“Even today, with fifty million words published about him, CHURCHILL IS MISJUDGED as a warmonger ardent for battle. In reality he hated and feared war,
and struggled to avoid both World Wars in the 20th century.” —RML
N.B. A shorter version of this piece on Nigel Farage appeared in The Weekly Standard online
A few years ago Britain’s Nigel Farage was a political curiosity, head of a fringe party, gadfly member of the European Parliament, an ex-commodities broker who never went to college, dismissed as a nutter by ruling elites in London and Brussels. On 23 June 2016, he was widely credited with a key role in the referendum favoring Brexit— Britain’s exit from the European Community.
“Our Nige,” his supporters call him—personable, chatty, good-looking, beer swilling, cigarette and cigar smoking—wants Britain, not the European Union, to govern British affairs.…
Colorful politicians willing to say what they really think are rare prizes. But publishing a book on Churchill doesn't convey the right to judge what he would do today. The answer Lady Soames always gave when people said such things was: "How do you know?"
Writing in the Arizona Republic, Clay Thompson properly corrects a reader. It was not Churchill who coined the phrase, “we shall squeeze Germany until the pips squeak.” Mr. Thompson correctly replied that the author was likely Sir Eric Campbell-Geddes, First Lord of the Admiralty in 1917-19. No sooner had Geddes uttered it than the line was ascribed to Prime Minister David Lloyd George. It worked well in the 1918 British general election, which Lloyd George handily won.
Lloyd George was personally not revenge-minded. But as a politician he was all too ready to adopt the popular cry “Hang the Kaiser.”…
On 23 June 2014 Washington Nationals star third baseman Ryan Zimmerman went out with a hamstring injury that may sideline him for the rest of the season. The effect on the team's play was astonishing. Postscript: he was soon back, and stayed on the roster until he retired in 2021. He was not Goose Goslin, however.
Before we pigeonhole Churchill as an unrepentant imperialist, consider what he and Gandhi had in common. Gandhi and Churchill viewed a break-up of the subcontinent with regret and sadness. Both feared religious extremism, Hindu or Muslim. Each believed in the peaceful settlement of boundary disputes. Both strove for liberty. Such precepts more widely held would be welcome today. In Parliament Square, Churchill will be fine with Gandhi.
Who was Moe Berg? Merely a major baseball league catcher who spoke fifteen languages and spied for his country in World War II. He has no brass plaque at the Baseball Hall of Fame, but they display his Medal of Merit.
Was Winston Churchill's father a Lord? If so, how did he serve in the House of Commons? And did this continue even after he found he had to get out of town, so to speak, when he "incurred the displeasure of a great personage" A movie could be made. Ah, the Victorians.
I didn’t expect to find myself agreeing with Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt. But take a look at his Great War article “Bashing History,” and see what you think.
We’re going to be reading a lot of silly nonsense about the Great War in the next year or two, and Hunt’s preemptive strike is a salutary warning.
His piece recalls a poetic answer to Eric Bogle’s famous poem “Willie McBride,” written by Stephen Suffet in 1997:
Time is running out and I haven’t told you the half of it: of cruising the Packard Proving Grounds at 140 in Bill’s E-type (ka-pow! went one of his Atlas Bucrons; we stopped to find a fist-sized hole in the tread), or in his retrofitted stick-overdrive Packard Caribbean; touring the bars and dives of the Florida panhandle, in search of some old automotive duffer; entertaining Austin Clark at the Dearborn Inn; Bill driving Brooks Stevens’ Excaliburs at Indy; meandering Hershey looking for Nash dealer signs….
