LONDON — Warning: if you are only interested in political history written in black and white, stop reading now.
And if you think every historical figure can be sorted into heroes and villains, jog on. After all, old chestnuts don’t come much hoarier than the perennial debate about Winston Churchill — hero or villain?
It’s a question that’s been asked again and again since John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, responded to it with just two words: “Tonypandy. Villain.”
Reams upon reams have been written about Churchill, including several thousand words by the man himself, who, unlike David Copperfield, had few doubts about whether he was the hero of his own story. Indeed, he didn’t just write to pay off the Champagne bills. He knew that those who write history tend to get the best write-ups.
So let’s be clear. Every child in the Rhondda learns the story that Churchill, as Liberal Home Secretary, sent in the troops to put down the Tonypandy Riots in 1910. It’s one of the reasons the Rhondda was the only constituency in Britain where Churchill wasn’t welcome after the war. And although some of the allegations about Churchill’s direct involvement are heavily contested, I agree with John McDonnell: It was wrong to send troops down to South Wales during the miners strike, it inflamed the situation and contributed to the gross and excessive use of force by the police. There was a better way to settle the dispute.
Striking miners in Tonypandy, 1910 | Topical Press Agency/Hulton Archive via Getty Images
There are lots of other things Churchill got wrong. Most historians — professional or amateur — have their own personal list of his failings. In World War I there was the disaster of Gallipoli, in the second the chaos of Norway. He was an ardent supporter of Franco and retained a fascination for Mussolini until late in the day. My particular beef, apart from Tonypandy, is his overly imperialistic attitude to India, which contributed to the dangerous delay in securing independence.
And before some wild-eyed Churchill fanatic lays into me, I would just point out that large numbers of Tory MPs in the 1930s also thought he was mildly deranged over this issue. He had other faults, of course. He was a bit of a misogynist, as revealed by his comment that Lady Astor’s arrival in the Commons made him feel like he was lying naked in the bath with nothing to protect him but a loofah.
But here’s the thing no sane person can ignore. Churchill was not alone in warning about Hitler and demanding that Britain rearm, but when Neville Chamberlain repeatedly sneered at Labour and picked unnecessary fights with the opposition, Churchill reached out to Labour and the unions. Many hated or distrusted him, but he united the nation in its hour of need.
When Tory MPs, many of whom like Ronnie Cartland, Jack Macnamara and Victor Cazalet were gay, opposed appeasement because they knew their gay and Jewish friends were being imprisoned and killed in Germany, Chamberlain tapped their phones and threatened them with deselection, but Churchill encouraged them. He held firm when others in the Cabinet continued to argue for appeasement even once the war had started; and in Downing Street he galvanized the English language into a potent force. Of course he didn’t win the war single-handed. Millions made sacrifices — on the battlefield and in the mines. Russia lost more sons than Britain. But it really is no exaggeration to say that we owe our liberty to him and those he led.
Let’s get over this nonsense about heroes and villains.
Besides, very few politicians have ever been saints. Sometimes the saintliest have been the least effective. George Lansbury was by all accounts a lovely man, but when he bravely decided to stand down to fight a by-election over women’s suffrage, he not only lost but found himself out of parliament for a decade, thereby denying the campaign for women’s votes another voice in parliament.
Even the geniuses who were far ahead of their time were conditioned by the world around them. Some, for instance, have criticized Churchill for supposedly flirting with the abhorrent concept of eugenics. But it is worth bearing in mind that when Major Archibald Church, the Labour MP for Wandsworth, introduced a bill “for the compulsory sterilisation of the unfit” in 1931, Churchill did not vote, but the radical Labour firebrand Ellen Wilkinson did — in favor.
So let’s get over this nonsense about heroes and villains. Many years ago a bishop asked a young girl whom he was about to confirm whether she was good or bad. She replied “streaky.” That’s the truth about every single politician I have ever met or read about. Pretending otherwise leads to people believing in their own destiny, their own immaculate conception. Beware the unmitigated hero-worshippers.
Chris Bryant is Labour MP for Rhondda.