Tariq Ali - Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes

Winston Churchill

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM VERSO BY TARIQ ALI

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Winston Churchill

His Times, His Crimes

Tariq Ali

First published by Verso 2022
Tariq Ali 2022

All rights reserved

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

Lumumbas Grave by Langston Hughes, from The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, Arnold Rampersad with David Roessel (eds) Estate of Langston Hughes 1994. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. French Soldiers Mutiny 1917 by Erich Fried, from 100 Poems without a Country, trans. Stuart Hood, by kind permission of Alma Books. Excerpt from Base Details by Siegfried Sassoon Siegfried Sassoon; by kind permission of the Estate of George Sassoon. In Time of War by by W. H. Auden, from Collected Poems, Edward Mendelson (ed.) Edward Mendelson, William Meredith and Monroe K. Spears 1976. Executors of the Estate of W. H. Auden. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.

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ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-577-3

ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-578-0 (UK EBK)

ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-579-7 (US EBK)

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ali, Tariq, author.

Title: Winston Churchill : his times, his crimes / Tariq Ali.

Description: London ; New York : Verso Books, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021050568 (print) | LCCN 2021050569 (ebook) | ISBN 9781788735773 (hardback) | ISBN 9781788735797 (ebk)

Subjects: LCSH: Churchill, Winston, 18741965 Influence. | Great Britain Colonies History 20th century. | Great Britain Foreign relations 20th century. | Great Britain Politics and government 20th century. | Historiography Great Britain History 20th century. | Prime ministers Great Britain Biography.

Classification: LCC DA566.9.C5 A45 2022 (print) | LCC DA566.9.C5 (ebook) | DDC 941.084092 [B] dc23/eng/20211020

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021050568

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021050569

Typeset in Sabon LT by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY

For Garth Fawkes, who will be twenty-three when the centenary of the Second World War is marked. I hope much of this book will be redundant by then, but fear it wont.

Winston Churchill: Servant of Empire

1874 Born at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, son of Tory MP Randolph Churchill and American heiress Jennie Jerome

1876 Family moves to Dublin when Randolph Churchill becomes private secretary to the viceroy of Ireland, his father John Spencer-Churchill

188895 Educated at Harrow School and Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst

189599 Commissioned as second lieutenant in the 4th Queens Hussars; skirmishes in Cuba, India, Sudan furnish material for early journalistic interventions

18991901 Resigns from the regiment to launch career in politics; free-booting military and journalistic engagements in South Africa

190104 Enters Parliament as Conservative MP for Oldham

1904 Defects to the Liberal Party

190608 Undersecretary of state for the Colonial Office in Campbell-Bannerman government

190810 Enters Asquiths Cabinet as president of Board of Trade

191011 Asquiths home secretary

191115 First lord of the admiralty; from 1914, member of Asquiths War Council

191516 Forced to resign as first lord of the admiralty as condition of Conservatives joining Asquiths National Government; rejoins Army but swiftly secures permission to leave active service after a few months on the Western Front

191719 Minister of Munitions in Lloyd Georges Cabinet

191921 Lloyd Georges secretary of state for war

192122 Secretary of state for the colonies; loses parliamentary seat in 1922 election

192429 Defects to the Conservative Party; chancellor of the Exchequer in Baldwins Cabinet

192939 Resigns from Shadow Cabinet in protest against Dominion Status for India; excluded from the Cabinet 193139; writes pot-boiling histories

1939 First lord of the admiralty in Chamberlains Cabinet

193945 Prime minister

194551 Leader of the opposition

195155 Prime minister

195565 In retirement. Dies in London, 1965, aged ninety

CO NTEN TS

I s another book on Churchill necessary? Ive asked myself this question more than once, but it seems very few others have. Most people I spoke to, including many who do not share my political opinions, argued strongly in favour of this project. Their motivation was simple. The Churchill cult was drowning all serious debate. An alternative was badly needed and instead of moaning I should get on with it. This is not to suggest that all historians who focus on Churchill are uncritical. There are some fine books out there, and I refer to them later in these pages. Its not now simply a question of providing an alternative, but of defending the right to do so. Churchill himself, whatever his shortcomings, relished a political duel and gave as good as he got. His epigones feel less intellectually/politically secure and regard any serious criticism as lse-majest. Not to be tolerated. This is unacceptable.

Participants in an anti-capitalist demonstration in 2000 sprayed Churchills statue in Parliament Square with paint and gave him a turf Mohican. The prime minister at the time, Tony Blair, was livid. According to his spin doctors diary, he went a bit over the top saying This sort of thing must never be allowed to happen again and suggesting that such demonstrations should be kept out of London. The spraying continued at irregular intervals over the following years, reaching a peak in 2020 when Black Lives Matter activists painted Churchill Was a Racist on the plinth.

This is one of the mildest criticisms of Churchill that can be made, but it caused a furore. More was to follow. In February 2021, as I was engaged in completing this book, I received a Zoom invitation to attend a virtual conference organised in Churchill College, Cambridge to discuss the politics of its namesake. Two of the panel members were academics of South Asian origin. One of them, Priya Gopal, was and remains a Fellow of the College. Unsurprisingly, the tone was critical since the discussion centred on the colonisation of India and its aftermath, especially the Bengal Famine.