30 June 2016
That old Churchillian feeling
Boris Johnson’s claim
by J.R.Thomas
Set out the features you would like in your next male Tory Prime Minister. A family man, you might say, with perhaps four children, to sketch in a happy home life and stability. Some family background in politics so that he has an understanding of how politics work, but also the strengthening cynicism of the political insider. Perhaps overweight and a bit disorganised to endear him to the electorate. Well read, of course. A career in writing and journalism would be good, to show a life outside politics but always with a foot in country, history, polity. Not too young, to show experience. Not too old, to display energy. A strong speaker with wit and originality and that so-desirable common touch. A connection with the USA, maybe even a passport holder, would cement ties to our oldest ally.
Not easy to find, such qualities, especially if there are also things to avoid. Things such as, let’s say, what? A reputation for rebellion might damage his standing in the Conservative Party. A dubious or controversial record in political office will not help, still less a tendency to offbeat or eccentric behaviour or even a liking for confronting danger – all suggest unreliability. Periods out of office or switching of seats and allegiances, perceived as being for personal betterment rather than principle? Naked longing for high office? – tut tut, the party always prefers a seemly English modesty. A reputation as a loner, avoiding the Commons tearooms, but keeping up with offbeat chums? Oh dear, oh dear, Mr Johnson, this really is not going to work. Ah, sorry not Johnson, Mr Churchill. Indeed, yes. We’ll get back to you, Winston. Maybe.
Boris has of course recently penned a bestselling biography of Winston, and no doubt he has learned much from his reading and research for it. Though comparing their sketched in backgrounds, you might think that he really does not have such a lot to learn. If he has imbibed deeply at the Churchillian fountain, Boris will know that he could well be at a crucial point in a career which may yet be glorious, or a fading disaster.
In the mid 1930’s Winston Churchill’s political career was generally agreed to be over, even by him. He was still an MP, but had held no ministerial office since 1929. His support of the King in the abdication crisis brought him to the nadir of his reputation when he was shouted down in the House of Commons. Since that humiliating experience he had spent most of his time at his house at Chartwell where he was trying to restore his financial position by writing a magisterial biography of the 1st Duke of Marlborough, his ancestor, completed in four volumes in 1938.
It sold well – Churchill was and is immensely readable – and its completion was timely in that it freed him to begin again to engage in active politics in 1938.
Now we tend to think of Winston as one lone voice warning against the rise of German fascism. But, like Boris in the European Referendum, he was in truth but one of a number warning and counselling about events in Europe. Churchill was by then a loner, it is true; he had alarmed and repelled many natural allies by his behaviour over the abdication, and had not sought to rebuild his reputation or his links within the party. He had a small number of supporters who helped him and kept some informational channels open with the civil service and government – now under the Prime Ministership of Neville Chamberlain, who loathed Winston. Brendan Bracken was the leader of these Churchill acolytes, an MP and owner of the Financial Times about whom very little is known, even now. Bracken worked mainly with Robert Boothby, a rebellious backbencher and socialite, and Churchill’s son in law, Duncan Sandys. The main Tory group arguing against the appeasement of Hitler and for rearmament was led by Anthony Eden, who was foreign secretary from 1935 to early 1938, when he resigned in protest at both Chamberlain’s policy and his interference in foreign affairs.
Eden led a low profile group of about thirty M.P.’s and peers, who resolutely kept Churchill at arm’s length.
The completion of Churchill’s work on Marlborough had reinvigorated his appetite for politics; he later wrote that by 1938 he would have accepted any senior government job had it been offered; he was desperate for high office again. Although he was warning constantly against Chamberlains’ approach to appeasement he rarely voted against the government. He was in fact more loyal to the government that some members of the Eden group. He was also under considerable pressure from his constituency association, who at one point threatened to deselect him as the Conservative candidate; that would have meant the end of his career – he was 64. (What Boris might ruminate on as his equivalent of the “Heathrow extension card”.)
Whatever Winston’s machinations and manoeuvrings, he was seen outside political circles as a noisy and aggressive opponent of peace and within the House as a “has been” who was over ambitious and intemperate, a man whose judgement was highly suspect, and who lacked any useful political connections.
War against Germany was declared on 3rd September 1939. The same day Winston was appointed by Chamberlain as First Lord of the Admiralty, a junior sounding post but bringing him membership of the War Cabinet, a wide ranging mandate in a forum which Churchill immediately dominated. On 10th May 1940, following defeat in Norway – ironically, the failure of a strategy driven by Churchill – Chamberlain resigned and Churchill became Prime Minister, at the age of 66. (Nowadays we would regard a political disaster leading to a Prime Ministerial resignation of this sort as a prime piece of devious engineering as per the “The West Wing” or “House of Cards”. Nothing of the sort was suggested at the time, nor indeed would it have in any way been true. How cynical we have become!)
No doubt Boris is hoping that his moment is weeks away rather than many more years. He has made many enemies in his political career, though the Tory Party is always remarkably forgiving to those who enable it to hold political office. Certainly, until his declaration for “Leave” in February, Boris was regarded as perhaps lightweight, certainly ambitious, but a brilliant front man who would in the right circumstances be a popular and winning leader for the Conservatives. But his campaign for Brexit is seen as opportunistic and unprincipled; now there are a lot of backbenchers who will tend to be supporting “Anybody But Boris” as the leadership campaign cuts its bloody broadsword way through the summer.
Churchill was returned triumphantly to office because he was so dramatically proved right, his claim being underscored by his having the right talents at the right moment. Boris may in the end be proved to have made the right judgment, especially if the EU itself starts to collapse in the next couple of years as other countries start to move towards their very own Brexits. But in reality whether we do in the end Leave, and the effect that has, will be known unknowns for probably five years or more. And in the meantime Boris has to disown the reputation of being an unprincipled and not very effective trimmer. He will have a lot to prove, whether he succeeds in achieving the highest office in the land this autumn, or whether his Churchillian parallels have yet further to run.
If you enjoyed this article please share it using the buttons above.
Please click here if you would like a weekly email on publication of the Shaw Sheet
