UKC

Love him or loathe him it's 50 years since our illustrious wartime leader died. 'Regrets, he had a few, but then again.....'

In reply to Gone for good:

High time he was given the Hollywood biopic he deserves.

And what a story it is.

He did the lot.

If not The Greatest Briton ,he was certainly the most colourful.

His greatest achievement; being in the right place at the right time in 1940, and standing tall before the abyss.

In reply to andymac:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill:_The_Hollywood_Years

In reply to andymac:



He most certainly did stand tall before the abyss but got no thanks for it in 45. The only prime minister to win the Nobel prize for literature. Our current crop of politicians are pale shadows of conviction by comparison.

In reply to Gone for good:
I like reading his quotes.

One of the more famous ones relates to an encounter between him and a fellow MP (Bessie Braddock) at some function;

Bessie:- "Winston! You are drunk ,and what's more you are disgustingly drunk!"

Winston:- "Bessie my dear ! You are ugly ,and what's more you are disgustingly ugly!
But in the morning I shall be sober ,and you will still be disgustingly ugly!"

In reply to Gone for good:

Starting a career as a cavalry officer and finishing in charge of a country with nuclear weapons is quite something in itself.

In reply to MG:
And a direct descendant of the Duke of Marlborough no less. He of battle of Blenheim fame that ultimately saw the setting of the sun on the king of France Louis xiiiv.
For my part, Churchill was the second greatest Briton, preceded by Lord Nelson.

In reply to andymac:
He has had a couple, not including the rubbish Stroppy links to.

I tend to think bit of an arsehole, but the right arsehole at the right time. Monumentally shit during WW1, pretty shit after WW2, Hitler obviously brought the best out of him!

The Boer War stories are boys own stuff!

In reply to stroppygob:


Is that the biopic you think he deserved?
Young Winston' quite good.

In reply to aln:


Of course not.

In reply to The New NickB:



Thank God someone talks sense.. Why isn't stroppy Banned by now..

He was a shit.. the right shit at the right time.. but so were many, lets not excuse what he did.

In reply to IainRUK:

Why should I be banned?

For making a joke in reply to andymac, about a Churchill biopic, by posting a link to a joke movie?

Dear, dear, dear, you do have a low threshold.

In reply to stroppygob:

Never heard of that, looks excellent, particularly the Other under Cast.

In reply to The New NickB:

Re WWI, at least he went to fight himself after leaving government - how many other political failures did?

In reply to Gone for good:
Michael Portillo was very persuasive about Elizabeth 1 in the Great Britons tv program.

Churchill is one of those people where myth and reality merge. He would have been a remarkable person for any one of his military, literary and political achievements.

In reply to Gone for good:

Boris Johnson in today's Telegraph cites a brilliant "Churchillism"
On being told that the Lord Privy Seal wanted to see him Churchill growled - from his position on the lavatory - that he was sealed in the privy and could only deal with one sh*t at a time.

In reply to FesteringSore:

He was a great statesman, no doubt, but, for me, he adversely affected his legacy when he got involved with those poxy insurance adverts.

In reply to IainRUK:



Damn right. Let's not forget the Sydney Street siege, the battle of Loos, his plans to sterilise every disabled woman and girl in the country, his mobilisation and intended deployment of poison gas in World War Two, the sinking of the French fleet - killing over 1,100 of our allies in the process, his plan to invade Norway before Hitler got in first, the bombing of Dresden to name but a few.

He didn't "stand tall" in World War Two either. He was a coward. "We will fight them on the beaches", ha ha what he meant was "YOU will fight them on the beaches while I'm safe as houses in Canada"

In reply to Rylstone_Cowboy:

What would you have done with the French fleet?

In reply to IainRUK:

Thank God someone talks sense.. Why isn't stroppy Banned by now..

You want to ban someone because they have a different opinion and outlook on life than yours?

In reply to felt:


SUCH a great moment. I imagine all the RNs had tears of laughter running down their faces. I imagine WSC had too

In reply to Rylstone_Cowboy:


The Battle of Loos? Remind us.

It seems unlikely that in a 70 year career in the the public eye anyone would avoid making some poor decisions. Sterilisation is particularly abhorrent to modern ears but was of course very popular amongst the intelligentsia, particularly of the left, at the time.
All of the others you mention are still the subject of debate as to their wisdom or morality.

In reply to Postmanpat:

A more serious point about WSC is that he and Lloyd George pretty much invented the UK's welfare state. In a sense, he was one of the most successful socialist ministers this country has ever had.

He was always a loose cannon, and he was always a motor-mouth. He tended to think aloud, and some of his thoughts (e.g. about mass sterilisation) were pretty crazy. But there are a lot of myths about him on the left. Pure myths, like sending in the tanks on striking miners. He never did anything of the sort. But for sure he talked that idea. Thinking aloud, like I say, and always being quite prepared to think the unthinkable.

Would we have won WW2 without him, if he'd died, say, in 1941? Yes, but it would have been harder with Attlee or Eden in charge. And if Halifax rather than Churchill had followed Chamberlain in 1940, I suspect he'd have looked for a negotiated peace with Hitler. And that would have been the end of us. Look what Hitler did to everyone else who negotiated a peace with him.

In reply to Rylstone_Cowboy:

Isn't the point that the French were, unfortunately, no longer allies?

In reply to Gone for good:

The black and tans is the reason he's loathed in my family. Bad cess to him.

In reply to Rylstone_Cowboy:


Interesting description of a man notorious for his physical bravery in battle and who, having resigned from his political posts, opted to fight on the Western front as a 40 year old.
Care to substantiate it?

In reply to Postmanpat:

Yes, reckless possibly, but a long way from cowardly.

In reply to Rylstone_Cowboy:

unbelievable slander from you! Of course you're safe in the knowledge you didn't have to live through his times and that he died before you were even born!

In reply to wercat:


Well, the people that lived through that made it well clear what they thought of him in the 1945 general elections...

In reply to MG: +1 , during ww2 im sure he lifted millions of peoples spirits with his speaches and radio broadcasts.

In reply to Mr Lopez:


LOL, possibly, just possibly, not quite that simple….

In reply to Mr Lopez:

Pretty much the point made here:
http://www.heraldscotland.com/mobile/comment/columnists/ian-bell-churchill-...

"Close to 12 million voted Labour in 1945 because they had shared memories. Some had very particular memories of Winston Spencer Churchill. Attlee probably got his landslide in 1945 - "unexpected", some historians still insist - because a previous generation had fallen for the "land fit for heroes" promise in 1918. Their sons and daughters were not prepared to be fooled twice."

In reply to Postmanpat:

He made many daring flights during the war to visit Stalin and Roosevelt etc. His trip back from Bermuda in a cumbersome unarmed flying boat, after visiting Roosevelt, has been described as 'the most daring flight of the war.'

Who here has read Churchill's History of WW1? It's absolutely brilliant. One of the greatest bathtime reads ever. You will turn into a raisin reading it. I did

In reply to MG:

I don't think he was a coward but he was a war criminal.. His early actions in Iraq, Asia and Africa were disgusting.

Obama sent WCs bust that was in the Oval Office back to the UK as soon as he got in office.. Wanted no association with the man.

In reply to IainRUK:

Iain--come back and criticise when you too have saved the world from Hitler.

In reply to Douglas Griffin:



That's not the "same point" at all. Read it.

In reply to Postmanpat:

Time for your pills

In reply to Postmanpat:

I meant in the article as a whole. Read it.

In reply to Rylstone_Cowboy:



Wow. Someone got out of bed the wrong side this morning.

In reply to Mr Lopez: I dont think its what the people thought of him, because he succeeded in doing what he set out to do as a war leader ,to destroy hitler, i think the reason for him not getting elected the next time in 1945 was labour had a better way after the war with housing and free medical services and such and simply the people of britain thought that was the way to go.

In reply to Mr Lopez:

Odd reaction.You really think it is "that simple"?

In reply to Sophie G.:
Ludicrous. .

How the hell does war crimes in kenya relate to hitler?

In reply to blackcat:


Had he "embodied the spirit of the country"? The Labour landslide said otherwise. (...) The people said the country and its victory were theirs, not Churchill's.

(from the above article)

In reply to Douglas Griffin:

I have. It's core argument was that the populace felt it had been cheated after WW1 when "the land fit for heroes" failed to materialise and saw Labour's welfare state plans as the a way to stop this being repeated. (Ironically, as noted above, Churchill had been one of the progenitors of the welfare state.)
It was thus more a pro-Labour and anti-the past vote than an anti Churchill vote (the article notes he was personally popular) except in so far as his continued focus on the war, and association with "the prewar past" made him seem out of touch (probably correctly) with aspirations for the future.

Ironically, the bit you quoted was that summarising the first reasons (the post WW1 shared memory) rather than Churchill's own association with the past.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:


Who said that? I can't help thinking there would have been strong opposition...

In reply to IainRUK:


You do yourself no favours with posts like that Iain.

In reply to Rylstone_Cowboy:

Had you been a politician in 1940 you would have done what about Hitler?

In reply to Sophie G.:

Quite disappointing that 3 people have liked your comments defending a guy who was basically a racist who condoned gassing the uncivilized..

In reply to FesteringSore:


As said he may have been the right man at the right time, that doesn't mean we need to excuse his other actions such as the concentration camps, imprisonment without trial.. In other regions outside of the war.. Such actions were exactly what we were trying to stop.

In reply to IainRUK:

I like the "knife fight " scene at the start of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid film.

"If he wins, kill him." " Lets just sort out the rules first. "

Needs must. We were not there.

In reply to IainRUK:



Well, you know. We can be totally totally righteous and totally totally livid with, like, absolutely totally EVERYBODY.

Or we can try and adjust to reality, with all its messiness and moral ambiguity.

Personally, I'm deeply grateful that we live in the world that Churchill bequeathed us, not the one that Hitler would have.

In reply to Sophie G.:



+1

In reply to Mr Lopez:
It's probably (understatement) true that the people who had endured 2 world wars brought about or conducted by people with whom they felt they had little in common wanted things to be done differently by people they felt represented their interests, for a change. It's also quite likely that those people would have made appalling war leaders but had the strength to radically improve our society once the war was won.

But Note that we had Churchill back again in the 50s!!

I can't remember that but I can remember having the day off school for his funeral. (that would have been the morning only, as it was a Saturday. I can remember my mother who had been a youngster/early teens during the war years being incredibly sad. iirc my father was at work as people didn't get Saturday off then

In reply to FesteringSore:


Agreed.

I usually try not to get involved with history and politics. But IMHO Roosevelt and Stalin take credit for WW2. If Stalin had not stood his ground at Moscow and the Bomb developed we could still be fighting it now.

Simplistic probably, but whilst I'm at it, Roosevelt gets another big tick for sorting out the Depression in the 30's.

In reply to Rick Graham:



Maybe if Stalin had not sold his soul to the devil with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact WW2 might have finished sooner or not started at all.

The development of "the Bomb" was not solely down to the US

In reply to FesteringSore:

The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact happened for one and only one reason: because Chamberlain sold out Czechoslovakia. Stalin concluded from that that the West were not serious about opposing Hitler. He therefore reasoned that they would do nothing to prevent Hitler taking Poland. And that the best way for him, Stalin, to protect Russia from Hitler was to be on Hitler's side already when Hitler did take Poland, so that Hitler wouldn't just keep going straight into Russia.

About all of this, Stalin was almost completely correct.

In reply to IainRUK:


Are you not judging him by today's standards here? Gassing was all the rage in WW1, and racisim (of the "white man's burden" type) the norm. I've only read the (fairly sympathetic) Jenkins biography but I got the impression he was a man of his time (late Vicotrian), an impulsive, brave, maverick, who was often wrong but occasionally very right.

In reply to MG:

That's right. As a young man, Churchill was basically a John Buchan hero.

I suspect Jack Fisher, First Lord of the Admiralty, was rather in love with him. And possibly vice versa. Certainly, though both were happily married men, their relationship as described by Churchill in The World Crisis was a curiously intense one, with lots of very 'feminine' flouncing and sulking and kiss-and-make-up on Fisher's side.

In reply to MG:

Are you not judging him by today's standards here? Gassing was all the rage in WW1, and racisim (of the "white man's burden" type) the norm.

It's also worth pointing out, that the gases he suggested using were incapacitants as opposed to lethal ones.

In reply to Sophie G.:


Definitely the silliest post on UKC so far this year.

In reply to MG:

Correct.

Some of Churchills predecessors would have been guilty of far greater ills.

All in the name of keeping the map pink.

The Commonwealth did not come about by virtue of our leaders and politicians ,and monarchies of the past being nice people .and not doing things which are now known as 'Crimes against Humanity'.

Churchill was ,as you say ,of his time.

In reply to Gone for good:
There's some real vitriol running through this thread. Mainly from iainruk who seems to want to hold Churchill responsible for all the ills of the late 19th and 20th century.
I happen to think Churchill was a fine wartime leader and the country showed it's appreciation of him by re electing him for a second term in office. To call him a racist is unfair and to blame him for concentration camps and being the architect of chemical warfare shows little or no understanding of our military history.

In reply to Gone for good:
I sometimes think that the key to Churchill's character, both good side and bad, is what he said to (I think) Roosevelt at (I think) Yalta: "I did not become prime minister to preside over the demise of the British Empire".

That's what he thought he was doing: protecting and preserving the Empire, just like his illustrious ancestor the 1st Duke of Marlborough. That was why he went to war first with the Kaiser and then with Hitler, that was why he opposed appeasement, that was why he was so rude about Gandhi, that was why he was (as Iain R correctly points out) such an abominable racist in Kenya and elsewhere.

The irony is obvious: preside over the demise of the British Empire is exactly what Churchill did. Especially at Yalta, where Stalin was out for whatever he could get, and Roosevelt (insofar as he was still functioning at all) was out to end the existence of the British Empire and to stop the Soviet empire before it got properly started.

And here's a counterfactual to play with... suppose Churchill had not been gaga in 1956. How wd he have handled Suez differently from how his protege' Eden handled it? Not very differently at all, I suspect. Churchill got lucky there: if he'd still been a fully functioning politician, his war-leader career would have ended the way it began, in disgrace.

In reply to The New NickB:

No, the silliest and nastiest invariably come from the sneering, arrogant, destructive, intolerant, patronising, Guardian-reading fascist left.

Who in 1940 would have all been crying for defeatism, surrender and continuing appeasement, just as they now call for appeasement of the aggressive barbaric cult of Islam by Western societies, and in the 1950s were preaching the virtues of the Soviet tyranny, in the 1960s claiming that Mao's China was some sort of paradise on earth, despite its concentration camps, deaths of millions and vast famines.

Of course they will abuse and denigrate a British icon like Churchill, because they hate Britain and the British people, it is their prime motivation. It explains (far better than the transparently ludicrous claims about economic benefits or the "virtues" of diversity), their uncritical enthusiasm for uncontrolled mass immigration and the lumbering tyranny of the EU, they see these things as the best way of damaging the UK, as is identifying with any enemy and denigrating any national success.

Orwell noted the tendency to hating their own society 70 years ago :

"England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution"

The most iconic recent example of this loathing is of course Gordon Brown's vicious insult to Mrs Duffy, a lifelong Labour supporter but also guilty of the ultimate original sin to the left of being British, white and working class. Emily Thornberry (by a delicious irony actually being the MP for Islington, a QC paid almost entirely from the public purse and therefore the quintessential Guardianista) tweeting a view of a white van and a St Georges flag on a house also summed them up neatly, far too neatly for her own career.

In reply to Simon4:

Nicely put

In reply to Simon4:

I'm a socialist, and I'm pro-Europe, but I do agree that the British left has been heavily into self-hatred for far too long.

I suspect it was Gladstone who started it.

In reply to Simon4:

And we have a new winner for the silliest post of the year.

In reply to Sophie G.:

Clive Ponting wrote the definitive critical biography of Churchill - re-reading it, it seems he over egged it. Much of the stuff that Churchill is reviled for - particularly here in S Wales - is apparently factually incorrect. Also I think the election result of 1945 was one of the greatest moments in the history of democracy, the electorate wasn't so much rejecting its war leader so much as sensibly recognising that the war was over and a different manifesto was appropriate for the future.

In reply to Sophie

Surely Churchill was motivated by the total and utter defeat of the nazis. By default this would have meant protecting and preserving the empire and of course that was his aim. To protect and preserve the assets and citizens of the empire and so be able to procure victory.

I think he as much? if not more, than anyone would have foreseen the break up of the empire and would have realised that there was very little that could be done to prevent it.

Of course the increased threat of communist invasion was looming large across Europe at that time and would have been enough to concentrate most minds without the distraction of events taking place in Palestine and India.

In any event, his legacy was and always be that of wartime leader and of that he can be proud that he saw it through to a successful conclusion.

In reply to Rick Graham:

Exactly... I'm not criticizing his actions during WWII but the victors right history..

But that can't be used to justify his other actions which were brutal and shouldn't be dismissed as 'needs must'

In reply to Gone for good:


Go on then? How did I do that?

We can criticize hitler for gassing and concentration camps.. But not Churchill...

I never said he was the architect of chemical warfare.. He just suggested it for dealing with uncivilized tribes.. His words..

I think he was racist, but that can be dismissed as being a product of his time.. Some of the others shouldn't...

Many do see him as a war criminal especially for his actions outside of the world war.. And excusing them because he did earlier is pretty disgusting.

Some of these happened after the war.. Life's not black and white you know.. You can justify some actions whilst saying some were out of order.. E.g Kenya..

Expressed: "irritation that Kaffirs should be allowed to fire on white men"

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/not-his-finest-hour-the-dark-...

In reply to MG:
I think you can use that for the early stuff..but Kenya? I think by then we had moral framework of which to govern by..

In reply to IainRUK:

Your indedenent article is by Johann Hari, best known for plagiarism, resulting in him returning the Orwell literary prize. Not sure I would put too much weight on hatchet job of Churchill authored by him.

In reply to Sophie G.:

Obviously you think castrating, squeezing testicles between metal plates, starving prisoner, boring their ear drums is just something we did ...

It wasn't, Germans hanged for similar offences 5-10 years earlier... We knew bloody well what we were doing was atrocious..

Even Churchill himself said news shouldn't get out about how one sides the fighting was..

He may have been the right guy in 1940 but he certainly wasn't the right guy for Kenya a decade later.. Excusing that as simply a product of his time I'd hugely ignorant, he himself knew the British would be seen as war criminals if news got out..

In reply to IainRUK:

Or you didn't but
'he was a shit'
'He was a racist'
'He was a war criminal'
'He was a gasser'
'He imprisoned without trial'
'He condoned concentration camps'



Comparing the Holocaust with the limited use of incapacitating agents is ridiculous and offensive.






All great men have a dark side to their character. Those born and raised in the Victoria era had a very high and mighty view of their place in the world. He didn't mince his words when perhaps he should. On the whole I think we can forgive him for that.


Not exactly a tyrant though was he.

In reply to Gone for good:

Eh? You are ridiculous . I'm comparing the use of concentration camps and sadistic torture.

No we shouldn't forgive him.. That's up to the relatives of the victims in Kenya. .

I suggest you have no idea about what went on...

In reply to Clauso:

It's a bizarre thread when the owl-botherer makes the most sensible post

In reply to Gone for good:
So you are saying I didn't blame him for all the ills then.. Thanks!

You really need to get an education mate.. He was far more than words.. He was brutal, it worked and was necessary in 1940.. I don't think it was in 1950 when we did know better than our actions...

In reply to IainRUK:

I haven't condoned and I don't condone British repression in Kenya during Churchill's second premiership in the 1950s. All I've said is, if you want to judge the man overall, and if you're interested in judging him fairly, then judge him on the whole of his career, not on one bit of it.

In reply to IainRUK:


What was his role in and attitude to the actions during the Mau Mau rebellion?

In reply to IainRUK:
I'm happy to admit I don't know much about the mau mau rebellion and Churchill s role in the subsequent actions but as is noted below I would prefer to judge him on his overall contribution to our country.

In reply to Gone for good:

In an odd tribute;

In reply to Postmanpat:


He was the one who sent the troops in.. he was massively opposed to the breakup of the empire..

10's of thousands died whilst 33 europeans were murdered..

If we hold him responsible for the success of the resistance to the nazi's.. then I can't see how we can absolve him here..

And yes it was 60 years ago but I think even then filling bottles with scalding water and inserting them into the vagina's of young girls was considered wrong.... and we bloody well knew it..

I'm not judging him for the possible crimes in WW2, war brutalised and it was desperate times.. I just don't think that was the case later in Kenya.

In reply to Postmanpat:


This;

In reply to IainRUK:


Did Churchill really do that?

In reply to IainRUK:



None of which demonstrates his responsibilty except as the guy at which the buck theoretically stops. As far as I can tell neither of the two most negative books on British involvement, Anderson and Elkin (the latter of which has been reviewed even by the Grauniad as simplistic, exaggerated and one sided) hold him responsible.
It seems to have been more of a bottom up campaign of persecution and illegality in which the Governor General and colonial office , whilst acting excessively, largely lost control on the ground and covered up what they knew.

Hari is a proven liar who blames a Churchill for arresting Obama's grandfather (in 1949!!) so we can ignore him.

I may be wrong but I'd liketo see some evidence for his proactive involvement as opposed to unsupported assertions.

In reply to Postmanpat:

From a review of "Britain’s Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya" by Caroline Elkins, at LRB.

In reply to Postmanpat:
Yeah I know about Obama's grandad.. and the dates not tallying.. but its still a reason why he didnt like Churchill because of the troops...

Unsupported accusations? You are kidding.. the British behaviour in Kenya was appalling. How much he was directly involved doesn't matter, he was the one who sent heavy troops in and ordered a heavy military campaign.

As I said I do think he was a racist but I think we can dismiss that as a product of his time...

But the rest no..

We can't hold him responsible for the good and ignore the bad.. he had a long history of quite savage behaviour, which at the right time worked, and maybe we can dismiss the early actions as what happened then, but not Kenya.. that was on his watch.. You can't be telling me he had no knowledge of the concentration camps.. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-18874040

But this thread is about 'love of loathe him'.. many do loathe him, especially outside of the UK, even in the UK, because of what happened in Kenya, India, Ireland, Iraq and Germany..

In Rostock he was hated. I was given a tour of the city and the tour guide realised I was British and their view was he was a war criminal.. Rostock was targeted because it was a wooden city and burnt to the ground, and the civilian area's were targeted. Some say it was because of the high support for the Nazi party there but others thought the wooden structures made it more vulnerable hence why it was fire bombed.

Maybe we can excuse that as just something that was required, but that's why he was despised in many areas. I think at times Brits have to be a bit sensitive about how the rest of the world views him.

Especially those from South/East Africa... a good mate is from down there and he despises him like people despise Thatcher.. probably more. I actually never realised how bad we treated them until he told me to read into it... there's no chance that wasn't systemic.. 160,000 imprisoned, 90,000 executed tortured or maimed.. we aren't just talking about a few villages here.

"After the Lari massacre, for example, British planes dropped leaflets showing graphic pictures of the Kikuyu women and children who had been hacked to death. Unlike the rather indiscriminate activities of British ground forces, the use of air power was more restrained (though there is disagreement[136] on this point), and air attacks were initially permitted only in the forests. Operation Mushroom extended bombing beyond the forest limits in May 1954, and Churchill consented to its continuation in January 1955.[132]"

"Churchill raged that he [Gandhi] "ought to be lain bound hand and foot at the gates of Delhi, and then trampled on by an enormous elephant with the new Viceroy seated on its back." As the resistance swelled, he announced: "I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.""

"I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.

"the Aryan stock is bound to triumph"

http://balajiviswanathan.quora.com/Britain-needs-to-stop-celebrating-Winsto...
In 1943, some 3 million brown-skinned subjects of the Raj died in the Bengal famine, one of history's worst.In 1943, some 3 million brown-skinned subjects of the Raj died in the Bengal famine, one of history's worst.

Mukerjee delves into official documents and oral accounts of survivors to paint a horrifying portrait of how Churchill, as part of the Western war effort, ordered the diversion of food from starving Indians to already well-supplied British soldiers and stockpiles in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, including Greece and Yugoslavia. And he did so with a churlishness that cannot be excused on grounds of policy: Churchill's only response to a telegram from the government in Delhi about people perishing in the famine was to ask why Gandhi hadn't died yet.

"I hate Indians," he told the Secretary of State for India, Leopold Amery. "They are a beastly people with a beastly religion." The famine was their own fault, he declared at a war-cabinet meeting, for "breeding like rabbits."
British imperialism had long justified itself with the pretense that it was conducted for the benefit of the governed. Churchill's conduct in the summer and fall of 1943 gave the lie to this myth. "I hate Indians," he told the Secretary of State for India, Leopold Amery. "They are a beastly people with a beastly religion." The famine was their own fault, he declared at a war-cabinet meeting, for "breeding like rabbits."

In reply to Gone for good:

Churchill was the right person at the right time, for the UK and for the wider world.

As far as who won the war goes, someone said "The British supplied the time, the Russians supplied the blood and the Americans supplied the money"

In reply to IainRUK:


This is bit like saying that Harold Wilson was personally responsible for Bloody Sunday because he sent in the troops. There is no doubt that some horrible atrocities were carried out during the Mau Mau uprising. However, it is far from clear that these were sanctioned or even known about by Churchill. Troops were being "sent in" all over the empire as the UK withdrew, as often as not to try and make the withdrawal orderly, so the act of sending in troops in itself doesn't make a PM "guilty".

The initial plans were not dissimilar to those in other parts of the empire, and the troop allocation was made in haste in reaction to the murder of Nderi. Politicians in London were in reality very reluctant to heed calls on the ground for military assistance.

What happened next seems to have been that the powers on the ground, GG Baring, Askwith, and Erskine instated a series of aggressive measures, military, "the pipeline", "villagisation" which got completely out of hand, not least because the white community in Kenya was notoriously abusive to the indigenous population.

It needs to be recognised that the empire was not a top down, centrally controlled institution. Officials on the ground were often "mini kings" simply reporting their decisions to the Colonial office which may, or may not have referred onwards to the cabinet.

I think it's instructive that the only reference you can find to Churchill's direct involvement was an approval of continuing the air campaign (operation Mushroom), and that neither Elkin nor Anderson seem to have focussed on his involvement. Moreover, some of the worst activities seem to ave taken place under McMillan's administration. Do you feel the same about him?

So, I remain open to evidence that he was directly involved in causing or encouraging atrocities but you have not yet provide it.

Regarding the Bengal famine, I think this is a much harder thing to analyse. The criticism of the Mukerjee version of events is that she barely seems to acknowledge that there was a world war going on at the time. I'd like to read the book but the impression one gets is that she regards prioritisation of the war effort over the famine relief effort as evidence of deliberate policy of promoting famine. There is, of course, another well documented version (by Sen) which suggests that there wasn't really a shortage of food, but a failure of the colonial administration to ensure it got to the right places and people. I guess this rather implies that Churchill's analysis was right?
Amery is the source of most of your comments and he himself was unaware of the extent of the famine until late in the day. By mid 1943 Churchill was encouraging Wavell to do all that was possible to deal with the problem. You then get into detailed and complicated arguments about alternative supply demands for the war effort and under or over supply of available shipping.

It seems to me that having long been promoted by his admirers as beyond reproach the revisionists have swung the pendulum the other way, seizing on all his faults as evidence that he was some sort of British Hitler. Having said that, if he had died in 19238 most if his contemporaries would probably have regarded him as a talented but flawed and dangerous failure a la Enoch Powell. We shall probably still be arguing about it in a hundred years.

My personal view is that he was was an outsize man, with an outsize ego and outsize energy which meant when he was right, he was very right, but that he made his share of bad mistakes. Because he inherited a set of late Victorian views some of his attitudes and mistakes that derived from them appear particularly egregious to modern eyes. Many of his most aggressive critics, either because they are opposed to the institutions that he was heir to (the empire etc) or because they are writing out of context, take a simplistic and probably exaggerated view of his faults that provides an unbalanced and simplistic view of a complex and often contradictory man.

In reply to Postmanpat:


Now we are talking. That tendency to portray historical figures as either flawless heroes beyond reproach or pure evil is rife, as evidenced by a large number of posts in this thread, when the reality is Churchill was a human being and like all of us neither black nor white. Churchill the icon and Churchill the man are 2 very different entities.

Like any other human being, if he is to be 'judged' he should be judged by his actions, and as he was a man of power, a power he endeavored his life to obtain, he should be judged by what he did with that power. The simplicity ends there though, and what can or cannot be attributed to him is something that will be argued forever. Even the single biggest achievement attributed to Churchill (wining the war) falters under evidence as to his actual contributions and becomes an exercise of speculation.

Personally i think he was an arrogant drunk who was fond of taking gambles using other people's lifes as currency, and more often than not lost the wager and a lot of people paid the bill with their lifes. But during the war itself the country needed somebody who would play the hand and gamble their money rather than sitting back to wait if the next set of cards is more favorable. By luck or otherwise it paid off, but it wasn't skill or mastery of the game any more than it was reckless' luck.

In reply to Postmanpat:


Nobody's perfect... a bit like Oliver Cromwell of Henry VIII, but their overall positive historical role is hard to deny, objectively.

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

'nobody's perfect'

Justification for genocide...

In reply to Postmanpat:

We'll probably never know..

I just can't see how we can say he saved the free world against hitler on one hand and on the other he wasn't a ke player in the brutal suppression the UK did of our colony's trying to get free.. afterall these soldiers had fought and died for other countries freedom.. they went home and wanted their own freedom.. and we suppressed them brutally.

He was a racist. I'm quite amazed how ignorant people are yet defend him off very little knowledge.

He clearly saw the whites as a superior race, that may have been just the times, but he used that to justify the suppression and murder of other races.. his comments about seeing people fire of white men?

And people chose to defend him so passionately?

He was the right man at the right time, maybe that was just luck and we were just lucky, maybe he played a blinder but that doesn't forgive what happened afterwards and is why many others despise the man. We don't get taught much of it in the UK, we touched on Gandhi in history but you never get taught Churchills views on the man..

You make it sound like he may have had no idea. He himself in 1948 urged the killing to stop in Kenya because he knew how one sided it was and warned that the wider world must not find out about the slaughters.. then he sent mass troops in. He knew very well it would be a slaughter, he couldn't not have. The result was 10,000's of Kenyan's dead to 33 Europeans murdered..

Re Bengal, I don't know, but obviously he despised Indian's and judged them less worthy. His comments on why they had a famine quite clearly show little respect for the country.

Re others, well if they are being promoted as great hero's of the past, then yes we should also talk about what else they presided over.

Re how he is seen. I don't know, I don't think you need to pick hero or villain like some seem to think, just that he he certainly wasn't a great humanitarian and the accusations of racism are certainly well founded. I'd rather not celebrate him. Others see him as a loveable rogue.. 'had a dark side'.. 'nobody's perfect'.. 'a few bombs'.. I think he was certainly far beyond that.

He presided over mass imprisonment and slaughter.. how much he knew we don't know, but at the very least he turned a blind eye.

But certainly his previous brutal actions in Ireland and other areas, combined with his open racism, suggest what happened in Kenya was certainly not out of character for him.

In reply to Gone for good:

As a war leader he was the right man for the job. He fostered the feeling of defiance in the British people in what was without doubt "our darkest hour". Britain was beaten, but he didn't admit it, nor would he allow the population to admit it.

His war time speeches are amongst the greatest and most stiring speeches ever made. - particularly his one about having "nothing to offer but blood, sweat and tears".

He may have been a bastard, but a country needs a bastard at a time like that.

Conversley he was a crap peacetime leader, often wrong, arrogant, impossible to deal with and self centred, and even in war he had a poor grasp of strategy - Dardenelles, Italy, Greece. His distancing himself from the Strategic Bomber campaign at the end of the war and deserting the Bomber Command crews was unforgivable, as was his decision to forcefully repatriate freed Soviet Army POWs after the Liberation of Europe in the knowlege that they faced certain execution on their return to Russia. There is, however no doubting his personal bravery, as has been said he was in the thick of the action as a young man, and following the Dardenelles debarcle he volunteered to command a front line Battalion near Ypres.

In reply to Stroppy's wife:



Why on earth not not? They were two different things and two different periods. He could have played completely different roles in each. I'm just asking for any evidence that he had hands on responsibility of, or what he knew of, the Kenyan situation but haven't recieved it.

Worth pointing out that it s widely acknowledged that he was too old and ill to be PM in his final administration. He himself acknowledged that he wasn't thinking clearly and his cabinet spent half their time covering for him or trying to get him to retire. Frankly it was a victory of ego over judgement but makes it perfectly possible he wasn't much aware or responsible for of the Kenyan situation.

Regarding the idea that he "saved the free world" that is not the claim. The claim is that he was a great leader. He was a man of great ideas but often poor judgment. His chief advisor, Alanbrooke, turned down the job a leading the Middle East campaign in order to stay in London and restrain Churchill. Of his many comments and criticisms may be this one sums it up,

".....And the wonderful thing is that 3/4 of the population of the world imagine that Churchill is one of the Strategists of History, a second Marlborough, and the other 1/4 have no idea what a public menace he is and has been throughout this war ! It is far better that the world should never know, and never suspect the feet of clay of this otherwise superhuman being. Without him England was lost for a certainty, with him England has been on the verge of disaster time and again...... Never have I admired and despised a man simultaneously to the same extent. Never have such opposite extremes been combined in the same human being"






He was a racist in the sense that nearly all his generation were racists so identifying that doesn't really add much to the sum of knowledge. If you read it a bit more on his (often contradictory) views on India you'll find it was actually the Southern Indians and Brahmins that he was negative about. He rather admired what he regarded as the "martial" races of the North (as incidentally he admired the Kikuyu) and felt the lower casts needed protection from the Brahmins. It was more complicated than you seem to acknowledge.
He also loved to shock his colleagues which ,I might account for some of his more outrageous statements.

He clearly,inherited much of the casual racism of the Victorian officers mess but you still haven't produced solid evidence that this translated into responsibilty for brutal suppression in his later years. troops were in place, or sent in, all over the empire without atrocities in taking place as they did in Kenya.

In reply to Stroppy's wife:

Hahahahaha.. have you really changed your user name Iain? Really!!?

In reply to Mr Lopez:


I knew it wouldn't take long, problem is Simon's entry is disqualified, as he posts the same ignorant hate filled bile on a daily basis, has done for years. I'm only interested in original content, although he does get extra marks for the Festering Sore agreeing with him.

In reply to Simon4:

The thing is, it'd be impossible for anybody to go and do something which has happened in the past, again. Which means it's always very silly to ask somebody to do anything like that.

In reply to Stroppy's wife:


No justification, just a fact. He himself criticized Cromwell for his actions in Ireland while giving an overall positive view of the man. I can't think of any major figures who were 100%, good, Mao, Ho Chi Minh, also saved their countries, freed them from foreign domination and gave them the basis which has enabled them to be what they are today but I doubt you would say they were perfect either? That's real life, it's not a long peaceful river.

One other thing in his favour for WW2 is the way he brought the USA into the war against the wishes of most of the population and also the way he helped build the winning alliance with them and the USSR despite his personal anti-communism. He saw what most others at the time didn't and really did save the world, in reality not metaphorically. Compared to that his errors are nothing.

PS. The British decolonialization was comparatively peaceful compared to that of France for example, the Indo-China and Algerian wars resulted in millions dead... again nothing is perfect, nothing is bloodless, everything has to be compared.

PPS. Have you read any of his works? The History of English Speaking Peoples, for example, it gives a better idea of his character than things written about him by others.

In reply to Gone for good:

Boy was it some state funeral. Even the London dockers in an unscripted part of the ceremony that day lowered the jibs on their cranes in salute as the coffin was taken down the Thames on a boat.

A 19 gun salute, the first ever for a non Royal.

Also foresaw the iron curtain across Europe.

In reply to Postmanpat:

I do think he was beyond the average racist..

But regarding how much he knew? as I said he knew the last time troops were there it was a one sided slaughter.. so by sending the troops in again he must have known what would happen.. so he either knew or turned a blind eye and pretended not to know. Yes troops were sent in, but in 1948 he warned that word must not get regarding how one sided it was.. I think he judged black lives less worthy than white lives which his statements appear to back up.

the problem is all papers were destroyed after we left, so we don't know what happened..

It's interesting though looking back at him, I can understand people seeing him either way, I just don't understand those who mock those who suggest he wasn't quite the hero he is made out to be.. and he remains intensely disliked in many areas.

The costs must have been significant, we must have spent a lot to build concentration camps for 100,000 + kenyans so I struggle to see how he could have thought it was just typical policing..

In reply to neilh:
Here's some Churchill nuggets.

That fellow Attlee is a modest man and he has much to be modest about

Success is when you can stagger from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.

Eating words has never given me indigestion.

He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.

The only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself.

Golf us an ineffectual attempt to direct an uncontrollable sphere into an inaccessible hole with instruments ill conceived for the purpose.

Civil servant - prime minister I have to report that a minister was found half naked with a guardsman in Hyde Park last night.
Churchill - last night? The coldest night of the year? Makes you proud to be British.

In reply to Stroppy's wife:



Th quote you are referring to was actually made in 1908 not 1948 and referred to the violent tactics used against resistance against the expanding white colonists. It seems pretty bizarre to use a quote criticising such activities in 1908 to argue that he knew the same would happen and was in favour of it in completely different circumstances 40 years and two world wars later. For a start the earlier period was one of expansion, often by force. The latter was one of withdrawal. Even the most virulent opponent or empire wouldn't argue that all troops carry out massacres?

He was actually highly critical of the white colonists and believed they need to be better controlled by imperial administrators.


You're making the same mistake of thinking a PM spent time analysing the expenditures in one of many colonies administered locally and overseen by the Colonial Office.

In reply to Postmanpat:
Are you sure?

From the Mau Mau uprising wiki page:

"The one sided nature of fighting in Kenya led Churchill, in 1948, to express concern about how it would look if word got out:

160 [Gusii] have now been killed outright without any further casualties on our side. . . . It looks like a butchery. If the H. of C. gets hold of it, all our plans in E.A.P. will be under a cloud. Surely it cannot be necessary to go on killing these defenceless people on such an enormous scale.[24][25][26][27]"

Maxon 1989, p. 44.
Robert W. Strayer (9 February 1986). "Letter: Out of Africa". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 March 2012.
Lapping 1989, p. 469.
Berman 1990, p. 72 n.43.

I know wiki isn't perfect but the references look legit, and its multi sourced?

If he wanted to stop the slaughter he could raise the issue with the H of C.. that would have led to better control of the colonial administrators...

It wasn't the EAP then so maybe Wiki is wrong.. Actually I think you are right, I just googled it with 1908 and found that date..

I still cant see how he didn't know. Labour MP's protested about the brutality of the response.. you don't send troops and drop 6 million bombs on a country without the PM knowing about it.

In reply to Stroppy's wife:
Yup. Follow one of links (28??) or just google the quote.
Wiki has just misprinted i think

In reply to Trangia:


Blaming him for the Dardenelles is a bit unfair. His plan was a purely naval operation.
Whether it would have worked is debatable but it was something very different from what ended up happening.

In reply to Stroppy's wife:

Well it was 1955 before Barbara Castle (I've long had a soft spot for her, tough as old boots)got on the case and began to ask serious questions and uncover some answers(together with a certain Enoch Powell, of all people). Presumably Churchill knew there was heavy military activity and widespread imprisonment but, as I started by saying, the atrocities seem to have been largely sanctioned at lower levels. It's not even clear how far Baring knew what was going on, let along people 4,000 miles away in London. Were the people on the ground hiding stuff from the local administrators? (remember,incidentally, that whites were happy to let loyalist blacks carry out the dirty work) Were the local administrators hiding stuff from from Baring? Was Baring hiding stuff from the Colonial Office. Was the Colonial office hiding stuff from the cabinet?

There are suggestions that all the above were happening.

There were no 24 hour news stations to report back.

It's not unreasonable to suggest that a PM should have made it his business as the rumours started but that is rather different to arguing, as you appear to , that he was behind and supported the atrocities.

In reply to Gone for good:


'A modest man, with much to be modest about'??

Somewhat reminiscent of, "I've always said you were the best climber to come out of Yorkshire... but then they're never any good, are they?"

If you can't take the piss...? As it happens, I believe Churchill later retracted that statement out of personal admiration. But it's a great one-liner. Stet.

Wasn't Attlee one of the last off the beaches at Gallipolli? (If so, huge irony here.) Can't imagine what that must have been like - living lifetimes in moments, body parts strewn all over the place, human beings reduced to meat, more blood than wine in a wine-dark sea.

One wouldn't wish such an experience on anyone, but it might be good if modern politicians had experience of life beyond Westminster.

Mick

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

Is it that time already? My annual 'yes I agree with Bruce on this occasion' post???!

In reply to Mick Ward:

One of the anecdotes about Churchill that always gives me pause for thought is his demeanour when he became PM after the meeting with Halifax - apparently after meeting the King he was practically in tears, appalled that it might all be too late.

He had understood the nature of fascism from the beginning, and had been a consistent and determined opponent from the very beginning when many, many people from all points on the spectrum were more equivocating.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

I quite often agree with Bruce.

In fact ,I actually like Bruce.

Don't tell anyone though.especially Bruce.

In reply to dissonance:


I've always found this a bit harsh. We blame the politicos and generals who thought that marching millions of men into machine guns in Flanders for four years was a smart strategy but in the next breath criticise one of the first to recognise the stalemate for was it was and have the vision to suggest an alternative.

I'm not clear whether it was his alternative plan or the eventual plan and the faulty execution which was responsible for the failure in the Dardenelles.

Later, of course, he became one of the keenest promoters of the tanks as a tool to break the stalemate.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Totally agree. I've always been amazed (and deeply grateful) that it wasn't too late. Have never been afraid to die, if that's what it takes, but you look at that Nazi war machine back then and think, 'How could anybody (east of the US) prevail...'

Mick

In reply to Mick Ward:





You are right. Apparently he was the penultimate man to evacuate Suvla, the last being General Maude.


He apparently developed an admiration for Churchill as a strategist during the gallipoli campaign that was to benefit both men when Attlee served as deputy prime minister during the war.

In reply to Gone for good:


"An empty taxi drew up and Mr.Atlee got out"…..

In reply to Postmanpat:

I dont think I said he was behind individual acts.. lets face it Hitler wasn't.. (before stroppy drops one I'm not comparing the two)

But I do think when he sent in a large force and heavy bombers he wasn't messing around.

In reply to Stroppy's wife:

Absolutely. Read the news items of the time. It was regarded as a war, and nobody doubted that bombing the enemy was an integral part of war. They'd just been doing it for five years in Europe and Asia and were still doing it in Korea. Indeed, they'd been doing much the same thing in Malaya since 1948. Do you feel the same about Atlee and his cabinet? Not nice but that was the nature of the times.

With hindsight one can say this was unacceptable, although presumably it was on the advice of the Baring and Erskine, the commander on the ground, rather than his own instigation.
What stands out in Kenya was the torture, atrocities and extra judicial killing in the camps and it is this that needs to be traced back to Churchill to substantiate your allegations.

In reply to dissonance:



Fair comment, and it's easy to write from an armchair with the benefit of hindsight, but I've always considered that try to force the narrow Dardenelles with it's minefields and dominated on both sides by Turkish shore batteries in Battleships not renowned for manoeuvrability was a very long shot with predictable results. The operation was probably too risky in the first place and should have been closed down immediately without being followed up by the Gallipoli landings. Wasn't Churchill primarily responsible for these subsequent disasterous decisions?

He continued into WW2 with his obsession with the soft underbelly of Europe from the Med via Greece and Italy, rather than giving whole hearted support to the planning and execution of Overlord until it finally happened.

But wars are full of "what ifs".

In reply to Stroppy's wife:




He was a "racist" only in modern terms, the man should be judged against the mores and morals of the time. It's pointless, and rather silly, to expect him to have a 21st century morality in the 1950s.

To castigate him for not being 60 years ahead of his time is foolish, if not disingenuous .

How far back can we use our superior; "I'm so much more politically correct than you Mr Churchill, " attitude to make us feel better than them. Would it work on say Genghis Khan?

In reply to stroppygob:


Indeed. By modern standards I expect most of our grandparents would be racists but most of them were not bad people.

In reply to stroppygob:




Were Hitlers beliefs just then?

In reply to Dave the Rave:


No, of course not, who claimed they were "just"?

In reply to Postmanpat:

I don't think claims of ignorance or 'plausible deniability' mean a PM avoids responsibility for something on this scale.

In reply to elsewhere:


As I said at 00.44 "None of which demonstrates his responsibilty except as the guy at which the buck theoretically stops."

There is a quantum difference between saying he had ultimate theoretical responsibility and accusing him personally of deliberately "savage behaviour".

In reply to stroppygob:


Except that the acceptance of and obsession with political correctness does not infer superiority.

In reply to Postmanpat:
The PM's ultimate responsibility for the entirety (both good and bad) is not theoretical.

In reply to elsewhere:


Yes, yes. What word do you prefer?

Is it you your argument that culpability for being unaware of or failing to stop something one was not aware of is the same as actively instigating or supporting something?

In reply to Gone for good:
Perhaps those who are quick to condemn Churchill for war crimes and atrocities would like to tell us how they would consider the culpability of US Presidents, including Kennedy, over events that occurred during the American-Philipine War, Korea(No Gun Ri Massacre), Vietnam and Iraq.

In reply to FesteringSore:


I think a reasonable argument for it , in some cases, being so, could be made. This is apposite;



http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/edwest/2014/05/political-correctness-gone-mad-...

In reply to Postmanpat:

Not the same but being ignorant or turning a blind eye does not remove culpability of whoever is in power.

In reply to elsewhere:

So, since we're agreed it's "not the same" and you haven't come up with a better alternative to "theoretical" (I'm sure there is one) I'm not clear what you think you've added to the discussion except a bit of UKC pedantry.

In reply to FesteringSore:


This adds nothing..

Yes we need to look at these.

Lets not forget Britain didn't sign the Geneva convention for a long long time.. we knew we were shits... we knew we were liable.

I dont get simon4's bollox at all.. it's just saying when you chat to people from these countries.. 'yes that was wrong'.. I dont apologise.. why should I? I don't expect my German mates to apologise for the nazi's. But I won't excuse what happened and if they did I'd argue back..

But I also won't just say, well that was the day.. as someone else said it's not that far from hating races to what hitler did... that was why Hitler got away with it, people were racist back then, they feared the different.. he turned 10's of millions against a minority, that wasn't some brain washing, he tapped in to inherent racism.

I do have a laugh at Churchills quotes, I'm not sure he was evil per se, but he could be brutal.. and I do think race allowed him to distance himself from what the UK did.. and it was appalling.

In reply to Postmanpat:

I disliked the idea that responsibility can't be 'traced back'.

My alternative to 'theoretical responsibility' for the actions of subordinates is to just say 'responsibility'.

In reply to Stroppy's wife:



A lot of self loathing going on there, you shouldn't be so hard on yourself.

In reply to stroppygob:
The Geneva convention updates constantly.. 1949. obviously as warfare modernises..

In reply to Stroppy's wife:
And?


Your claim was that we were late signing it.

This is what you said;


Whereas the actuality is;


The 1949 Geneva convention was signed by us in 1957, the earliest signature to it was in 1950, the last in 2014.

The majority of signatories, over half, signed between 1954 and 1964.

In reply to stroppygob:
So goal posts now moved.. thanks.. 6 days...

In reply to Stroppy's wife:

Beg pardon?

YOu made the spurious claim;


I showed that we signed it with in a year of it being written.

You then changed the goal posts to meaning the 1949 amendment, I showed that we were not particularly slow in signing it, and that we were in fact in the median of signatories.

In fact 54 countries signed it in the years leading up to 1957, 141 countries signed in 1957 or later.

So you are wrong. Again.

In reply to elsewhere:


If you have read the thread you will realise we were discussing his proactive responsibility, not his "theoretical" or passive responsibility. I acknowledged 00.44 that the former could be "traced back" but that was not the point at issue.


Which of course adds nothing because it fails to make very distinction I am trying to highlight and you have agreed is valid. If you don't think there is a distinction then say so.


If you have read the thread you'll know I pointed out, and agree, that he probably wasn't mentally or physically fit to be PM in his final administration. Hence, perhaps his likely failure to engage, which is a quite different failing to the one Ian/Stroppy's wife is alleging.

In reply to stroppygob:

No you little prick. Again you are wrong and bringing in spurious information as you do.

5 days...

In reply to IainRUK:

No you little prick.

Ooooh! Is that how you get to be the top poster on UKC then?

In reply to FactorXXX:



So sad. Can't IainRUK see the damage he's doing to his own credibility through this derogatory and injudicious language? That, through his disrespectful screaming, he is pulling a slurry of disrespect down on himself?

In reply to IainRUK:


My money would be on stroppy gob in a square go.

Care to enlighten us with your enigmatic countdown.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:


With great respect , Gordon , surely everyone is allowed an outburst of exasperation at some posters on UKC?
Iain's posts are always intelligent ones.

In reply to Gordon Stainforth:
Don't worry Gordon I've asked Alan at the weekend to delete my profile. I'm sick of how its got on here with Stroppy and a few others just coming on to snipe away anonymously... he said he wouldn't for a week but I'm not changing my mind.. wanderer is another great one..

Increasingly people are going anonymous.. I've no issues with people like PMP you can disagree, have an intelligent debate with, but little turds like stroppy have made it no fun on here anymore..

In reply to IainRUK:


In what way is IainRUK less anonymous than any other pseudo? I think you are holding the wrong end of the stick here, and have been for a while.

In reply to Gone for good:

haha the man who runs off to Alan because someone insulted his anonymous wife..

fantastic aye.. the guy is spineless.. there's just been increasing anonymity.. more and more of the older posters either leave or change their name.. then you get guys like strops and sir chasm to post just to cause trouble..

I used to enjoy it but you get dragged down to their level so I've decided that's enough for me.. anyway I'm officially a yank from today so its time I moved to pastures new..

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

Yes.. as quite clearly people know who I am..

In reply to IainRUK:

Sorry to hear you're calling it a day Iain.

In reply to IainRUK:

Just because people disagree with your view does not mean they 'post to cause trouble'.

Anyhoo. .. bye!!

In reply to Doghouse:

of course not, I probably disagree with PMP on most subjects, politically we are certainly of differing views but he's great to debate with as he has great knowledge. No issues with that at all.

In reply to IainRUK:



So lets go to the tape again;

YOu made the spurious claim;


I showed that we signed it with in a year of it being written.

You then changed the goal posts to meaning the 1949 amendment, I showed that we were not particularly slow in signing it, and that we were in fact in the median of signatories.

In fact 54 countries signed it in the years leading up to 1957, 141 countries signed in 1957 or later.



You are totally unable to refute what I have posted, and have totally failed to make a coherent argument.

In reply to stroppygob:

Look Stroppy no I didn't. We did not sign the changes after the war due to worries over crimes committed.

That was my point. The fact that many others did not is immaterial.

Good night.

In reply to IainRUK:




Well if that was your point, you should have said so. Instead you said;

In reply to Doghouse:




Indeed.

It's laughable that someone who has called people who disagree with him "turds", "shits", "Spineless turd", "shit for brains" or "spineless cowards", someone who when confronted politely with factual evidence resorts to swearing and name calling, and who thinks he has some special status here as he is "not anonymous", should have the audacity and hypocrisy to state that others; 'post to cause trouble'.

In reply to stroppygob:
aye...
Politely?

Twisting statements... Insults... Pathetic hounding...

Seriously good night.

For someone who prides themselves on being stroppy you don't half take offence and run to the teacher quickly.. I wouldn't be surprised if you don't even have a bloody wife..


Factually incorrect? Again you were so pumped on anger you didn't research why we didn't sign .. Specifically because of how we treated colonial civilians... We didn't want to give them any status. So yes we knew we were shits... And hence why we delayed signing until Kenya was basically finished.

In reply to Postmanpat:
I think the not signing the GC did implicate higher levels of Government.. that was specifically about civilian combatants we'd encounter as countries sought independence, as they could have no formal army..

We'll never know either way as all correspondence in colony's was destroyed when we left.. But the leaders must have known I think.

I don't hold WC entirely responsible, as said others did this before and After him.. But I think we should educate our youngsters better on this period.

As a runner I've Kenyan/SA friends and you don't get animosity but you do get a dislike of that era of the British, particularly Churchill, maybe just because of his fame/infamy (sometimes wrongly like with Obama). Maybe he was by then too old to be involved but he was still seen to be the figure head of a suppressing government. But I'm not sure, his past behaviour suggested it was certainly not out of character.

Post war US/UK relations were tricky because of this, understandably the Americans wanted us to give up our empire, we spoke about the need to self-govern yet wanted our own empire untouched, yet the American's had been through independence from us and wanted it for others.

In reply to IainRUK:


Yes, without insult an rancour.



So anyone who take the time to repudiate your ill thought postings is "hounding you" now? Seriously? Please quote me insulting you.

If I have "twisted" statements, (I never do, I always quote the original,) then you should be able to show it.




I could say the same of you, someone so volatile and unpleasant as you would find it hard to get wed, but why stoop down to your level.


Which of the treaties are you referring to now? I seriously doubt that a number of worthy politicians sat around and agreed not to sign the Geneva Convention, as; "well we're shits aren't we." Try putting it in more adult terms.

In reply to stroppygob:
Haha brilliant.. You know damn well you didnt quote the original.. you quoted Sir Chasm

"If I have "twisted" statements, (I never do, I always quote the original,) then you should be able to show it."

"> Come on, point to a currency union whose example the eurozone can follow."

How is that the original?
This was Sir Chasm's original question on the euro?
"In reply to IainRUK: Can you point to a couple of currency unions between 15 sovereign nations?"


IainRUK - on 18:49 Fri
In reply to Sir Chasm:
"No but plenty of smaller ones.."

To which I provided the search terms for this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Currency_union#Existing

To which you listed plenty of defunct currencies.. as you do.. a liar.. manipulative.. coward.. who reports people who upsets him.. poor baby get the 'wife' to comfort you.

He didnt ask this to much later..
"> Come on, point to a currency union whose example the eurozone can follow."

To which you claim was the original.. stalking... soft lad who hides anonymously...

You are a lying scumbag... now shown up to the twisting pathetic soft lad you are....

Night strops.. you'll be gone soon.. easy...

In reply to IainRUK:




Can I point out to you this;


Sir Chasm - on 21:31 Fri

Come on, point to a currency union whose example the eurozone can follow. It can't be that difficult.

No twisting on my part, an exact quote. (I omitted the "It can't be that difficult".)

So fail once more on your part.





Eventually you did post that, and I debunked it as you hadn't pointed out one the Eurozone could follow.





More threats and insults, do you have nothing else to offer?

In reply to IainRUK:


By the bye Iain, if I am removed from posting at this site, it won't be because I insulted, or swore, or broke the forum rules.

It will be because you used something or someone.

Hopefully the members here will remember that.

In reply to stroppygob:

I said all along no, we are unique.. the euro is a world leader..

No, I don't. I'm tired of you cherry picking and stalking..

As I said, I've disagreed with many on here and guys like PMP, Gordon et al.. I have respect for.. we can argue and I can learn. PMP has incredible history knowledge.. he makes you research and learn more.. I often disagree on his interpretation but when he questioned my quote I used, I researched and realised it was not backed up and admitted it...

15 years I've been on here, but since you've stalked it's made it not fun.. I'm not shy of an argument but you just chase.. I've shown you to be a liar.. I'd hoped youd be banned but I'm tired of fighting you so will leave, it's another thread ruined by us both. I asked Alan at the weekend to delete my profile and this just confirms why it should happen.

In reply to stroppygob:

When did I suggest a superior to the euro? I said we had precedents.. we had working currency unions.. I never said we had better than the greatest, most diverse union we've seen. The US can be an example in some ways but the euro is unique in its attempts..

The only reason it will fail is through lack of commitment..

" IainRUK - on 21:39 Fri
In reply to Sir Chasm:
Are you some kind of special kid..

"We've had various currency unions in the past that have worked.."

I never said bigger than the euro.. you then kept changing the goal posts. Go and look, there are a few which are many sovereign states... but I never said bigger, nor as successful.. the euro is totally unique, that's why its so fantastic, of course it will have issues but its got over lots and will continue."

I was quite clear about the uniqueness of the euro...

As I said you lie and manipulate.. you debunked nothing.

I'm tempted right now just to say something just to get banned... but I'll wait to the weekend and push Alan to delete me.. then you've won... night love.. (that was to your wife..)

"In reply to stroppygob:

The East Caribbean one looks the closest out of the lot.
However as you say its a small(ish) population and for a group of countries which are all pretty similar both economically and politically and so can avoid certain of the problems the Euro has."

This was dissonance admitting that there was a currency union based on sovereign countries.. I never said bigger than the union...

Thanks...

In reply to IainRUK:




Did you never stop to think that the reasons we have so many exchanges is that;

a) Unlike most of the membership here we are online at the same time.
b) We hold opposing views
c) Your constant insulting and slurs would make someone want to prove you wrong
d) You constantly reply to someone you claim is "stalking" you, thus promoting more returns.

Grow up, take some responsibility for your own actions.

For someone to create such a childish and insulting sock puppet; "Stroppy's wife" to then claim they are being "stalked", for someone to throw out insults such as "Spineless turd.' and "shit for brains" and "spineless cowards" then whine that he is being picked on, for someone to threaten to leave, but not do so until they can get their profile deleted, what sort of man do you call that?


Not a very good one.

In reply to stroppygob:
so you admit you lied...

I was having a laugh as I know I'm off..

I don't think I'm picked on.. I could fight you all year but we just ruin thread after thread.. I was enjoying Churchill, mainly because of PMP.. but we ruin threads fighting so one has to go.. I've spent 15 years on here but now I dont enjoy it.. and I'm now a US resident so I'll move on...

when did I insult PMP? He called me on a quote, I checked it, I was wrong.... I admitted it.. when have you ever done that?

You won't even admit now that I ever said there was an example for the euro to follow...

In reply to IainRUK:

I have not lied.

I'm not responding to you again, as it's obvious you just want the attention.

In reply to Gone for good:
Have i entered the twilight zone. Two grown men, arguing so viciously, online, with people they don't know, about stuff which doesn't matter? Fight a battle worth winning.

Come on lads, kiss and make up or do what I tell my six year old daughter and ignore the other one.

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

http://i3.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/486/386/dd0.jpg

In reply to TheDrunkenBakers:

I'm bored of this now. Is there anything good on the other channel?

In reply to Gone for good:
Never in the field of internet conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

In reply to stroppygob:

quite clearly you did... keep reporting people.. it adds to your tough guy image..

In reply to stroppybob & IainRUK:

It's about time you two childish imbeciles put a sock in it.

In reply to stroppygob:

quite clearly you did... keep reporting people.. it adds to your tough guy image..

You don't quote the original.. you can check that thread again.. you waded in half way ignorantly.. you stalk and try to bully people then report anyone who upsets you...

When PMP highlighted an incorrect quote I checked it and admitted it.. you just bluster and lie...

You do insult, I'm just tired of you and sir chasm ruining threads so think its time to quit. You'll get banned soon enough but there will be more of you... more anonymous idiots so its lost its appeal, the likes of gordon and PMP get rarer.. more and more posters have swapped to anonymous names and its certainly had its impact.

In reply to UKC Mods:
Can anyone call a halt to this squabble between these two please? I've seen and heard better behaviour in a kindergarten

In reply to Sophie G.:


Oh come on, you can do better than that. That's like saying I can't criticise a film because I've never made one.

In reply to Sophie G.:



Well, if we're going to be honest about historical reality and moral ambiguities, we live in the world that Stalin bequeathed us, not Churchill.

In reply to MG:


And why should we not? Do we abhor racism now because everyone else does, or because it is wrong, and can be rationally argued to be so?

Churchill stood up against Hitler when appeasement was the popular option, he made the difficult decision and is rightly lauded for doing so. We shouldn't excuse him for being a racist because it was popular.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Nonsense. Just because it was easier to be a racist in wartime Britain doesn't make it excusable.

In reply to planetmarshall:

what if it wasn't "wrong" then?

In reply to wercat:

Then Hitler was "right"????

In reply to Gone for good:

Well he was MP for Dundee, and they have not exactly shouted it from the rooftops, (a small plaque somewhere) which perhaps says what they thought of him as an MP representing them.

He did a a few of great things, and awhole lot of bad things.
On balance, from what I have read, perhaps a little more bad than good, but that judgement can be rather subjective.

I'm happy to hear about the good stuff, as long as the whole story is also told at the same time. (That is not always been the case, and a somewhat rosy one sided picture has been painetd)

Apparently he was ahead of his time, in wearing a Onesie.

In reply to Gone for good:
Perhaps we should consider where the buck stopped with atrocities that have been committed elsewhere in the world and which revered "heroes" were head of government at that time.

Japan's behaviour in WW2 = Hirohito
Atrocities in Russia = Stalin, Lenin, Tsar et al
Genocide of the North American Indians = various US presidents
etc

Again I think it is grossly unfair to single out Churchill because it happens to be the 50th anniversary of his death

In reply to Jim C:

The thing is that standing up to fascism, making basically the right decisions when most were saying the opposite - the USA was refusing to get involved in another "European war" and many were thinking in terms of doing a deal with Hitler rather than standing up to him in what seemed a totally impossible fight after Dunkirk, and even fewer were thinking in terms of an alliance with Stalin, which is the second basic decision which enabled WW2 to be won and fascism destroyed, to give a brief summary, was such a massive world changing contribution to human history that it quite overshadows his "errors".

At present people are remembering the day the Red Army delivered Auschwitz, if it hadn't been for Churchill not only would we not be remembering this it would still be functioning today, and as by now they would have had time to exterminate all the Jewish people they would be smoking up many other "enemies", you or me perhaps.Talking of small plaques on walls and so on just doesn't count for much against such an achievement, rather pathetic in fact..

In reply to Bruce Hooker:


Rubbish. These are the kind of statements that make me crawl from under my bridge.

And to pretend the Soviets and USA joined the war efforts because they were sweet talked by Churchill's charm and irresistible bargaining skills is somewhat of a stretch...

In reply to Mr Lopez:

You have a very warped view of Churchill's contribution to this nation's survival.

In reply to FesteringSore:

I have an objective view as to Churchill's actual contributions to this nation's survival

In reply to Mr Lopez:

Read the history of WW2, one of Churchill's main political efforts during the first years was to get the yanks in. Roosevelt was in favour but the country as a whole was against. That's why they gradually started, with arms, lend lease and so on, half the British empire was put in hock. I doubt that any other pair of men would have been up to the task. It's one of those moments that proves that individual humans do count, it's not just class struggle or market forces. Without Churchill it would all have finished after Dunkirk and Britain would have done the deal that Hitler was confident they would... after all he had it first hand from the ex-King.

On the other side do you think things would have been the same if Hitler had been killed during WW1? Would another have popped up in his place? Do you think Mussolini would have done it? Individuals do count, for better and for wosre.

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

Churchill tried for years to get the Americans involved, and failing to do so monumentally. All he achieved was for the shipments of weapons they were buying off the US to be guarded by them. That was a financial decision rather than an Ally pact.

After the attacks on the US they didn't exaclty need asking to get involved...

In reply to Mr Lopez:

It was more than a bit of commerce, it kept Britain alive and armed for the whole year when they were the only country resisting and when the Soviet Union came in they were receiving US arms too - getting the yanks to supply the Reds with arms is not astonishing for you?

In reply to Bruce Hooker:


So Tesco selling me food is not doing commerce, but they are in fact my allies to support me in my struggles.


No, not at all. More commerce for the US and a common goal militarily. Unless you see helping your allies when embroiled in a ferocious war as astonishing?

In reply to Bruce Hooker:


Well, history books are not a matter of objective truth. This could become even less true when future generations look back at the early years of the 21st century through the prism of Fox News. We tend to go for sources that confirm our beliefs and prejudices, rather than challenge them.


Individuals do count, but Hitler was a product of his time and there was no shortage of individuals in Germany capable of taking his place. Given the historical context, I believe WWII was inevitable, with or without Hitler in charge. Similarly I think it is far fetched to suggest that the outcome would have been significantly different without Churchill.

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

and when the Soviet Union came in they were receiving US arms too - getting the yanks to supply the Reds with arms is not astonishing for you?

...and supplied via the Arctic Convoys. An idea proposed and insisted on by Churchill.

In reply to Mr Lopez:

And all this just fell together, like ordering over the phone from Tesco's?

Well at least this theory would make history books on WW2 a bit thinner.

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

That Tesco round the corner didn't magically just appear there from one day to the other. It took the company 95 years from its creation 5 minutes down the road till the opening of this little shop 1 minute away.

Nothing is so simple.

In reply to Mr Lopez:

Errm, I think I said "like ordering over the phone from Tesco's" not" creating a firm like Tesco's".

In reality that we, ie. the civilized world, won WW2 is a total miracle. It went from bumbling error to lucky success and enormous blunders on the other side until the most unlikely alliance of Britain (and Commonwealth), the USA and the Soviet Union finally came together and, by enormous suffering, destroyed the fascist alliance, and saved the day, but with 60 million dead (or so) in the process, so, like WW1, it was not an episode that humanity can be proud of but it could have been worse if the Axis had won. In this Churchill played a major, I think determinant, role.

I gather you don't agree but bringing Tesco's into the discussion gets us nowhere.

In reply to Bruce Hooker:


Agreed. Much more than a bit of commerce, it freed up our own fighting ships to protect the english channel more effectively, the food supplies allowed our own workforce to be diverted further towards the war effort, and it greatly reduced the effectiveness of the german wolfpacks

In reply to balmybaldwin:
Churchill: the nation's farewell. on the BBC now
Paxman makes an excellent point.
'Churchills determination to defeat fascism gave us all the opportunity to choose the society we live in today'.

In reply to Gone for good:
One thing that really sticks in my mind was that it was the first time in my life that 'Martial Music' was played over the entire BBC radio/tv network. It was all pervading and really created a sense of drama about the event.

In reply to planetmarshall:

"Similarly I think it is far fetched to suggest that the outcome would have been significantly different without Churchill."

Born in the 50s I couldn't help but read and ingest assiduously on the subject of World War II over the past 50 or more years.

Your view is so much at odds with what I have read that I would like you to give us some idea of your credentials as a historian.

As for WWII being inevitable, there was a view current 30 or 40 years ago that indeed a war was inevitable, but if Britain had not stood against Hitler, or indeed if Hitler had not risen to power, that war might have been between communism and the the West.

In reply to keith-ratcliffe:

I was 11 at the time, and Dad took me out of school to attend the ceremony. It was a freezing cold day and I remember filing past the coffin and then waiting in the crowds for the cortege to go past. The event certainly was memorable, with genuinely huge and respectful crowds; and that's in sharp contrast to the day of Lady Di's funeral, when I was also in London but the thing seem vastly over hyped on the media.

It was particularly memorable for me because Dad was a teacher and never let me take a day off school, before or after.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:


It was a Saturday. Were you at a posh school?

I remember my parents sitting down in front of the TV all day to watch it. I made a funeral cortege using toy soldiers, meccano, and a napkin for the union jack!

In reply to Postmanpat:

Rumbled! Shan't use that anecdote again

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

Perfect example of memories distorted to match expectations rather than the facts

A bit like the people remembering Churchill giving the Dunkirk (fight them on the beaches) speech and feeling motivated and inspired by it, when in truth they couldn't have unless they were MP's, and even those weren't particularly inspired by the oratory according to the records...

In reply to Mr Lopez:

No, PP is quite right, I did used to go to school on Saturday mornings, - direct grant don't you know - at a guess Dad wouldn't have let me off a whole day even for Armageddon.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:

All right. Sorry, my mistake. School on Saturday though? Ouch...

In reply to Mr Lopez:

As I said earlier in the thread I had the morning off school (no faulty memory there) but my father was at work, as were many people as the weekend then is not as it is now and many office workers had Saturday afternoon and Sunday off rather than the whole weekend.

In reply to Gone for good:

An interesting debate. Like many people who have achieved things, lived in the public eye, and had to make difficult decisions, he divides opinion.

But at least he made decisions, and said what he thought. Even if at times he seemed like a loose cannon. Politicians now are afraid to make any decision, and afraid to state clearly what they think. If they make a statement nowadays, they always seem to careful to phrase it in such a way that they can say something different later, and claim it was what they meant all along. Their concerns are for their jobs and their party, not in many cases the good of the country.

WSC was a leader! Thatcher similarly was more a leader than a follower, not in the same league as WSC perhaps, equaly devisive, and perhaps didn't make the right decisions always, but did want to lead the country down the path she thought was right, not just follow the latest opinion polls.

A find Boris Johnson a breath of fresh air in that at least he says what he thinks, and seems to get things done. Unlike most politicians. Plus he amuses me!

In reply to Adderbury Climber:

Excellent comment.

In reply to planetmarshall:

That's not what he said, I don't think?

I remember my grandparents being good people, as far as being honest and having concern for the plight of people less fortunate goes, and other things one recognises as good qualities, but my two grand fathers especially were apparently rather racist at times, in referring to black people as darkies or coons (sp).

I like to think they'd have changed given enough exposure to people of different races, but without excusing that they did have, the fact they had racism in them doesn't mean they were lacking in other more positives qualities, too.

Incidentally, being of a generation which grew up having negative views about homosexuality (and with it being illegal too), it would tie in with what I've noticed in men, that homophobia and sexism and racism can seem to be grouped together, it's almost as if having a skewed perception of life (or reality) can have an effect in more than one area. My Dad's dad used to be pretty scathing about him wearing trousers which were tapered or slim fitting apparently, because they were too effeminate for his tastes presumably, or something along those lines.

In reply to wercat:


I am not a historian, nor have I claimed to be. I have read widely, but as I said before that in itself is no indication of a capacity for critical analysis. Most people tend to read opinions they already agree with.


You are conflating two different things, Britain's role in the war, and Churchill's. We tend to ascribe the actions of a government to the individual in charge, particular if that individual has considerable force of personality like Churchill or Thatcher, or indeed Hitler. The reality is that we live in a world where even the most gifted individuals are cogs in a machine. To credit the outcome of the war to Churchill's influence is at best naive and at worst disrespectful to those who stood with him.

In reply to Gone for good:

Churchills working life ,and particularly his wartime energy are remarkable in one respect;

Winston was very candid and honest when it came to talking about being followed by his "Black Dog"

Nowadays he would probably be diagnosed as a manic depressive or bipolar.

In reply to planetmarshall:


Presumably the Gruaniad in your case.

In reply to Rob Exile Ward:



My brother and I were taken to it by our parents. We were 15, and it was hugely memorable. We stood on the side of The Strand in a crowd of hundreds of thousands. The Strand was covered with thick sawdust to muffle the sound of the gun carriage's wheels .. which passed us about fifteen feet away. It was a very sombre occasion, and what I remember most strongly was that all around me there were grown men crying.

In reply to FesteringSore:


Lol. Brilliant.

In reply to planetmarshall:

You appear to have forgotten about "Peace in our time!".

In reply to wercat:




So you can comment on history.. yet not an historian.. yet noone else can?

And no, it wasn't 30-40 years ago.. it was 20 years ago.. after WW1 we fucked Germany meaning an uprising was pretty much inevitable..

Yet, what do you think Churchill argued for? trials or hangings?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/26/britain-execution-nuremberg-na...

That would have been fantastic.. another war in 20 years..

As it was the aid given to Japan and Germany was crucial in allowing them to rebuild and grow again.. who was behind that? Churchill?

In reply to IainRUK:

Did you actually read that article? Summary execution after decisions in the Commons was argued as preferable to what was suspected would be a political trial that would bring the law into disrepute. Interesting and possibly wrong but hardly suggesting Churchill was the murderous scoundrel you hint it does.

In reply to IainRUK:
It's something of a leap to state that if we had executed leading nazi figures without trial another war in 20 years is a likely or guaranteed outcome.
Germany as a war making state was finished both militarily and more importantly in the minds of it's people.
The seeds of WWII were set with the treaty of Versailles and it could be argued before that in the creation of the German state but the move away from the less expansionist Bismarck ideal led to WWI and it was just unfinished business.
There were many Fascist movements in Germany in the 1920's, Hitler's was just one of them and luck, his charisma and preparedness to flout the rule of law made it the predominant one sucking in the other ones with a similar idealogue.
But any one of the other groups gaining ascendancy would or could of led to another war. It might not have led to the associated genocides though.
It could be argued that the biggest contributor to European peace in the last 60 years is the massive American aid to rebuild Germany after WWII so another era of resentment could not grow. But the politicians of 1918 did not have that hindsight and the feeling of revenge was particularly high in France.

In reply to MG:
Yes.. or the right of a due trial....

Did I suggest he was a murderous scoundrel?

Please suggest anywhere in the following where those terms were used?

"So you can comment on history.. yet not an historian.. yet noone else can?

And no, it wasn't 30-40 years ago.. it was 20 years ago.. after WW1 we f*cked Germany meaning an uprising was pretty much inevitable..

Yet, what do you think Churchill argued for? trials or hangings?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/oct/26/britain-execution-nuremberg-na...

That would have been fantastic.. another war in 20 years..

As it was the aid given to Japan and Germany was crucial in allowing them to rebuild and grow again.. who was behind that? Churchill? "

Mark: Your last statement is exactly right.... that was why war didnt happen.. because the US poured money into Japan and Germany so the people could live good lives and not want war to rebuild....

So you are saying wercat was talking bollocks.. why not say that rather than attack me?

In reply to Adderbury Climber:

Boris says what he wants you to think he thinks. Not what he thinks.

In reply to IainRUK:


You've suggested it with the whole thrust of your posts on this thread.

I thought the article was interesting because the problem of what to do with the leading Nazis must have been a tricky one, as it outlines.

In reply to MG:


A more recent situation posing similar problems was what to do with Bin Laden, alive and then dead. Time will tell whether the right solution was chosen.

In reply to Gone for good:

I watched some of the film of the State Funeral this morning and it brought back memories from 50 years ago.

I remember that at the time there was genuine sadness at the passing of a great statesman. OK he had his faults, but there is no doubting that he was greatly respected by the population bearing in mind that it was only 20 years since the end of the War and memories were still fresh.

Britain certainly knows how to lay on a State Funeral! I doubt if any other national comes anywhere near orchestrating such an event with such precision and taste.

In reply to Trangia:

Britain certainly knows how to lay on a State Funeral! I doubt if any other national comes anywhere near orchestrating such an event with such precision and taste.

???
youtube.com/watch?v=mSLJYbhXCkE&

In reply to MG:
Well I didn't there..

And I don't think I used the term murderous..

I am against executing without trial.. I really am coming across as an outrageous f*cker on this thread...

In reply to Bruce Hooker:
Absolute nonsense..

Saddam possibly..

Bin laden was not in a cell... 100% incomparable...

It must be great to live in a world where everyone is a goody or a baddy.. We had no idea of the culpability of people, how much fear people were under to act..

No doubt they were also political but trials were essential.

This thread has been about judging history from the off.. Hypocrites who will judge him a hero say people who hold different views shouldn't judge... Yet they then judge the hitlers of the world....

Shocking but not surprising sadly..

In reply to Trangia:
Agreed.

I was 12 years old at the time and don't recall anything but a sad loss at his passing. He was looked upon as a great wartime leader, the right man in the right place and the population were unanimously greatfull. Also a coloufull character and orator.

Looking back now and pulling his past to pieces - judging him by current standards - seems rather petty and misses the point of why he was held in such esteem by the people of the time.

In reply to Moley:
Why?

1. Morals change
2. This (his war time actions) was pre the colonial suppressions

Just because he did good in one era doesn't provide him with immunity for others..

That's like saying thatcher was right about the Falklands so let's not judge the miners treatment...

We should also be free to look back on history.. We should certainly continue to look at possible war crimes as only now documents are bring released which testify to our motives regarding some attacks... Civilian targets etc..

In reply to IainRUK:
Iain, I appreciate I have given 2 conflicting comments;
Germany were militarily and mentally not willing to go to war yet American aid prevented another war. I suppose that is because how can we second guess what would have happened if certain events were different. I am musing and giving my opinion. It could be right or wrong we will never know.
As for an attack on you. That's a bit strong, I have merely given an opinion that you could not be so definite of what would have happened if such obvious war criminals had been executed.
I have no idea what Wercat has said, but if it is a particular spat you want me to get involved in count me out. I have scanned this thread as I do many being a habitual lurker and read the interesting bits and ignored the rest. I've commented on the bit I find interesting that's all.

i suppose you could use the evidence of 1918 to support the theory that Germany would have been at war again in 20 years, but surely you must agree that by 1945 the game had changed. Europe was not in any way the same place. It's why I think to make such an equivocal statement then support in the face of reasoned comment is ridiculous.

As for Winston, I don't know enough of the facts you refer to and you seem to have a particular loathing for the man. My opinion? At a time when most of the cabinet would have sued for peace and in the years before he was a lone voice in standing firm against Fascism. This could have been a character defect or a mark of a great man. Whichever it was it saved many of our parents and grandparents from the fate we were reminded of this week when the footage was rerun of the liberation of Auschwitz. Because you can be absolutely sure there was no Uncle Sam there to bail us out in 1940.

In reply to mark burley:

Go on?

When did I say I loathe the man????

Again on UKCLIMBING we can't have a balanced view.. Just an extreme.. Pick one side.. Goody baddy







Maybe look?

In reply to IainRUK:

Ok I've gone back and the word loathe may be a bit strong. Maybe it was my perception coloured by all the guff and bile somewhere in the middle of the thread but it's safe to assume your general thrust is largely negative towards Winston.

But what abut the rest of my post which I kind of thought was well put together and articulate. It took me ages too being a pleb with no degree.
I'm sorry it was so easy to denigrate and certainly didn't think it was taking one extreme view or the other.

In reply to IainRUK:

Going back to the OP "love him or loathe him", my recollections of the time were that the population loved him and I don't recall any loathing. Perhaps we were all wrong?

In retrospect does that make all the British of that generation who followed Churchill and overlooked his faults on a par with all the Germans and Nazis who supported Hitler (especially if Hitler had won WW2)?

Anyway, if I have to vote one of two ways, I head for the "love him" corner.

In reply to IainRUK:
Please don't assert in an emotive way or otherwise that I was saying who could or could not comment on history. I simply said that someone held a view that was so much at odds with most of the stuff I'd read over the past 50 years (and please don't imply that I only read material that tends to confirms my own opinion as someone tried already) and asked whether he was a historian.

Perhaps I misunderstood his meaning of the word outcome as being a simple binary state, victory or defeat for the Axis, while I was considering outcome in a far wider sense.


could you also enumerate for me any statements I have made which are, in your parlance, "b*****s"?

In reply to IainRUK:


You're off on one of your incomprehensible trips again... ease off on whatever you're taking.

In reply to wercat:


Well, making a hypothesis about which newspaper I read ( For the record, I don't read any on a particularly regular basis ) as if that has a bearing on anything would be a start. You really could have done better.

As for Churchill's bearing on the outcome of the war, I agree that 'significance' regarding different outcomes is pretty subjective. I think FDR or Stalin have a better claim to have had the greatest individual impact on who actually won. Though Churchill is rightly lauded for standing up to Hitler when this was not the popular thing to do, I think that Britain's, and hence Churchill's, role in influencing the outcome of the war is overplayed. I think as Brits we do this naturally, and fifty years of jingoistic media and press have played their role in convincing us that our role in the war was larger than it actually was.

In reply to IainRUK:


Not really, she was clearly totally wrong on both.

In reply to mark burley:

I don't know.. Tbh it's the post war stuff I think we, the UK, should be ashamed of if we are to take pride in the war.. Our treatment of people who fought for other peoples freedom and then we denied them theirs.. This was a real sticking point in US/UK relations at the time..

I can overlook early actions as that was what we did and thought was right, white people did assume they were superior.. But by the 1950-60s we knew better and the simple fact that we did delay the majorly amended Geneva conventions, for me shows we knew what we were doing was wrong.. And at a high level... I don't just hold him for that but even the fact we delayed payments for torture compensations as long was a disgrace...

I'm not sure where I'd stand.. I'd just not rather worship him as a hero tbh..

In reply to Bruce Hooker:


You've sniped and again said sod all..

In reply to planetmarshall:

"> Well, making a hypothesis about which newspaper I read ( For the record, I don't read any on a particularly regular basis ) as if that has a bearing on anything would be a start. You really could have done better."

Well I know my memory is like a sieve, but are you really sure that was me?

In reply to IainRUK:
No sniping, just a request that you post more clearly... you seem to think all of us are in your head and can understand what your often very poorly written messages mean. A desire to be anti-British may be laudable given your recent adoption of US nationality but it is hardly required, Churchill was, and is, very popular in the USA too. As for the remarks about the way Britain withdrew from it's empire I really think you should look at the way it's other European equivalents did. Often for much smaller empires the bloodshed elsewhere was often far worse. Nowadays we all, or most of us, agree that colonialism is unacceptable as a notion but at the time it was not the case. Churchill was not in the lead on this point (AFAIK) but he was already an old man, he started his career in the 19th century!, so it seems wrong to judge his whole life on this period.

The period that matters was when he was in power during WW2 and then he led the country well and in doing so saved the world. Anyone who suggests that he was just one of several responsible would need to name the others to be convincing and anyone who puts Roosevelt or Stalin as having a greater role should perhaps look carefully at what was happening for that year when Britain and it's related countries - Empire, Commonwealth, were alone against fascism. The role played by the USA and the USSR was clearly undeniable in the middle and end of the war but if Britain had given in at the beginning neither countries would have been in a position to play this role, at least not with an equal chance of victory.

In reply to wercat:


Apologies, no it wasn't.

In reply to IainRUK:

I used to think everyone was better in the 50s and 60s until I had to read some stuff about how native Americans were still being treated under US law into the 60s!

The world we have is like a currant bun, lumpy and with raisins, not all good. Be nice if you could direct your fire against ISIS who are doing a lot of harm and can defend themselves against you.

In reply to IainRUK:

"Suggest" doesn't require to use the precise words. You seen very angry for some reason.

Dubious political, propaganda-producing trial. Or decision in parliament (strictly a court anyway). I can see the decision would be difficult.

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

There is an alternative perspective on Churchill's role here from a Professor of History at East Anglia. In summary, he doesn't object to the notion that Churchill was alone in his objection to appeasement, which he describes as 'uncontroversial', but rather that it was unreasonable for him to be so.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/worldwars/wwtwo/churchill_gathering_storm_01.s...

In reply to planetmarshall:

Confusingly one of my posts this afternoon has definitely disappeared!

I don't altogether disagree with the main point of your last piece but I do think there were pivotal moments during WWII when Churchill did make a real difference. More recently ~I think Tony Blair played a pivotal role as the small cog that kept the big wheel of Bush turning when, during the late autumn before the war (iirc), it almost seemed that hostilities could be avoided if Saddam Hussein came to heel. At that point Blair became much more hawkish.

In reply to Postmanpat:


Out of respect for Churchill, I should post this

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jxFQqDLav6wC&pg=PT43&lpg=PT43&a...

In reply to IainRUK:



Bloody hell Iain, why didn't you just say that in your first post and save everyone arguing for another 250 posts!

In reply to IainRUK:
Iain, as Bruce has said we extricated ourselves from Colonialism a lot better than some our counterparts.
I wouldn't look too closely at US foreign policy post 1950 if I was you if you are looking sweet smelling roses and fairy castles.
Maybe it suited the U.S. to have a problem with our foreign policy. They didn't want any other big boys playing in their new back yard.

In reply to planetmarshall:


So he doesn't like Churchill either, but the arguments he uses aren't any more convincing than using the reports of bureaucrats of the day who were all proved to be wrong

Apart from that anyone who insists on referring to the USA as "America" is about as convincing as French jouranlists who use "Angleterre" when they mean the Royaume Unis or Grande Bretagne.

In reply to Bruce Hooker:


It's not necessary to frame everything in personal terms. As a Professor, I would assume that he is capable of forming an opinion on Churchill's achievements without needing to decide if he 'likes' or 'dislikes' him.

As for myself, I think uncritical veneration of historical figures is dangerous. I prefer to at least try to be objective about his achievements and recognise his humanity with all his flaws. I don't see the need to cast everyone as a hero or villain.

In reply to planetmarshall:

Being a professor is proof of little, otherwise all sensible countries would be run by a Parliament of them :-} Many of the arguments, or rather repeated ones of others, are clearly wrong if you look at them in detail. He wants to take a contrairian position, that's all... and his muddling "America" with the USA is unforgivable.


I can't see much of that going on in this thread, if anything people are insisting more on the critical side rather than the opposite, but a balanced view requires picking out the major events or achievements of a person's life IMO... especially for a man with such a long active life. He started when colonialism was accepted by all (except those on the receiving end!) and went right through to the collapse of this wicked way of treating people, that some of the old ways may (I don't know how true this is) have remained in him would be hardly odd. What counts overwhelmingly for me was the defeat of fascism.

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

No, everyone knows about his role in the war, not on his and the UKs post war actions. I didn't know about Kenya for a long time. We were taught about Gandhi at school but not churchills views on him, no the British actions whilst preventing our empires collapse.

We laugh at others portraying history falsely.. Yet we just gloss over some quite negative aspects of our history..

In fact the only aspect of British race issues was a role in the collapse of the slave trade..

So no I don't think many have a balanced view of Churchill.. The education we get doesn't enable that easily . If after reading about Kenya et al they decide he's a hero fair enough. No one can tell people what to think but telling people to not comment on history because they weren't there is ludicrous.

In reply to Bruce Hooker:


Totally agree.

Mick

In reply to IainRUK:


Who has said that? I certainly haven't.

Also just because you have recently learnt about the Mau Mau doesn't mean others hadn't before. Your next step, if you really want to have a balanced view on the subject of decolonialization, would be to read a little about the numerous other incredibly bloody wars of independence that took place mostly following the one you are fixating on, the Algerian one, for example, that led to about 1 million Algerian deaths and several tens of thousands colons.... torture, concentration camps, throwing prisoners from helicopters into the sea, etc etc. It wasn't a pleasant time to be an African, even if the finally got their independence.

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

Re who said it? Read... the.. thread...

Quite clearly a few haven't.. they admit so in this thread..

why?

That is ludicrous.. even for you.. so that's OK because others are worse.. so where do we finish?

We learn the excuse 'he did worse' isn't acceptable at age 6 nowadays.. not 86....

In reply to Mick Ward:

The nation had the lions heart, I had the luck to give the roar.
WSC

In reply to Simon4:

Plenty of Guardian readers are supportive of Churchill, me being one.

You make some good points in that post but as always, you spunk it with the vitriol.

In reply to IainRUK:

Stick to the shrimps Iain.

Germany f*cked Germany as several German historians have pointed out.

Churchill was flawed, he made many typical politicians mistakes by directing his generals, such as the campaign in the Dardanelles, but he has to be judged in the round, and in the times, not in hindsight. Too many people fail to recognise that when key decisions are made, the outcome is unknown.

He was the last of the Victorian leaders, rightly or wrongly. A One Nation Tory.

Did he have any choice about the decision to shell at el Kebir -A Belgrano moment. The fleet refused to surrender, the enemy has the chance to utilise the asset so you take it out.

On balance, yes, a great leader who was voted out for a leader and party designed to deliver peace, not war. .

In reply to Bruce Hooker:

You're right, like being able to play the cello is proof of anything. I could play it - piss easy just a big violin.

I agree with you - he was a man on a journey (like Haig) just had to pick up on that line.

In reply to Nevis-the-cat:

yes and we can also judge him in his times when the UK didnt act so admirably...

As I said, our and his early actions pre war were part of the times.. but later, the 50's and even 60's? I think many of the developed nations, and I include Australia and the US in this like to think we were just bastards pre war.. then suddenly became civilised. Which sadly just is not true. In Australia much of the Aborigine abuse is chalked off as centuries ago but the stolen generation ran right through to the 70's.. even late 70's....

The actions back in 1909-1920's and I think we can say it was just misplaced efforts and racism which at the time was part of society.. but by 1976? of course we can judge history..

Pointing out that we wrongly imprisoned 100,000's and tortured people doesn't mean we have to remove his war record.. as PMP points out we dont know how much central government knew about the colonial policing methods but not signing the GC suggests we did..

In reply to Nevis-the-cat:

But in this case professors can be wrong too, otherwise, as I said above, why has no country decided to be run by them? And what about the German professors who supported the nazis and tested the gas chambers on mental patients before they were used on others? They are good (some of them) at their job, just as a garage mechanic is good at repairing cars, but read the text written by this one, it's very poor - all he does is quote what the bureaucrats at the time were saying and they were all proved to be wrong, they reeled out excuses for doing nothing but did not see the dynamics of it all. Luckily Churchill did.

In reply to IainRUK:

Given your views it's odd that you choose to go to live in and take the nationality of a country that is built on the blood of it's native population - still being shed in the 20th century and since it became the superpower replacing Britain has shed more blood in more places than even the British did!

In reply to Gone for good:


It's a very graceful way of putting it. And, strictly speaking, he's entirely correct. The nation did have the lion's heart. But sometimes you need a roar, just at the right place, just at the right time. And he gave that roar. And thank God he did.

Throughout the 1930s, so many in Europe fatally underestimated Hitler, thinking he could somehow be contained. From very early on, it seems as though Churchill saw him for what he was: an unbridled sociopath who would take and take and take... until he was forcibly destroyed.

When Churchill took over, the Nazi war machine was so far advanced. To any normal leader, the situation would have appeared pretty well hopeless. What could you do? Make a deal with Hitler? Forget it. (Been down that road.) Churchill knew you could never make a deal with such a man. No matter how bad the circumstances, you fought and fought and fought, not just to fight and go down fighting but to win ultimately.

The US entry into the war made the outcome almost inevitable. But in those terrible years of 1940 and 1941, it wasn't about winning; it was about not losing. Because, if you lost, all of Europe was lost, maybe forever. And if Churchill's roar was a distinctive catalyst at such a crucial time in world history (maybe the most crucial time in all of world history), well, I, for one, am profoundly grateful.

Without Churchill's inspired leadership, what lives (if any) would we have? It doesn't bear thinking about.

Mick

In reply to Gone for good:

Ref Churchill's actions during WWII. The war ended in 1945. Churchill died in 1965.

Those PERSONALLY alive during these years( and old enough at the time to understand what was happening in the world) please offer an opinion.

All other "Children or unborn a the time" please be quiet as children should be when the adults are discussing a subject they , clearly, do not understand.

ps. I was 8 Churchill died so shall say nothing other than I remember a lot of sorrow and respect expressed by all at the time.

In reply to mgco3:

I was 21 and remember the funeral well. My parents and all their contempataries had lived and fought through the War years. Whilst folk acknowledged his faults he was still greatly respected and revered for leading Britain in her darkest hour.

Plus 1 for Mike Ward's summary at 10.39 above.

The other person who was greatly loved for sticking it out with the people during the Dark times was King Geoge Vl. I clearly remember his death and funeral. I was 9 at the time. The grief of the nation was tangible and dignified - nothing like the reaction to Princess Diana's death which an hysterical outpouring at times not a all dignified with wailing, clapping of the cortege, flower throwing, and going totally OTT with seas of flowers. What struck me about both King George's Funeral and Churchill's was the total silence in the crowds and the whole city

In reply to Bruce Hooker:


hahaha..

you live in a country which has a more brutal record yet oppose israel?

you are a f*cking loon old man.... one week done.. nighty brucey...

In reply to mgco3:





this is just bullshit... so we can only comment on what we live through.. so youve never talked about WW1

anyway a racist like you would support churchill...

In reply to IainRUK:


These are disgraceful comments and there can be no justification for them. For someone who has bitterly complained about the language and rhetoric used by other posters over the past Week I would have thought some level of restraint would be appropriate.

Before I leave this thread for the last time, a final couple of quotes from Churchill that I thought quite funny.

On Lenin. His sympathies cold and wide as the Antarctic Ocean; his hatreds tight as the hangman noose. His purpose to save the world; his method to blow it up.

Nancy Astor: 'If I were your Wife I would put poison in your coffee.'
Churchill: 'If I were your Husband I would drink it!'

And finally, Churchill was answering a call of nature in the urinals of the House of Commons when Aneurin Bevan entered. Churchill turned his back on the staunch socialist and his snub did not go unnoticed. 'Don't be shy, Winston' said Bevan, 'we've all got the same thing.' I know you socialists' replied Winston. 'As soon as you see something big and successful you want to nationalise it'.

In reply to IainRUK:


I live in France but I haven't taken French nationality, where you are born is an accident, taking the nationality of country is a political statement, at least it is for someone with such high beliefs and moral standards as your good self.

As for Israel, the only remaining major colonial situation left in the world with it's war of colonisation still going on, killing natives on a regular basis, I don't see your point. Especially as you have just sworn allegiance to the blood-smeared country which enables them to continue their ghastly business.

What you do is your own affair but you insist that Churchill be judged on his worst side, his support of Empire, disregarding the fact that he was born into a world where all countries believed in the right of might and Europeans generally believed in their superiority over other peoples. In the same way you can't complain that I point out your own worst side. A better way to judge people is on what they did, good or bad, and work out which side dominates. In Churchill's case the dominant side is fairly obvious, few people get the chance to save the world and then do it. He did.

In reply to IainRUK:

Hullo You This is me

Please don't assert in an emotive way or otherwise that I was saying who could or could not comment on history. I simply said that someone held a view that was so much at odds with most of the stuff I'd read over the past 50 years (and please don't imply that I only read material that tends to confirms my own opinion as someone tried already) and asked whether he was a historian.

could you also enumerate for me any statements I have made which are, in your parlance, "b*****s"?

OVER

In reply to Bruce Hooker:
" Especially as you have just sworn allegiance to the blood-smeared country which enables them to continue their ghastly business."

Again wrong..
When have I sworn allegiance? This is your problem you speak like you know about something, yet have no experience of life in the US so just spout absolute bollox. You do not have to swear allegiance as an immigrant in the US..

Yet that doesn't stop you making such ignorant comments.. it's just another indication of your bigoted ignorant mentality..

You are just a liar... Come on you really are getting demented with age, get it sorted.

I will swear allegiance when the time comes by the way, but I have not yet.. but you just have no idea of the immigration process.. maybe should learn before making definitive statements? Just an idea?

In reply to wercat:

Ahh you are speaking all posh.. how sweet darling..

In reply to wercat:




Then you should be willing to read things that may not support your view.. not be spoon fed what you want to believe, what we are taught. All I said was there are more than one side to churchill.. the view that he could be racist because that was how he was brought up is just ignorant. By then we knew better. As said we deliberately left out clauses in the geneva conventions so we could execute civilians, we gave them no combat status so we could just shoot on our colonial subjects..

Bruce can keep going on about 'well he did worse miss'.. which is just bollox.. other countries did do worse, other countries still do worse, that doesnt mean we should look back on the UK's actions and just excuse them as you lot are doing. Which is pretty disgusting. It says a lot that you are arguing that the detention and execution of 1000's for just wanting freedom is OK because 'thats what we did back then'...

This was in the 1950's and we did know better..

"As for WWII being inevitable, there was a view current 30 or 40 years ago that indeed a war was inevitable, but if Britain had not stood against Hitler, or indeed if Hitler had not risen to power, that war might have been between communism and the the West."

No, it was inevitable from 1919 onwards.. 20 years.. WW1 reset the deck of cards..

The US prevented a further world war by putting so much money into the development of countries after WWII, which the likes of Bruce can never off balanced opinions.. we can not offer balanced opinions of Churchill on here, nor the US.. it's either Goody Baddy.. he did worse.. Brucey Age 4 and a half...

But the treatment of Japan and Germany (the west) after the war made sure they could get back on their feet and not leave space for another Hitler.. the only way back for Germany after WWI was pretty much war, well that was all they could see.

In reply to IainRUK:

You said up the thread you had just become "American", or words to that effect, of course you could have been fibbing but in that case you really should add a little sign like a smiley to indicate this, otherwise the normal assumption one makes is that you are telling the truth... not that it matters much to me outside indicating something about you.

It does explain, I suppose, why you are getting all defensive of the yanks, they are said to have machines that read all these forums and are cross relate to their immigration system. On the other hand this is much of an urban myth, unless you put anything particularly explisive in your missives... such as "I love Fidel Castro and his beard", that could end you up in the swamp. Be careful.