Unhinged assaults on Churchill need to be challenged
ONE might imagine Churchill College, Cambridge, to have been the last place in the world where a premeditated, and entirely one-sided attack would be made on the reputation of Sir Winston Churchill, whose National and Commonwealth Memorial the college is.
Yet it was there on February 11 that the College held a symposium entitled The Racial Consequences of Mr Churchill which featured a panel of three confirmed Churchill-detractors, chaired by a fourth in the person of Professor Priyamvada Gopal, the lady who tweeted that “White lives don’t matter” at the time of the BLM demonstrations last summer.
In academic discussions at universities like Cambridge, there is usually some attempt to provide balance and objectivity in any serious, seminar-like discussion. On this occasion, the evening descended into a free-for-all of unrestrained Churchill hatred.
PROFESSOR Kehinde Andrews of Birmingham City University sneered that Churchill had not fought personally in the Second World War. “I mean, was it Churchill out there fighting the war?” he said. “Cause I’m pretty sure it wasn’t; I’m pretty sure he was at home.” Ignoring the fact that Churchill was 65 when the war broke out, and thus way past the age of conscription, in fact Churchill showed great personal bravery, going up on to the Air Ministry roof during the Blitz, and travelling 110,000 miles outside the UK, often within the radius of Luftwaffe fighters.
“I’m pretty sure that if Churchill wasn’t there,” Prof Andrews went on, “the war would have still ended in the same way, right?” Wrong. As Clement Attlee, Churchill’s deputy prime minister said, “Without Churchill, Britain might have been defeated.” Churchill’s speeches stiffening morale in 1940, and stopping
Britain from making peace with Hitler, gave the world (and especially the United States) 12 months to arm against the Nazis. It was largely Churchill’s grand strategy that was adopted by the Allies for the rest of the war.
It was then claimed by Dr Onyeka Nubia of Nottingham University that Churchill “was — I’m not saying a lame duck, but he was part of a policy that was in fact being organised by Lord Beaverbrook, by Aneurin Bevan, by Clement Attlee, and individuals such as that nature.” Quite apart from the fact that Dr Nubia was mixing up
Aneurin Bevan (who was never in Churchill’s Government) with Ernest Bevin (who was Minister of Labour in it), he was quite wrong about Churchill’s position in his ministry, which was pre-eminent, as is evidenced by the fact that he was never overruled on war strategy.
Next was Dr Madhusree Mukerjee who said, “I mean Churchill wasn’t even that popular at the time. I mean, he was never elected and after this war effort where he supposedly single-handedly led the world against the Nazis he actually lost the election.” In fact we know from Gallup Polls that support for Churchill remained above 80 per cent throughout the war — dipping briefly for a single month to 78 per cent — and thrice reached an astounding peak of 93 per cent. No other British PM has attained comparable results.
HE LOST the 1945 election because we do not have a presidential system in this country, but one that is based on constituencies, and Churchill won his with 73 per cent of the vote, before six years later winning the 1951 general election.
“The British Empire was far worse than the Nazis,” claimed Professor Andrews. “It lasted far longer; it killed far many more people.” This statement went unchallenged at Churchill College. Under the British Empire, the number of Indians nearly trebled, whereas the population of Poland fell by 17 per cent under the Nazis. Under the British Empire, life expectancy for Indians doubled, whereas the Nazis murdered six million Jews. Under the British Empire, education, communications, infrastructure, medicine, freedom of speech, parliamentary institutions, the rule of law, universities, economic development and domestic peace flourished in the majority of places for the majority of the time, whereas in the Nazi Empire most were all but destroyed.
There appears to be an atmosphere of Churchill hatred being fostered in our seats of higher learning. He undoubtedly made mistakes in his 65-year political career, but these bizarre, occasionally unhinged assaults should not have been allowed to go unchallenged.
‘There is usually some attempt to provide balance and objectivity’