H.H. Asquith

Lady Violet: “He had no doubts about his star. He felt that he had been preserved through many perils in order to fulfil its purpose.”

Violet Asquith, 1906: “I found myself sitting next to this young man who seemed to me quite different from any other young man I had ever met…”

Neither a travelogue nor a general reader, this is about “people and places,” mostly people, not a comprehensive guide to Churchill’s Britain.

Prudence, Aristotle’s primary quality of statesmen was well demonstrated by Churchill at the Admiralty in the years leading up to the First World War.

With his many achievements, Haldane stood as warning that the apex of politics, there was no such thing as friendship. Except perhaps with Churchill.

Churchill, who won a Nobel Prize, and did a few other things, cannot reply. He lies at Bladon in English earth, “which in his finest hour he held inviolate.” He’d love the controversy he stirs, on media he never dreamed of. He once said the vision “of middle-aged gentlemen who are my political opponents being in a state of uproar and fury is really quite exhilarating to me.”

Churchill offers thoughtful ideas on when representative government may be supplemented by a national vote. Above all, he thought the referendum must be rare. Only eleven times in his long career was there a call for a referendum. Only six times did he support it.

The Agadir Crisis of 1911 awakened Winston Churchill to the possibility of war with Germany and led to him being appointed to the Admiralty.

Irish self-determination is something Churchill is alleged to have opposed. The truth is quite different. Readers will do well to understand the nuances.