Tag: David Lloyd George

Darkest Hour: Queries and Comments with “Total Film” Magazine

Darkest Hour: Queries and Comments with “Total Film” Magazine

Jane Crowther, edi­tor-in-chief of Britain’s Total Film mag­a­zine, had per­ti­nent ques­tions about the new film Dark­est Hour. They were for­ward­ed by Lady Gilbert from the web­site of offi­cial biog­ra­ph­er Sir Mar­tin Gilbert. Alas he is gone, but Sir Martin’s inspi­ra­tion con­tin­ues to guide every­one, as he said, “who labours in the Churchill vineyard.”

Q: Did Win­ston Churchill ever use pub­lic trans­port while PM, par­tic­u­lar­ly the tube?

​Not to my knowl­edge. His daugh­ter Lady Soames told me he only used the Under­ground once, and became so lost that he had to be res­cued.…

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Churchill Bio-Pics: The Trouble with the Movies

Churchill Bio-Pics: The Trouble with the Movies

“The Trou­ble with the Movies” was pub­lished in the Amer­i­can Thinker, 5 August 2017.

David Fran­co, review­ing the film Churchill, star­ring Bri­an Cox, rais­es ques­tions he says every­one should be ask­ing. “Isn’t the abil­i­ty to accept one’s mis­takes part of what makes a man a good leader? …. To what extent should we rely [on] past expe­ri­ences in order to min­i­mize mis­takes in the future? These are the ques­tions that make a bad movie like Churchill worth seeing.”

Well, I won’t be see­ing this bad movie. Described as “per­verse fan­ta­sy” by his­to­ri­an Andrew Roberts, it joins a recent spate of slop­py Churchill bio-pics that favor skewed car­i­ca­tures over his­tor­i­cal fact.…

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Churchill, Troops & Strikers (1)

Churchill, Troops & Strikers (1)

This is a time when we often ques­tion the actions of police forces. In Amer­i­ca, gov­er­nors occa­sion­al­ly call in the Nation­al Guard dur­ing riotous protests. Local res­i­dents are always the main vic­tims of such events. Churchill’s expe­ri­ence with strik­ers is wor­thy of study, his mag­na­nim­i­ty wor­thy of reflection.

Did WSC Send Troops Against Strikers?

For a cen­tu­ry it has been part of social­ist demonolo­gy that Churchill sent troops to attack strik­ers dur­ing a 1910 min­ers’ work stop­page in Tony­pandy, Wales. In 1967 an Oxford under­grad­u­ate wrote that Churchill faced down strik­ers with tanks. This was very pre­scient of him, since tanks didn’t exist in 1910.…

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“Squeeze Germany until the Pips Squeak”

“Squeeze Germany until the Pips Squeak”

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.”…

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