If the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, Churchill was racist

Churchill’s statue has been defaced again so…

The Churchill haters are out again. 

Not that I’m a great Churchill fan but the visceral hatred of some of them is pretty amazing.  One showed me a copy of Churchill’s quote about Hitler... so crudely clipped you could see it had been literally decontextualised...

“If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as indomitable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations”

This is a selective quote of

“One may dislike Hitler’s system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as indomitable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations” from a “1939” essay that goes on to say “I find myself pilloried by Dr. Goebbels’ Press as an enemy of Germany. That description is quite untrue… I can quite understand that this action of mine would not be popular in Germany. Indeed, it was not popular anywhere. I was told I was making ill-will between the two countries.”

When you point this out “the evidence is in front of you!” they scream…

Actually this quote was from 1937 but it was reprinted in 1939 – something else the poster hadn’t researched.  The first line had been crudely removed from the photograph of the page. 

He ran the same line that many others do that Churchill only changed his mind about the Nazis in 1939 … which would have been news to Baldwin, Chamberlain and Halifax – the latter two of which were still trying to strike a deal with Churchill well into 1940… when fortunately for the war effort Chamberlain popped his cloggs.

It’s easy to find neutral to positive things Churchill said about dictators in the 1930s because many European governments in that period were dictatorial – Italy, Germany, Spain… the former two had only been formed as countries in the 1870s… Coming out the 19th century dictatorship was the norm.  It's us who were weird.

The main line of attack of the Churchill-busters is to claim he didn’t act out of altruism or nobility but because he was a scaredycat who feared invasion.  This flies in the face of the fact that there was no actual reason the government couldn’t have struck a deal with Hitler in 1939 and we could have simply refused to come to the aid of Poland or France and sat it out like Ireland. 

It’s particularly galling hearing this preposterous argument from people in the USA whose country sat it out on the sidelines till 1942.  Where were you in Britain’s darkest hour? 

Then there is the Bengal famine for which one is repeatedly told once a week Churchill was apparently solely responsible.  I’m not an expert in WWII logistics but I know my grandfather spent most of 1942 driving from Egypt to South Africa and back as that was the best way to supply the troops because naval travel was so dangerous then.  But clearly it was ENTIRELY Churchill’s evil calculating mind that caused the starvation.

After one corners these people on their egregious lies and the implausibility of their arguments one is confronted with questions like – why are you defending a racist?  Well, call me Horace Rumpole but everyone deserves a defence… Mind you the presumption of innocence is probably out of fashion now … well, it is…  Objective truth matters.  Or it does if you’re not a propagandist using the techique of Dr. Goebbels’ – create a big lie then keep repeating it till no one questions it anymore.

The thing is if one wants to throw stones at Churchill there’s a large quarry available.  Ireland, Gallipoli, his military adventures, his admiration of Mussolini in the 20s, his threatening to gas uncivilised tribes, his hatred of Ghandi, Kenya* … so why do people feel the need to make stuff up?

Because …

Anyway who wants to look at a statue of Heath, Callaghan, Wilson, Major, Baldwin or dare I suggest it ... Thatcher…?  At least the last one has the claim that she was the first woman but although she has a statue it was felt that it wouldn't survive long enough on a plinth in London so she's been bought by the Council in Grantham who still don't have the bottle to put it up and are busy arguing over how high the plinth should be.  Maybe we should get someone like the late Henry Moore to do them all as abstracted blobs...

Still “who needs statues? – that’s money that could be spent on the NHS” replied one person when I asked who they wanted instead.

So there’s the future.  No public art at all – just ever larger NHS hospitals till we all become immortal.  Then there will be no more need for statues of the dead anymore because no one will die.  Ever.  Forever and ever.  Amen.

*the Mau Mau uprising took place from 1952-1960 and Churchill resigned mid 1955 so although he was PM at the height of the conflict we could shift some blame onto Eden and SuperMac....