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Chit Chat
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25 May 15
21:02
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A look at Winston Churchill's battle to be elected Prime Minister just weeks after VE Day. The war leader was confident of victory, but ended up being humiliated at the polls with the Conservative party almost annihilated. Surprising revelations from first-hand witnesses, including Sir Max Hastings, Juliet Gardiner, Anthony Beevor and Dave Douglas, help to uncover whether Churchill's rejection was a mark of ingratitude, or the most mature decision ever made by a democracy
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Atlee's military record :
During the First World War, Attlee was commissioned[9] and served with the South Lancashire Regiment in the Gallipoli Campaign in Turkey. His decision to fight caused a rift between him and his older brother Tom, who, as a conscientious objector, spent much of the war in prison.[3] After a period fighting in Gallipoli, he became ill with dysentery and was sent to a hospital in Malta to recover. His hospitalisation coincided with the Battle of Sari Bair, which saw a large number of his comrades killed. Upon returning to action, he was informed that his regiment had been chosen to hold the final lines during the evacuation of Suvla. As such, he was the penultimate man to be evacuated from Suvla Bay, the last being General Frederick Stanley Maude.[3] The Gallipoli Campaign had been proposed by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. Attlee believed that it was a bold strategy, which could have been successful if it had been better implemented on the ground. This gave him an admiration for Churchill as a military strategist, which would make their working relationship in later years productive.[3] He later served in the Mesopotamian Campaign where he was badly wounded at the Battle of Hanna, being hit in the leg by shrapnel while storming an enemy trench. He was sent back to Britain to recover, and spent most of 1917 training soldiers. That year, he was promoted to the rank of Major,[10] leading him to be known as "Major Attlee" for the inter-war period. After recovering from his injuries, he was sent to France in June 1918 to serve on the Western Front for the final months of the war.[3] After the war he returned to lecturing at the London School of Economics, where he would remain until 1923. |
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Well that documentary needed to be aired. I agree with Max Hastings - we need to stop mythicizing Churchill and his legacy.
In my opinion Attlee was the UK's best prime minister. What his administration did in terms of Health, Housing, Welfare and Workers' rights reform has benefitted the UK the most as far as political change goes. |
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I disagree
Churchill kept us fighting in WWII. In 1940, Lord Halifax his rival in the Tory party, would have signed a non aggression pact with Hitler only Churchill stopped that. He was an inspirational leader throughout WWII, he kept us fighting. No he was the not greatest strategist But was Hitler? was Stalin? was Roosevelt no..like Churchill they were the political leaders that kept their countries fighting. Strategists come from the military command, Anyway one thing he had right, the decision to fight in N.Africa, because ultimately it denied oil to Hitler. |
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Before WWII Churchill pressed for rearmament not many did. Luckily we updated our Air Force just in time or we would
have lost the Battle of Britain, Hitler would have invaded this country. The problem we had in WWII was that we had made no investment in our Army since 1919. Because like France we had determined both physically and psychologically never to fight another land war in Europe, so France surrendered and our Army was woeful, it took many years to get it up to scratch. After the war people wanted a new socialist society, this was no reflection o Churchill. It was what the people of this people wanted....whether we succeeded or not is debateable. |
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Attlee squandered the peace. While Germany and Japan used Marshall plan money to rebuild their shattered economies which turned them into economic powerhouses with new plant and machinery we soldiered on with the old craap we already had and fell behind economically whilst at the same time ushering in what became an era of,"I'll have it because I'm worth it" filled with spongers, spivs and layabouts.
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exactly, with most of the world locked up in communism and third world conditions somehow atlee managed to not only miss the great economic advantage but sent britain backwards into decades of grim depression while a few dynamic states roared ahead.
churchill was one who foresaw the big picture and more importantly was brave enough to speak up, regardless of fashion he criticised national socialism, islam, communism etc |
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When did he criticise Islam ,you make that bit up ?
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the most well known quote is probably from "The River War" 1899
"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step, and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it (Islam) has vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.” |
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Good programme I thought, although despite the presence of Max, a little heavy handed on the Churchill criticism side. I learnt a lot though and more than I expected.
Some "authoritative" posters on here clearly did not watch, or if they did, they learnt little. The "Islam" post made me giggle. Still t'was ever thus. |
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Yep. I think you can call that criticism. Accurate, too.
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naydam - I wouldn't know enough to say what is "accurate", but then probably neither do you. It was definitely a "myth" worth exploring and going some way to exploding though.
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Sorry. I meant 'accurate' as pretty much agreeing with my personal, simplistic view. That is not to say that my thoughts, and his, are anywhere near correct.
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Sorry. I meant 'accurate' as pretty much agreeing with my personal, simplistic view. That is not to say that my thoughts, and his, are anywhere near correct.
correct |
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Everyone agreed he was deeply flawed man of 19th century and public was right to kick him out after the war, was surprised everyone was so unanimous
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Everything made sense, apart from the bit they did not mention which was that Churchill became Prime Minister again at the next election, when he still had all these same character flaws.
So really, the documentary asked the wrong question: why did Churchill lose? It should have asked: why did Labour win? It had more to do with the programme Labour offered: rebuilding, jobs, nhs etc than the undoubted fact that Churchill liked a drink or several. |
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Some of the program was interesting but in general it was pretty poor by BBC standards for trying to be a bit controversial to have something to say, and having many ommissions.
And they did't answer this as pointed out above: "the bit they did not mention which was that Churchill became Prime Minister again at the next election." So they have an entire program full of lefties having a pop at Churchill saying he was unelectable, people hated him, rubbish about him hating the working classes, and him being a dinosaur from a previous age, yet he won the next election at the very next opportunity and Labour got the boot. Bit of an elephant in the room for the main premise of the program that is it not? Also the people they had on it, they gave names but not backgrounds. A guy Charmley got lots of airtime who seems to have made a career out of taking contrarian wierd views on churchill. The guy douglass who they gave lots of airtime for his "objective" negative views of him: That's a guy who was in "class war" and "the Revolutionary Workers' Party (Trotskyist) and the Socialist Union" (a "leading member"). And you say, he didn't like a leader of the conservative party who hated communism, and the sort of hard leftie who views people who are against communism as fascist sympathisers (like others I could mention)? There's a ****ing surprise. And churchill had a speech impediment(s), a lisp and some believe a stutter, I note they didn't mention that when trying to say he spoke like he was pissed (he sounded normal to me on the excert). |
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Very true but the people found that having given Labour a mandate they had the first of their several Labour currency crises in the late 40's because socialists are unsuited to running a capitalist economy. Labour subsequently squandered the mandate given to them by the people. They lost power rather than their being any great enthusiasm beyond nostalgia for Churchill. Which doesn't take away a simple point. Better to be a lion for a day and Churchill was the lion in our greatest day of need.
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He was one of the 10 greatest people in the history of the world.
(may make a suitable chit chat topic...list your 10 greatest people in history  ) |
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yep please remember people voted him back in
imo the best prime minister we've ever had |
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On again bbc2
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