In the News Archives - Page 22 of 28

Britain’s Leave Debate: Who’s Churchill? Who’s Stalin?

22 February 2016 Comments 0 Comments

The campaign to Leave is heating up. Take Grassroots Out, a “combined operation” supporting Brexit—the campaign for Great Britain to exit the European Union. G-O fielded a broad spectrum of speakers in London February 19th. Along with UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage were Conservative Sir William Cash, Labour’s Kate Hoey, economist Ruth Lea, and a London cab driver.

The most unexpected Leave speaker was the far-left former Labour MP and head of the socialist Respect Party. Mr. George Galloway was immediately queried about his new colleagues.

“We are not pals,” Galloway replied.…

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Vox Non-Populi: More Churchill Mythology

20 February 2016 Comments 0 Comments

Winston Churchill was no saint; it is a disservice to pretend he was. But he is too complex to be pigeonholed by writers who criticize selectively. Hillsdale College’s Churchill Project responds to the mythology. Read full article.

Excerpt

Winston Churchill is in the news, as is often the case. On February 11th, Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders had words of praise for Churchill’s war leadership. Vox Media has criticized him and Churchill in sharp language. Are the criticisms of Churchill true?

During the Democrat debate on 11 February 2-16, candidates were asked to name two leaders, one American and one foreign, who would influence their policy decisions.…

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Churchill Nonsense, Parts #1462-64

15 January 2016 Comments 1 Comment

Nonsense #1462: Yachts

The Irish novelist George Moore originated the tale that Sir Winston’s mother Jennie, Lady Randolph Churchill, slept with 200 men. Assuming she did so, say, between ages 20 and 60, she averaged five per year, a ten-week average affair (if she had them one at a time, with a couple days’ break in between). Which is a lot of lovers to maintain, given the state of Victorian and Edwardian locomotion.

However ridiculous, the claim stuck, and is regularly trotted out and embellished on a medium poor Jennie never anticipated: the Internet. It occurs so often because it’s so easy to rattle off, and prurient enough to raise a website’s Google Analytics—never mind whether it is even feasible.…

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Winston Churchill: Myth and Reality

13 January 2016 Comments 0 Comments

Per the previous post, I append for reader comment the contents of my next book, Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality: What Churchill Stood For.

I have written on most of these matters in the past; the book recasts it afresh. I also acknowledge and cross-reference the work of experts who know far more than I, particularly in the fields of genealogy and medicine. I would be glad to hear your thoughts; please use the “contact” page.

The historian David Stafford wrote: “Myth only develops and takes hold when the time is right, and the climate has long been ripe for the emergence of myths about a wartime hero who stood firm against a totalitarian foe and smote an evil empire.”…

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Myths about Churchill: Coming Up

10 January 2016 Comments 0 Comments

Winston Churchill: Urban Myths and Reality: Lies, Fables, Myths, Distortions and Things that Go Bump in the Night.

Not a day passes when Sir Winston Churchill, who proved himself indispensable when freedom needed him, is not accused of something, from alcoholism to war crimes—often without serious attribution, or through selective quotes, arranged and cropped so as to advance the preconceived notion.

On that electronic Speakers’ Corner we know as the Internet, Churchill bubbles in a gurgling, digital soup, where he can say anything, or do anything, from hiding his foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor to firebombing Dresden.…

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Paris, 13 November 2015: A Churchill Moment for M. Hollande

21 November 2015 Comments 0 Comments

“A Churchill Moment for M. Hollande” is excerpted from my article in The American Spectator, 18 November 2015.

Dear M. Hollande…

The news from France is very bad and I grieve for the gallant French people who have fallen into this terrible misfortune. Nothing will alter our feelings towards them or our faith that the genius of France will rise again. —Winston S. Churchill, 4 June 1940

On the 2015 Paris attacks: With every murderous threat to civilization we are asked: “Where are our Churchills?” There isn’t one, and we should not expect one.…

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“Dieu protège la France”

15 November 2015 Comments 0 Comments

Churchill’s words, compiled in solidarity:

“The news from France is very bad and I grieve for the gallant French people who have fallen into this terrible misfortune. Nothing will alter our feelings towards them or our faith that the genius of France will rise again.” —4 June 1940

“The House will feel sorrow at the fate of the great French nation and people to whom we have been joined so long in war and peace, and whom we have regarded as trustees with ourselves for the progress of a liberal culture and tolerant civilization of Europe.”…

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Announcing “Churchill and the Avoidable War”

9 November 2015 Comments 0 Comments

It is proper to consider the lessons of the past as a guide to similar challenges now and in the future. But as Churchill wrote: "Let no one look down on those honourable, well-meaning men whose actions are chronicled in these pages, without searching his own heart, reviewing his own discharge of public duty, and applying the lessons of the past to his future conduct."

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Churchill to Roosevelt, 1944: “I think it would be a great pity if you and [de Gaulle] did not meet. I do not see why I have all the luck.” WSC (wearing his uniform as Honorary Air Commodore) and de Gaulle inspecting French troops at Marrakesh, Morocco, January 1944. (Wikimedia-Public Domain)

EU and Churchill’s Views

3 November 2015 Comments 2 Comments

EU Enough! In debates about the EU (European Union), and Britain’s June 2016 referendum opting to leave, much misinformation was circulated on whether Churchill would be for “Brexit” or “Remain.” The fact is, we don’t know, since no one can ask him.

Prominently quoted in this context is a remark Churchill made to de Gaulle—at least according to de Gaulle—in Unity, his 1942-44 war memoirs: “…each time we must choose between Europe and the open sea, we shall always choose the open sea.”

Nothing to do with the EU

Warren Kimball’s Churchill and Roosevelt: The Complete Correspondence (III, 169), nicely clears up this quotation.…

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Grace Hamblin, Total Churchillian

31 October 2015 Comments 0 Comments

Remembering Grace: 1908-2002

Beloved by all Churchills, Grace Hamblin died at her home in Westerham, Kent, aged 94. Aware she was ailing, I had just sent her some little thing in the post; Carole Kenwright at Chartwell said it arrived in time, and she was able to read from it for a few minutes.

Grace Hamblin was the longest serving and most loyally devoted of Churchill’s inner circle, arriving at Chartwell in 1932 as an assistant to then-principal private secretary Violet Pearman. She spent virtually her entire career as private secretary, first to Winston and from 1939 to Clementine. In 1966 she became the first Administrator of Chartwell, serving through 1973. In…

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