In the News Archives - Page 26 of 28

Armenian Delights: Churchill’s Brandy? Perhaps not…

17 June 2012 Comments 11 Comments

Brandy Banter: The Evening Standard described ArArAt Armenian brandy, once reserved for Communist party elite. It was “the brandy that Stalin served Churchill” according to consumer business editor Jonathan Prynn:

The prime minister enjoyed ArArAt brandy when it was served by Stalin at the Yalta conference in February 1945. After the Second World War, the Soviet leader arranged for Churchill to be sent 400 bottles every year.

This seems highly doubtful. If so, for how long, one wonders? By 1946, Churchill was saying things about the Russians that they probably didn’t think merited gifts.…

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Churchill on Taxes

29 May 2012 Comments 0 Comments

Especially nowadays, politicians frequently quote Churchill as saying, “There is no such thing as a good tax.” Fastidioius searches of his published words reveal no such statement; and here at least is proof that he considered at least one tax a good one.

Perhaps the House may remember that only seven or eight years ago I got into some trouble myself about the Kerosene Tax. It was a very good tax. I was quite right about it. My Rt. Hon. Friend [Neville Chamberlain] slipped it through a year or two later without the slightest trouble and it never ruined the homes of the people at all.…

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Churchill as Racist: A Hard Sell

27 February 2012 Comments 2 Comments

Racist still? In “To See Humans’ Progress, Zoom Out” (The New York Times, 26 February 2012), Professor Steven Pinker asserts that for all their faults, educated people today are getting better:

Ideals that today’s educated people take for granted — equal rights, free speech, and the primacy of human life over tradition, tribal loyalty and intuitions about purity — are radical breaks with the sensibilities of the past. These too are gifts of a widening application of reason.

Fair enough, but to contrast what educated people were like in the bad old days, Prof.…

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Winston Churchill was Not a Zionist?

12 January 2012 Comments 0 Comments

The Churchill Society of Israel serves Israelis with an interest in Sir Winston Churchill, according to Russell Rothstein, quoted in the January 9th Daily Telegraph: “Churchill’s long-standing support of Zionism and friendship with the Jewish people make it particularly appropriate that the modern state of Israel have a local organisation devoted to his memory and to preserving his thoughts, words and deeds for future generations.”

Sir Martin Gilbert, Churchill’s official biographer, added: “Churchill was very familiar with the Old Testament. He wrote about the Children of Israel who “understood and adopted ideas which even ancient Greece and Rome, for all their power, failed to comprehend.…

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Oldest Vessel Named for Churchill

4 January 2012 Comments 0 Comments

The 15-meter sloop Winston Churchill is one of several Churchill namesake vessels to have carried an heroic crew. The venerable sailboat, the oldest vessel named for Sir Winston, sank during the challenging Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race in 1998, and three of her crew, James Lawler, Michael Bannister and John Dean, drowned. The heroism of her crew matches that of the USS Winston S. Churchill, the most famous bearer of the name afloat.

The story of their survival, writes Paul Kalina in the Sydney Morning Herald, is part of a new film by Graham McNeice on Australians who defied narrow brushes with death.…

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A Romney Churchill Gaffe: A Small But Not a Large Clang

4 October 2011 Comments 0 Comments

Romney redux

2011— Writing for Business Insider on September 29th, Grace Wyler correctly reported a Churchill misquote by presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Defending himself from charges that he is a “flip-flopper,” Romney confused “the Brit every Republican loves with the Brit every Republican loves to hate.” Here according to NBC is what Governor Romney said:

In the private sector, if you don’t change your view when the facts change, well you’ll get fired for being stubborn and stupid. Winston Churchill said, “When facts change, I change too, madam.”

Wyler accurately notes that this was said by John Maynard Keynes, “the British economist whose theories about government intervention in the economy [are] reviled by conservatives everywhere.”…

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Lady Soames Diaries

5 September 2011 Comments 1 Comment

The diaries of Churchill’s youngest and only living daughter, Mary Soames, are to be published on her 89th birthday, September 15th, by Doubleday UK, and is available for shipment worldwide from Amazon UK. An e-book will also be available. American publication will be in May 2012 by Random House in New York. The Amazon UK price is £16.50 ($26.50) and airmail shipment to the USA costs about £7 ($11).

Much younger than her siblings, Mary had an idyllic youth, growing up at Chartwell, her father’s beloved Kentish home, but always in the background was his preoccupation with the growing threat of Hitler, and in 1939 the war arrived, and with it Mary’s life was dramatically altered.…

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“The Truth is Great, and Shall Prevail”: Bill Rusher 1923-2011

24 June 2011 Comments 0 Comments

I" know we have a tendency to be discouraged about how things are going—although in our time, you know, they haven't gone all that badly. Free market economics, which I wouldn't have given you a plugged nickel for at the end of World War II, is now so popular that even Red China calls its policy "Market Socialism," whatever that is. Still there is much that is worrisome. I'm sure Churchill, if he were here, would encourage us: Never Despair and Never Give In." —Bill Rusher

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Murder (“The West”) Incorporated

8 June 2011 Comments 2 Comments

“Is World War II Still ‘the Good War’?” by Adam Kirsch. The New York Times Sunday Book Review, 27 May 2011. Adam Kirsch, a senior editor at The New Republic, offers a thoughtful piece of deconstruction which dredges up every major Churchill critic of the past five years, all in one handy if verbose article. As a sampling of the Churchill fever swamps, it is unsurpassed.

The question we are asked to consider is whether World War II was really a “good war.” War is hell, which is why western democracies like Britain and France spent six years trying to avoid it.…

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“Nothing to Hide”: The Truth about Churchill’s Naked Encounter

27 May 2011 Comments 5 Comments

Stark naked

Churchill (stepping naked from his bath): “The Prime Minister of Great Britain has nothing to hide from the President of the United States.” **

[Also quoted as: “You see, Mr. President, I have nothing to hide.”]

Churchill allegedly said this during his visit to the White House in December-January 1941. The Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor and America was in the war. The encounter was confirmed by Churchill’s bodyguard, Walter Thompson, and one of his secretaries, Patrick Kinna. On the strength of their comments I included it as “likely” in Churchill By Himself.…

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