Category: In the News

drunk
“He seems to tolerate this cocktail night.” (Lustige Blätter, Berlin, 23 April 1942; the bottles are marked “Blood” and “Tears”). The Nazis were fond of the bar room image—and no more accurate than modern-day writers. The attitude of the British lion, however, nicely represents British attitudes about the endless Brexit debate.
Memo to Peggy Noonan and the WSJ: Churchill was NOT a drunk

Memo to Peggy Noonan and the WSJ: Churchill was NOT a drunk

Comments 0 Comments

On 15 June in the Wall Street Jour­nal opin­ion colum­nist Peg­gy Noo­nan wrote a per­cep­tive piece about the prospects and chal­lenges for Boris John­son as Britain’s new Prime Min­is­ter: “Eng­land Needs a Slap, and So Does Chi­na” (sor­ry, that link car­ries a paywall).

It was a good col­umn, say­ing essen­tial­ly what Britons of all stripes were say­ing to me on a recent visit.

“Talk to me about any­thing, except Brex­it.” “Right, we vot­ed, so let’s get on with it.” “We’re tired of plat­i­tudes and use­less debates.”  “Keep did­dling and we end up with Cor­byn.” “Just do it.”…

Read More Read More

contentions
Astronaut Scott Kelly who, when attacked by furious trolls on Twitter, folded like a five dollar suitcase. Really?!
Current Churchill Contentions: “The Invasion of the Idiots”

Current Churchill Contentions: “The Invasion of the Idiots”

Comments 5 Comments

“Cur­rent Con­tentions” was deliv­ered at Hills­dale College’s Cen­ter for Con­struc­tive Alter­na­tives sem­i­nar on “Churchill and the Movies,” 27 March 2019. For the video, please click here.

Edit­ed tran­script: The orig­i­nal speech includ­ed cer­tain sub­jects cov­ered ear­li­er and else­where. These are sum­ma­rized below, and pro­vid­ed with links to the orig­i­nal texts. The video, which is unabridged, includes ques­tions and answers with the audience.

Churchill’s World of 1932

Eighty-sev­en years ago, Churchill was here in Michi­gan, in Detroit, Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor, on a U.S. lec­ture tour. East, west, north, and south he rode the rails, “liv­ing all day on my back in a rail­way com­part­ment and address­ing in the evening large audi­ences.”…

Read More Read More

white
“In durance vile”: Churchill (right), captured in South Africa, 1899, argued for native equality with his jailers: “British government is associated in the Boer farmer’s mind with violent social revolution. Black is to be proclaimed the same as white,” he wrote. “…nor is a tigress robbed of her cubs more furious than is the Boer at this prospect.”
Revealed Wisdom on the Campus: Churchill was a White Supremacist

Revealed Wisdom on the Campus: Churchill was a White Supremacist

Comments 4 Comments

why­Be­gin­ning ten years ago with a flawed account of the 1943 Ben­gal Famine, and fanned by a small cadre of influ­en­tial writ­ers, Churchill has been slan­dered with the label of white suprema­cist. A col­league to whom I often turn for wis­dom has a thought­ful judg­ment on this and oth­er dubi­ous accu­sa­tions. “In a con­tro­ver­sial time, an under­stand­ing of Churchill is very dif­fi­cult to achieve. That is because the life of Churchill is an impor­tant thing. And every impor­tant thing is high­ly con­tro­ver­sial today.”

Excerpt­ed from an arti­cle for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the com­plete text, click here.…

Read More Read More

butterflies
Gardener Stephen Humphrey at the butterfly house at Chartwell. Mr. Humphrey took charge of the reinvigorated butterflies in 2009 and reported they were soon flourishing. (BBC)
Churchill’s Butterflies Continue to Flourish at Chartwell

Churchill’s Butterflies Continue to Flourish at Chartwell

Comments 1 Comment

But­ter­flies are back in force at Sir Win­ston Churchill’s Chartwell. In 2009, the Nation­al Trust rebuilt the but­ter­fly hut and gar­den­er Stephen Humphrey took charge of rais­ing but­ter­flies. Nigel Guest, a Chartwell vol­un­teer, imme­di­ate­ly report­ed “a ter­rif­ic year for but­ter­flies.” For his report and col­or pho­tos of Churchill’s favorite species see BBC Radio Kent, “Churchill’s But­ter­fly House at Chartwell.”

David Rid­dle, a Nation­al Trust vol­un­teer at Chartwell, gave me the back­ground of the “But­ter­fly House” Churchill estab­lished to prop­a­gate the insects on the grounds of his home:

The But­ter­fly House was first used as a game larder between 1869 and 1889 by the Colquhoun fam­i­ly, who owned Chartwell between 1830 and 1922, when Churchill bought the estate.…

Read More Read More

Trade
Fishing for a shilling: Churchill, President of the Board of Trade, the ardent free trader in 1908, when different countries produced vastly different stuff—like the taxi, which I think is a Renault.
Churchill and Free Trade: That was Then, This is Now

Churchill and Free Trade: That was Then, This is Now

Comments 1 Comment
On Free Trade and tariffs

The Hud­son Insti­tute  econ­o­mist Irwin Stelz­er penned an inter­est­ing arti­cle on trade: “Trump girds for War with EU.” I sent it around to col­leagues, prais­ing it for prop­er­ly attribut­ing an alleged Churchill quote:

No one doubts that Trump is gear­ing up to launch a tar­iff bat­tle with the Euro­pean Union. For one thing, he is set to sign a deal end­ing the trade bat­tle with Chi­na, and would not be fight­ing a two-front war should he take on Europe which, he tweet­ed last week, “has tak­en advan­tage of the U.S.…

Read More Read More

Brexit
Churchill at The Hague, 7 May 1948 (in a Packard, I am proud to say): “A high and solemn responsibility rests upon us here of a Europe striving to be reborn. If we allow ourselves to be rent and disordered by pettiness and small disputes, if we fail in clarity of view or courage in action, a priceless occasion may be cast away forever.”
Brexit: Leadership Failures Over Four Generations

Brexit: Leadership Failures Over Four Generations

Comments 0 Comments
Quotation of the Season

So they go on in strange para­dox, decid­ed only to be unde­cid­ed, resolved to be irres­olute, adamant for drift, sol­id for flu­id­i­ty, all-pow­er­ful to be impo­tent. So we go on prepar­ing more months and years—precious, per­haps vital, to the great­ness of Britain—for the locusts to eat. —Churchill, House of Com­mons, 12 Novem­ber 1936

Brexit Bedlam

For me the most adroit analy­sis of Britain’s Brex­it Bed­lam we can read to date was by Andrew Roberts in the Sun­day Tele­graph. You can reg­is­ter for free to read the article.

Will this be the year May ends before April?…

Read More Read More

movies
Olivier as Henry V, 1944.
“Churchill and the Movies”: Hillsdale Lecture Series, March 24-28th

“Churchill and the Movies”: Hillsdale Lecture Series, March 24-28th

Comments 0 Comments
The Movies

In 1927, Win­ston Churchill wrote to his wife Clemen­tine, “I am becom­ing a film fan.” He had pro­jec­tion equip­ment installed at Che­quers, the coun­try home of British prime min­is­ters, in 1943, and at his fam­i­ly home Chartwell in 1946. “Churchill and the Movies” is the fourth and final event of the Cen­ter for Con­struc­tive Alter­na­tives in the 2018-19 aca­d­e­m­ic year. We will view and dis­cuss two films wide­ly regard­ed as Churchill’s favorites, and two Churchill bio­graph­ic movies in their his­tor­i­cal context.

Hillsdale’s Cen­ter for Con­struc­tive Alter­na­tives (CCA) is the spon­sor of one of the largest col­lege lec­ture series in Amer­i­ca.…

Read More Read More

Cohen
A corner of Ron’s massive collection: a treasure trove for Churchill scholars of the future.
Hillsdale Acquires Cohen Collection of Churchill’s Writings

Hillsdale Acquires Cohen Collection of Churchill’s Writings

Comments 4 Comments
The Cohen Trove

Hills­dale Col­lege has announced acqui­si­tion of an impor­tant part of the Ronald Cohen col­lec­tion of the writ­ings of Sir Win­ston Churchill. It num­bers almost 2000 indi­vid­ual items. They com­prise six cat­e­gories: fore­words, pref­aces, and intro­duc­tions by Churchill; peri­od­i­cal arti­cles; works and peri­od­i­cals con­tain­ing Churchill speech­es; let­ters, mem­o­ran­da, state­ments and let­ters to the edi­tor. Some 15% of these writ­ings have not seen print since their orig­i­nal, lim­it­ed edi­tions, and there­fore com­prise a “sub­merged canon,” because they open a fresh field of Churchill scholarship.

Hills­dale Col­lege also has a tem­po­rary, exclu­sive pur­chase option for the bal­ance of the col­lec­tion, books writ­ten by Win­ston Churchill.…

Read More Read More

Recordings
Ron Cohen in his massive Churchill library, from which the recordings are drawn.
Hillsdale College Acquires Cohen Churchill Recordings Collection

Hillsdale College Acquires Cohen Churchill Recordings Collection

Comments 0 Comments

Hills­dale Col­lege has acquired the world’s most com­pre­hen­sive col­lec­tion of Churchill record­ings. Many are very rare because they reach back over a century.

The col­lec­tion was gen­er­ous­ly donat­ed by col­lec­tor and bib­li­og­ra­ph­er Ronald I. Cohen of Ottawa, Ontario. Among the 300 record­ings are 100 speech­es and 24 read­ings from Churchill’s war memoirs.

Hills­dale Col­lege has a long-stand­ing com­mit­ment to lead­er­ship stud­ies through The Churchill Project. We encour­age schol­ar­ship in, and com­ple­tion of, the remain­ing vol­umes of The Churchill Doc­u­ments, a series in Churchill’s offi­cial biog­ra­phy. The final vol­ume 23 arrives in 2019, and so com­pletes a 31-vol­ume epic Ran­dolph Churchill began in 1962.…

Read More Read More

Tonypandy
Troops fire at Llanelli rioters who had stopped a train and attacked the engine driver. Painting by Stephen Meyler, from John Edwards’ book, “Remembrance of a Riot,” 1988.
Churchill, Tonypandy and “Poundland Lenin”

Churchill, Tonypandy and “Poundland Lenin”

Comments 4 Comments

Tony­pandy, Wales is in the news again with fuzzy pur­vey­ors of his­to­ry. On 13 Feb­ru­ary the Guardian head­lined, “Win­ston Churchill was a vil­lain, says John McDon­nell.” (Mr. Don­nell is Labour’s shad­ow Chan­cel­lor of the Exche­quer in the House of Commons.)

“Villain — Tonypandy”

Mr. McDonnell’s swipe at Churchill was brief. Asked if he saw Churchill as a hero or vil­lain, he replied: “Villain—Tonypandy.” The Guardian com­plet­ed the dri­ve-by assas­si­na­tion, not only by head­lin­ing the remark, but with an inac­cu­rate rehash of the Tony­pandy riots in 1910.

Sir Winston’s grand­son, Sir Nicholas Soames, focused on McDon­nell, call­ing him a “Pound­land Lenin.”…

Read More Read More

RML Books

Richard Langworth’s Most Popular Books & eBooks


Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

Churchill by Himself

Churchill in His Own Words

Churchill and the Avoidable War

The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill

The Patriot’s Churchill

Triumph Cars - The Complete Story
Links on this page may earn commissions.