Tag: Elizabeth II

Crown
“The Crown”: A Not So Crowning Achievement

“The Crown”: A Not So Crowning Achievement

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The Crown, 2016. Pro­duced for Net­flix by Left Bank Pic­tures, cre­at­ed and writ­ten by Peter Mor­gan. Ten episodes released 4 Novem­ber 2016. A sec­ond sea­son is com­mis­sioned.  =  N.B. Since writ­ing this, more false trails emerged. Con­sult­ing 1952 doc­u­ments at the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project and Churchill Archives Cen­tre, we found no evi­dence for the film’s impli­ca­tion that the Duke of Wind­sor bar­gained with Churchill to per­suade the Roy­al cou­ple to move from Clarence House to the Palace, in exchange for restora­tion of his allowance. Nor is there any­thing to sug­gest Churchill post­poned the Coro­na­tion 18 months for his own polit­i­cal pur­pos­es.  ____________________________________

No soon­er had I admired the fair, most­ly bal­anced and accu­rate PBS docu­d­ra­ma Churchill’s Secret (on the Prime Minister’s June 1953 stroke) than I was grum­bling through Netflix’s The Crown, which is, sad­ly, as often mis­lead­ing as Churchill’s Secret was hon­est.…

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Marshall: “Noblest Roman of Them All”

Marshall: “Noblest Roman of Them All”

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Johns Hop­kins Uni­ver­si­ty Press releas­es this month the sev­enth and final vol­ume of The Papers of George Catlett Mar­shall: “The Man of the Age,” Octo­ber 1, 1949 – Octo­ber 16, 1959. It was mas­ter­ful­ly edit­ed by Mark Stol­er and Daniel Holt under the aus­pices of the Mar­shall Cen­ter. It joins its pre­de­ces­sors pre­sent­ing the papers of one of the great­est gen­er­als and states­men of his age (1880-1959). I quick­ly assigned it for review by the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project, for its many ref­er­ences to Churchill in George Marshall’s final phase. This and the pre­vi­ous vol­ume are indis­pens­able for any­one wish­ing to under­stand the com­pli­cat­ed inter­na­tion­al scene imme­di­ate­ly after World War II.…

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

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

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Mitt Rom­ney (Image: AP)

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

Defend­ing him­self from charges that he is a “flip-flop­per,” Wyler writes, 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.” (Keynes’s actu­al words were: “When the facts change, I change my mind.…

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