Churchill on the Home Front Archives

Winston Churchill, Eugenics and the “Feeble-Minded” (1)

10 July 2021 Comments 0 Comments

I published in 2010 an account of Churchill’s youthful (circa 1910-12) fling with Eugenics, a pseudo-science popular at the turn of the century. Eugenics favored sterilizing or confining the “feeble-minded” to “maintain the race.”

This drew an irate letter from a reader who said he will never think the same of Churchill, knowing that he could have supported such horrendous ideas:

No truly educated intelligent person, even in those early years, can have bought into Eugenics. Churchill’s was not just a fling of youth or immaturity but the decided opinion of a nearly middle-aged man. His support of Eugenics could only lead to the extremities practiced to by the Nazis.…

“Houses, red meat, and not being scuppered…”

24 January 2012 Comments 0 Comments

I have read that Churchill told his private secretary, Jock Colville, in November 1951 that his new government’s priorities were ‘houses, red meat and not getting scuppered.’ But I can’t find this in Colville’s Fringes of Power. Any thoughts?

Wonderful quote, quite appropriate in an election season, wish it were in my book. The date was March 1952 not November 1951.

It is quoted as you state it by Paul Addison in his outstanding book Churchill on the Home Front (London: Cape, 1992) 412, footnoted to Fringes of Power “diary for 22-23 March 1952.” But Prof.…