Tag: Stanley Baldwin

Baldwin
Churchill and his wife (right) dedicating the Baldwin Memorial marker at Astley, Worcestershire, 20 May 1950. At left is Baldwin’s son Oliver and an unidentified woman, who might be one of Baldwin’s daughters. (Astley and Dunley Parish Council)
Churchill’s Magnanimity: Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947)

Churchill’s Magnanimity: Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947)

Churchill’s cen­so­ri­ous remark about Prime Min­is­ter Stan­ley Bald­win was not, I was pleased to learn, his last words. Once again his char­ac­ter­is­tic mag­na­nim­i­ty pre­vailed. My thanks to my col­league Dave Tur­rell for this information.

June, 1947

Sir Mar­tin Gilbert pub­lished the arrest­ing asser­tion by Churchill in 1947 (In Search of Churchill, 1995, 106). In June, WSC was invit­ed to send a let­ter (I would think for a festschrift) on Baldwin’s 80th birth­day, August 3rd. Writ­ing to an inter­me­di­ary, Churchill refused. “I wish Stan­ley Bald­win no ill, but it would have been much bet­ter if he had nev­er lived.”…

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consistency
Churchill and Chamberlain on 14 March 1935. (Wikimedia Commons)
Churchill’s Consistency: Politics Before Country (Part 2)

Churchill’s Consistency: Politics Before Country (Part 2)

Consistency in Politics…

…was a theme of Churchill’s, and he often wrote about it. He made many mis­takes, but through­out his career he was sel­dom guilty of lack­ing con­sis­ten­cy. Con­tin­ued from Part 1…

“Much better if he had never lived”

Churchill main­tained friend­ly rela­tions with Bald­win until Bald­win died in 1947. Nevertheless—which was rare for him—he nev­er for­gave and nev­er for­got. In June 1947 he made an aston­ish­ing state­ment: “I wish Stan­ley Bald­win no ill, but it would have been much bet­ter if he had nev­er lived.” Offi­cial biog­ra­ph­er Mar­tin Gilbert wrote that this was not Churchill’s usu­al con­sis­ten­cy, but exact­ly the opposite:

In my long search for Churchill few let­ters have struck a clear­er note than this one.…

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consistency
Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, Chancellor of the Exchequer Winston Churchill, in happier times, late 1920s. (Wikimedia Commons)
Churchill’s Consistency: “Politics Before Country” (Part 1)

Churchill’s Consistency: “Politics Before Country” (Part 1)

“Churchill’s Con­sis­ten­cy,” first pub­lished in 2011, is updat­ed with mate­r­i­al from my book, Churchill and the Avoid­able War. It exon­er­ates, par­tial­ly, the state­ments and actions of Mr. Bald­win in the debate of rear­ma­ment in the 1930s.

“Politics before country”

A U.S. Con­gress­man, observ­ing America’s spend­ing prob­lem, pro­posed an elab­o­rate plan to fix it. In the process he didn’t wilt under the assault direct­ed toward any­one who defies the sta­tus quo by propos­ing prac­ti­cal change. Intend­ing to defend his ideas in a speech, his pri­vate office asked me to ver­i­fy what Churchill said on con­sis­ten­cy among politi­cians.…

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Munich
Munich, 1938: Mussolini and Ciano (last two at right) with Chamberlain, Daladier (who always looked like he was about to have a root canal) and HItler. (Wikimedia Commons)
Munich Reflections: Peace for “a” Time & the Case for Resistance

Munich Reflections: Peace for “a” Time & the Case for Resistance

Jour­nal­ist Leo McKinstry’s Churchill and Attlee is a deft analy­sis of a polit­i­cal odd cou­ple who led Britain’s Sec­ond World War coali­tion gov­ern­ment. Now, eighty years since the death of Neville Cham­ber­lain, he has pub­lished an excel­lent appraisal in The Spec­ta­tor. Churchill’s pre­de­ces­sor as Prime Min­is­ter, Cham­ber­lain nego­ti­at­ed the 1938 Munich agree­ment. “Peace for our time,” he famous­ly referred to it.  In the end, he bought the world peace for a time.

Mr. McK­instry is right to regret that Cham­ber­lain has been rough­ly han­dled by his­to­ry. “The real­i­ty is that in the late 1930s Chamberlain’s approach was a ratio­nal one,” he writes.…

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nicknames
“Make Britain Great Again”? Attacking the opposition on behalf of the Tory candidate Anthony Fell (seated), Hammersmith, London, 23 February 1949. Labour won the safe seat, but by under five points, ominous in a usually reliable constituency. Sir Anthony eventually sat for Yarmouth, 1958-83. (Crown copyright expired, public domain)
Churchill’s Potent Political Nicknames: Adm. Row-Back to Wuthering Height

Churchill’s Potent Political Nicknames: Adm. Row-Back to Wuthering Height

Spo­rad­i­cal­ly, pun­dits com­pare Don­ald Trump with Win­ston Churchill. There’s even a book com­ing out on the sub­ject. I dep­re­cate all this by instinct and will avoid that book like the Coro­n­avirus. Sur­face sim­i­lar­i­ties may exist: both said or say main­ly what they thought or think, unfil­tered by polls (and some­times good advice). But Churchill’s lan­guage and thought were on a high­er plane. Still, when a friend said that Churchill nev­er stooped to deri­sive nick­names like Trump, I had to disagree.

Whether invent­ed by the Pres­i­dent or his scriptwrit­ers, some of Trump’s nick­names were very effec­tive.…

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derangement
A jail cell for that warmongering “Naval Person” was Dr. Goebbels’ prescription for the First Lord of the Admiralty in 1940. It’s odd to reflect that eighty years later, Churchill’s despisers would like to do that with his reputation. (Lǔstige Blätter [Funny Papers], Berlin, January 1940.)
Churchill Derangement Syndrome: A is for Aryans, R is for Racism

Churchill Derangement Syndrome: A is for Aryans, R is for Racism

“Quality local journalism”

In our elec­tron­ic Speaker’s Cor­ner (the Inter­net), Win­ston Churchill is beset by haters. Their knee-jerk spouts are laced with out-of-con­text quotes and pre­con­ceived notions. Call it Churchill Derange­ment Syn­drome. Where is the truth? Per­haps we need a Derange­ment Index. Click on “A” for Aryan Suprema­cy, “B” for the Ben­gal Famine, etc. A handy ref­er­ence to every derange­ment you can access with a cou­ple of clicks.

An e-zine called This is Local Lon­don, describ­ing its offer­ings as “qual­i­ty local jour­nal­ism,” is a stan­dard exam­ple. Well, maybe not so stan­dard. “The Prob­lem with Glo­ry­ing Win­ston Churchill” was writ­ten not by a his­to­ri­an or researcher, but a stu­dent at Walling­ton Coun­ty Gram­mar School.…

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Election
Blue: Conservatives. Red: Labour. Yellow: SNP. Orange: Liberal Democrats. Pink: Democratic Unionist Party. Dark green: Sinn Féin. Medium green: Plaid Cymru. Light Green: Green Party. Yellow-orange: Alliance Party of Northern Ireland. White: Speaker of the House of Commons. (Wikimedia / Creative Commons)
British Election for Dummies: Churchillian Reflections from Afar

British Election for Dummies: Churchillian Reflections from Afar

…In which an igno­rant Yank with a slight remem­brance of his­to­ry pon­ders the impli­ca­tions. (Friends in Hert­ford­shire write: “What an elec­tion. Let’s hope now we can move on and sort this coun­try out and become Great Britain again.🇬🇧“) Elec­toral map image repro­duced under the Cre­ative Com­mons-Share Alike 4.0 Inter­na­tion­al license. For a detailed map with results by name or con­stituen­cy, see Bloomberg News. Piers Mor­gan on ardent anti-Brex­it actor Hugh Grant: “Hugh’s sor­ry now. Corbyn’s celebri­ty fans weep into their almond milk lattes.” Note: Even Grant approved Johnson’s cam­paign ad, spun off of Hugh’s charm­ing film “Love Actu­al­ly.”…

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Brendon
WSC greets “Rommel,” General Montgomery’s cocker spaniel, at Monty’s HQ, Chateau Cruelly, France, 7 August 1944. Churchill is in his uniform as an Honorary Air Commodore, 615 (County of Surrey) Squadron. (Wikimedia Commons)
The Brendon Bestiary: Churchill’s Animal Friends and Analogies

The Brendon Bestiary: Churchill’s Animal Friends and Analogies

Piers Bren­don, Churchill’s Bes­tiary: His Life Through Ani­mals. Lon­don, Michael O’Mara Books, 2018, 320 pages, Ama­zon $18.96. Excerpt­ed from a review for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For the full text, click here.

“An enor­mous­ly agree­able side of his char­ac­ter was his atti­tude toward ani­mals,” Sir Antho­ny Mon­tague Browne, his last pri­vate sec­re­tary, said of Win­ston Churchill. “Although a Victorian—and they were not notably aware of ani­mal suffering—he had a sen­si­tiv­i­ty well in advance of his time.” Ever since Sir Antho­ny said that we’ve been wait­ing for a good book on the sub­ject, and his­to­ri­an Piers Bren­don has oblig­ed.…

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jargon
Churchill at Chartwell, early 1950s.
Churchill on Jargon: The Language as We Mangle It

Churchill on Jargon: The Language as We Mangle It

Jargon and Monkey Motion

A friend sends a let­ter from a plan­ning firm, “reach­ing out” to his home­own­ers asso­ci­a­tion. The plan­ners seek a con­sul­tant con­tract. They promise “awe­some” results. Their pro­pos­als are so full of jar­gon that my friend won­dered what Churchill would make of it. The let­ter con­tains many sen­tences Churchill would have deplored:

“The com­mit­tee tasked us with the plan­ning and com­ple­tion of an inclu­sive and pro­duc­tive process.”

“Gen­er­al under­stand­ing offers guid­ance for the imple­men­ta­tion committee.”

And: “An out­ward and hon­est mar­ket­ing posi­tion achieves awe­some goals…”

“Tasked,” of course, is a new verb, con­vert­ed from the noun “task” by mod­ern Newspeak.…

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Roberts
Admiring but not uncritical, Roberts’ book is a masterpiece. To paraphrase Simon Schama, it is a Churchilliad, and Andrew Roberts is its Bard. (Cartoon by David Low on WSC’s 80th birthday.)
“No Cutlet Uncooked”: Andrew Roberts’s Superb Churchill Biography

“No Cutlet Uncooked”: Andrew Roberts’s Superb Churchill Biography

Andrew Roberts, Churchill: Walk­ing with Des­tiny. New York, Viking, 2018, 1152 pages, $40, Ama­zon $25.47, Kin­dle $17.99. Also pub­lished by the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. For Hills­dale reviews of Churchill works since 2014, click here. For a list of and notes on books about Churchill from 1905 cur­rent­ly through 1995, vis­it Hillsdale’s anno­tat­ed bibliography.

“No Cutlet Uncooked”

He lies at Bladon in Eng­lish earth, “which in his finest hour he held invi­o­late.” He would enjoy the con­tro­ver­sy he still stirs today, in media he nev­er dreamed of. And he would rev­el in the assaults of his detrac­tors, the ripostes of his defend­ers.…

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Winston Churchill, Myth and Reality

Churchill by Himself

Churchill in His Own Words

Churchill and the Avoidable War

The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill

The Patriot’s Churchill

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