June 2, 2010

Comment by the Churchill Centre: This long article is right on the facts concerning Churcill and the causes of his electoral defeat in 1945; whether you buy the author’s 2010 is of course up to you.


 

By Andrew B. Wilson

 

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May 2010 (The American Spectator) – Talk about a swift reversal in fortune. Consider how quickly British Prime Minister Winston Churchill went from winning a war to losing the peace. On V-E Day — May 8, 1945, the day after the surrender of Nazi Germany — Churchill stood on a balcony overlooking London’s Parliament Square and addressed a great, cheer

ing sea of humanity. When he told the people, “This is your victory,” they roared back: “No, it’s yours!” A little less than two months later, the British people went to the polls…and voted him out of office.

 

Just like that, the British prime minister went from basking in the glow of public adulation to staring at election results that showed an overwhelming lack of support for his continued leadership.

 

For the record: Clement Attlee and the Labour Party won 48 percent of the popular vote, compared to 40 percent for Churchill and the Conservatives and 9 percent for the Liberals. That gave the Labour Party an almost two to one advantage over the Conservatives in the House of Commons (393 seats to 213). This was, and still is, the biggest onetime swing ever in a British general election, with Labour adding a grand total of 239 seats to the 154 that it held in the previous election. Many lifelong Tories voted Labour. So too did most of Britain’s returning soldiers.

 

Read the entire article at The American Spectator here.

 

©The American Spectator

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