Debunking Churchill

The Sunday Globe had a disturbing piece on the American reverence for Winston Churchill, and British skepticism of the same. Americans see the bulldog PM amidst the ruins of Parliament, urging the Brits to "fight them on the beaches," predicting the Cold War stakes when most still saw the Soviets as allies. Brits see the villain of Gallipoli, the aristocratic Tory, the drunkard.

Richard Vinen, author of the essay and history professor at Kings College, London, ties British anti-Churchill attitudes to the post -1960s western trend of political cynicism and anti-institutionalism. This corrosive anti-nationalism (which often goes beyond not taking oneself too seriously, to outright self-loathing) is plenty healthy in the US (ironic political satire has never been so omnipresent), but equally so in the UK. The best overview of this is Peter Hitchins' bitter but effective Abolition of Britain, tracing the systematic decline of national pride, cultural institutions, religious loyalty, and political depth from Churchill to Princess Diana.

Certainly Churchill deserves better than his countrymen give him.