In the News Archives - Page 11 of 28

Churchill Derangement Syndrome: A is for Aryans, R is for Racism

3 March 2020 Comments 5 Comments

“Quality local journalism”

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.…

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William F. Buckley, PMF*: A True Churchillian in the End

10 February 2020 Comments 0 Comments

The genius of Churchill was his union of affinities of the heart and of the mind, the total fusion of animal and spiritual energy....It is my proposal that Churchill’s words were indispensable to the benediction of that hour...." —Wm. F. Buckley, Jr.

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On Sovereignty: Churchill on the UK and Europe, 1933-1953

1 February 2020 Comments 1 Comment

Sovereignty is back

Britain has left the European Union. “It was a transcendental night,” Andrew Roberts writes of January 31st. Read his excellent piece on Brexit and the UK’s regained sovereignty in the Daily Telegraph: “Britain has become an adult once again, taking ultimate responsibility for our own choices and actions. [It] has boldly stepped out on its own, taking a risk, certainly. But then which great historic national action has not involved some element of risk?…

By stating that no foreign law shall henceforth have jurisdiction over British law, we have thrown away the jurisprudence comfort blanket and become an adult, taking ultimate responsibility for our own choices and actions again….…

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Secondhand but Valid: “If you can speak in this country…”

31 January 2020 Comments 2 Comments

The English-Speaking Union posed a question which illustrates the problem of secondhand quotes. That is, something Churchill said which is not in his published canon. The quote is: “If you can speak in this country [Britain], you can do anything.” It was a concise celebration of the British right to free speech. The ESU has it on their website. But is it verifiable?

In 1966, the ESU Philadelphia Branch hosted an exhibit of my Churchill biographical stamp collection at the Philadelphia National Bank. It was the first public appearance of whatever limited Churchill knowledge I then had, my “awakening” as a Churchillian.…

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Paul Addison, 1943-2020: What Matters is the Truth

26 January 2020 Comments 1 Comment

29 October 1994 A fond and funny memory of Paul Addison is one which few know about. It came during a Washington symposium on “Churchill as Peacemaker,” later published as an outstanding book. During a break, we walked over to the White House, which Paul wanted to see. We stood at the iron fence, gazing at the seat of power across the lawn. . As we chatted, Paul remarked on how close we were to the building itself. “The security seems pretty light,” he said. “It’s not hard to visualize some stray lunatic standing here and spraying the walls with bullets.”…

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“Darkest Hour” Myth-Making? Don’t Mess with Marcus Peters

17 January 2020 Comments 6 Comments

Cue Left: Marcus Peters, May 1940

Marcus Peters (Adé Dee Haastrup) is a neatly dressed West Indian riding the London Underground on 28 May 1940. Whom should he meet but Prime Minister Winston Churchill (Gary Oldman)! The scene (fiction) forms a dramatic moment in Darkest Hour, Joe Wright’s great film on Churchill in 1940.

Churchill, per the movie, has entered the Underground for the second time in his life. (The first was in the 1920s, when he couldn’t find his way out and had to be rescued.) He goes there as the Germans are rolling up Europe.…

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At the Cairo Conference, 1921. Front, L-R: M. Stevenson, Gen. Walter Congreve (Commander Egyptian Expeditionary Force), Sir Herbert Samuel (Palestine High Commissioner), Winston Churchill (Colonial Secretary), Sir Percy Cox (Iraq High Commissioner). 2nd row, L-R: Gertrude Bell (advisor who favored Arab kings in Iraq and Jordan), Sir Sassoon Eskell (Iraq Finance Minister), Gen. Atkinson, Jafar Pasha al-Askari (Iraq Defense Minister), T.E. Lawrence (Middle East Dept.) Public domain, Beaugosses at the English Wikipedia.

Avaricious Imperialists or Nation Builders? The Middle East, 100 Years On

6 January 2020 Comments 2 Comments

Middle East, Made and Unmade

“A Century Ago, the Modern Middle East Was Born,” announced The New York Times in December. A colleague asks: “Are you not struck by how difficult (impossible?) it is to encapsulate history in an op-ed? Is that really how and when the modern Middle East was born?”

Good questions. The Times’s idea is that after World War I, avaricious imperialists moved in to enslave Turkey’s former slaves. This familiar theme will dominate through the centenary of the Cairo Conference in March 2021. It’s been around at least since 2001, when Osama bin Laden referred to 9/11 as payback for what he then called “eighty years of injustice.”…

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British Election for Dummies: Churchillian Reflections from Afar

1 January 2020 Comments 5 Comments

…In which an ignorant Yank with a slight remembrance of history ponders the implications. (Friends in Hertfordshire write: “What an election. Let’s hope now we can move on and sort this country out and become Great Britain again.🇬🇧“) Electoral map image reproduced under the Creative Commons -Share Alike 4.0 International license. For a detailed map with results by name or constituency, see Bloomberg News. Piers Morgan on ardent anti-Brexit actor Hugh Grant: “Hugh’s sorry now. Corbyn’s celebrity fans weep into their almond milk lattes.” Note: Even Grant approved Johnson’s campaign ad, spun off of Hugh’s charming film “Love Actually.”…

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What Sank the Titanic? Hopefully Not Churchill Again

30 October 2019 Comments 1 Comment

Titanic redux

On 10 April 1912, the world’s largest passenger liner set out on her maiden voyage from Southampton, Cherbourg and Queenstown to New York. Four days later, she struck an iceberg and sank in under three hours, killing 1514 people. Titanic has been a bittersweet, fascinating news item ever since.

On 26 October the Daily Mail reported British Channel 5 TV production, “Ten Mistakes that DOOMED the Titanic.” If you saw this, please let me know if one of the mistakes named is Winston Churchill. (See below.) We are always watchful for the onward march of invincible ignorance.…

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Winston Churchill on Health Care (1): “The Inheritance of All”

21 October 2019 Comments 1 Comment

Q: Churchill on health care

(Updated from 2009). A statement by Churchill on health care has been offered to show that he would support U.S. heath care reforms. My Catholic parish published the aforementioned statement in its weekly bulletin.

“What Would Churchill Do? Here’s an interesting quote. It’s from former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill explaining his view on health care and government in 1948. ‘The discoveries of healing science must be the inheritance of all. That is clear. Disease must be attacked, whether it occurs in the poorest or the richest man or woman simply on the ground that it is the enemy.…

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