. Churchill specifically forbade the use of troops unless demanded by police. The last Welsh strike leader alive, Will Mainwaring, spoke to the BBC in 1960: “We never thought that Winston Churchill had exceeded his natural responsibility as Home Secretary. The military did not commit one single act that allows the slightest resentment by the strikers. On the contrary, we regarded the military as having come in the form of friends to modify the otherwise ruthless attitude of the police forces.”

“W” is for White Supremacy

In the 1955 general election, Churchill wanted the Conservatives to promote white supremacy: “The Tories should campaign on a platform of preventing {degenerate} ‘coloured’ immigration from the West Indies, along with his suggested campaign slogan for the Tories’ 1955 General election, ‘Keep England White.’”

Right in the narrow sense, wrong in the broad. Here is the reality. “Keep England White” is hearsay. It was a diary entry by Harold Macmillan after January 1955 cabinet meeting, Macmillan wrote: “The P.M. thinks ‘Keep England White’ a good campaign slogan!”

Macmillan was not given to exaggeration, but the context matters. “The P.M. thinks…” is not a quote, nor did the words ever appear in public. Macmillan followed it with an exclamation mark, which could mean that Churchill was wise-cracking. Ask yourself: Would any astute politician, even then, seriously propose “Keep England White” as a campaign slogan?

Out of context, the words seem stark. In context, Churchill was arguing for limits on Caribbean immigration. He did not discuss other black or brown people. Is this racist? We report, you decide.

“X” is for X-Rated (No attribution or off the wall)

“Churchill claimed that China was a {barbaric nation that required British partition} to bring it into civilization.” There is no attribution for this statement in his published canon.

“This was a man, who let’s not forget… force-fed the suffragettes.” Churchill force-fed nobody, opposed female suffrage only once in Parliament (when he thought more women would vote Conservative). The rest of the time he was pro-suffrage.

Truth at last!

Churchill said of Baldwin: “Occasionally he stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.” In the end, happily, Young Reporter stumbles over the truth:

“It would be reductive to merely credit [defeating the Nazis] to Churchill and not the role of ordinary British citizens, our allies, the 27 million Soviet soldiers and civilians who died during that war, the Americans, the French Resistance and how their blood, strength, tears and sacrifice was pivotal….”

End of unreality, welcome to reality. Churchill himself said it was the British people around the world who had the lion heart. “I had the luck to be called upon to give the roar.” Or as Charles Krauthammer put it:

Yes, it was the ordinary man, the taxpayer, the grunt who fought and won the wars. Yes, it was America and its allies [and] the great leaders: Roosevelt, de Gaulle, Adenauer, Truman, John Paul II, Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan. But above all, victory required one man without whom the fight would have been lost at the beginning. It required Winston Churchill.

Young Reporter is an earnest fellow and, like many older practitioners, convinced he’s right. He “firmly rejects” Churchill’s “overstated role,” but not his overstated sins, like “the deaths of millions” in Gallipoli. But hey, he’s very young.  Perhaps by the time he reaches A-levels he’ll have developed the curiosity, and integrity, to read a bit more widely.