The Churchill Factor by Boris Johnson 2014

The Churchill Factor by Boris Johnson2014  355pg   30/1/19
When British troops were stuck in Dunkirk, Halifax wanted to negotiate with Mussolini to Hitler and Churchill refused.
Winston had made many errors in judgement the worst being Gallipoli. He was also the type who liked being in the limelight, a showman and a rebel to his party . He became PM with the support of the opposition and was hated but his own Tory party.
Randolph Churchill was a great supporter of Disraeli and Winston admired his father. Tories felt that they had a duty to the workers.  Churchill wrote novels like Disraeli for the same purpose.
Winston was a daring type which is good for war, times but bad for peace periods.  In 1913 only 10 years after the invention of the airplane he went for flying lessons despite the danger.  His instructor died 3 days later in that same plane. He saw front line action in Cuba, Afghanistan and the battle of Omdurman, so he never asked soldiers to risk lives not knowing what it involved.
He was very highly skilled with words with an enormous vocabulary and writing and speaking, and earned extremely well as a war reporter and had a big following. His wife Clementine was a forceful person and always gave him support as well as mellowing him, as were his 4 children. Neither he and Clemmy had extramarital affairs as was so prevalent amongst that class.
In 1910 he managed to pass a property tax law with the help of the king as they threatened to appoint more liberal peers. Churchill understood that for the good of Britain the  poor had to be helped. He realized that very few controlled the entire country and that was negative to progress.
Roy Jenkins was his official biographer. The tank was his idea to win WW1 he had the prototype made and then had 400 ready to go into action and it took the Germans time to learn how to deal with them. He was the one who built up the British navy that cut off supplies to Germany so that by the end of WW1 they were starving. He suggested the airplane launched torpedo.
He had a memory and grasp of facts and pages of poetry that he could surprise people with.  Churchill asked Laurence Olivier to produce the film Henry V to inspire the troops during WW2.
1932 Churchill and his son Randolph were in Munich researching the battle of Blenheim and American Nazi supporter there said Hitler comes into the hotel and could meet him, and asked what he would ask Hitler. Churchill said "Why attack Jews for a fault of their birth" It seem that Hitler kept away and luckily for Churchill as he was not photographed with him.
Churchill was Chancellor of the Exchequer when he kept the pound on the gold standard causing the economic disaster on advice that he did not like from all they experts.
When France was losing the war Churchill flew to Tours despite bad weather, to be told that  France could not keep fighting.
The French navy had been scuttled in most ports or escaped to Mes al Kabir, Algeria. Churchill asked them to move the ships to British ports or the Caribbean . French Admiral Dahlan wanted to keep his navy independent so Churchill ordered it destroyed and over 1000 French sailors were killed. Parliament  supported Winston as he showed he could be decisive. He now felt he would get American support somehow. Britain transferred her last assets of gold from Cape Town to America and the weapons sales brought the US out of the depression but a third of Congress voted against supplying as it was not neutral.
When Churchill met Roosevelt a year later they never offered him much but after Pearl Harbour he received a very good response from his speech. When Churchill visited Stalin in Moscow and was asked why the second front had not started, that the British were cowards, Churchill thought this strange from the man who had signed a pact with Hitler.  Hitler declared war on America after Pearl Harbour as America had not been neutral for a long time, however his declaration made America deal with Europe first.
Finally when Montgomery beat Rommel the war changed.
When the war ended there was the slogan "Cheer Churchill and vote Labour" and Clement Attlee won.  After the Potsdam conference he knew that Russia was going to enslave Eastern Europe and wanted America to be ready to prevent this but America wanted  Russia's support against Japan.
Churchill's speech in   Fulham Missouri on the Iron Curtain shocked a lot of people and the press was against him for warmongering but it was very soon after that that the Berlin crises started.
When Robert  Shuman invited Britain to be at the meeting of the European steel and coal authority which later became the European Community which had even been a Churchills idea, Attlee turned it down.  Had Britain been there from 1950 Europe would have been more democratic and had British input from the beginning.
1921 in Palestine when Churchill spoke to the Arabs they outright rejected dealing with the Jews while the Jews were prepared to compromise.