Airstrip One

Why Winston? 6th December 2002.

So Winston Churchill has won the B.B.C.'s "Great Britons" contest, ahead of Shakespeare, Newton, Darwin, Elizabeth I, Nelson, Cromwell, Brunel, &, er, John Lennon & Princess Diana.

Winston Churchill was a great man. Had it not been for the War, he would be the most magnificent failure in British politics; as it is, his career was a triumph, his wartime leadership inspirational, strategically superb (whatever his mistakes, however much he delegated, we still beat the Germans), probably indispensable.

BUT... does that make him the greatest Briton? I had a heated argument with some Tories (as in members of that thing in Smith Square) at a party the other night, & I think they used most of the arguments on which Churchill's supporters have relied, namely:

1. He saved Britain.
True, up to a point - but why does that make him greater than Drake, who saved Britain in 1588 (it was Drake, wasn't it?), & Nelson, who saved Britain in 1797, both of whom played a far more direct role in our deliverance, & both of whom saved Britain for growth & glory, rather than, as Churchill did, for relative decline? Why, for that matter, does it make him greater than Alexander Fleming, who has saved millions of British lives?

2. He saved the world.
False. Even if we lay aside our doubts that it would have been literally the end of the world if Hitler had won (presumably the "world" would have continued in the U.S.A.?), it is surely obvious that, if Britain's role was necessary to Hitler's defeat, the roles of Russia & the U.S.A. were more necessary still - yet I can't imagine many Russians voting for Stalin in "100 Greatest Russians", & I hope to God F.D.R. would not win "100 Great Americans". Victory was a combined effort.

3. It was right to fight the war.
Probably - although there is an argument for saying that Nazi Germany & the U.S.S.R. would have destroyed each other if we had kept out, thus "saving the world" from the Cold War & the threat of nuclear annihilation, & Eastern Europe from decades of Communist tyranny. Even if we reject that argument, however - say on the grounds that sooner or later the Japanese would have drawn us in willy-nilly by attacking our colonies in the East -, it is hardly credible that standing up to the Nazis was the only right thing that any Briton has ever done.

4. Well, I think that's about it, actually.

Of COURSE it should have been Shakespeare. Shelley knew why: "My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings - look on my works, ye mighty, & despair..."