Chris Hast­ings in The Mail on Sun­day  reports the “dis­cov­ery” that Churchill used the phrase “we are all in it togeth­er” in a Jubilee din­ner orga­nized by the Nation­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Her Majesty’s Inspec­tor of Tax­es on 28 May 1952.

This, Hast­ings claims, shows that Chan­cel­lor of the Exche­quer George Osborne was being Churhcil­lian when he said recent­ly “We are all in this togeth­er” when talk­ing about the spend­ing cuts.

Churchill’s line was uncov­ered by his­to­ri­an Andrew Roberts and the Churchill Archives Cen­tre, in a cache of unpub­lished record­ings of Churchill speech­es found at Chartwell. But this is hard­ly Churchill’s first usage of the famous cliche.

Churchill’s The Grand Alliance (1950), records this memo from the Prime Min­is­ter to the Lord Privy Seal and Min­is­ter of Food, 12 Decem­ber 1941:

It would be a mis­take, in my opin­ion, to announce these restric­tions of rations now. It would savour of pan­ic. Our posi­tion has immea­sur­ably improved by the full involve­ment of the Unit­ed States. The reserves are good. We are all in it togeth­er, and they are eat­ing bet­ter meals than we are.

Churchill also used “we are all in it togeth­er” pub­licly in a speech on the House of Com­mons, 4 Novem­ber 1952, as record­ed in Churchill, Stem­ming the Tide (1953) and Mar­tin Gilbert, Win­ston S. Churchill: Road to Vic­to­ry (1986).

There is noth­ing new under the sun. Or The Mail?