We Shall Fight Them On The Beaches!

I'm reading a biography of Winston Churchill at the moment. It's the third biography of this very famous man that I've read – one of the other two was Martin Gilbert's ridiculously over-detailed massive multi-volumed tome (of which the first two in the series were written by Churchill's son, Randolph) which took me an entire winter to read some years ago. It's quite extraordinary to re-visit this man's life – and to re-discover what a pompous, self-bloated ego-maniac he was. People's view of him is often that he was a genius. We all remember the famous quotes attributed to him, and see them as a display of his consummate wit and ability to spring forth with a clever riposte to anything and any situation. There's the one where Lady Nancy Astor is reputed to have said: "Winston, if you were my husband, I'd poison your tea!" to which his response is claimed to have been: "Nancy, if I were your husband, I'd drink it.”

And then there's his famous rebuke to the Socialist MP Bessie Braddock who is quoted as saying to him at a party: “Mr. Churchill, you are drunk.” His reply has often been re-used by many an errant husband or similar miscreant who has been reprimanded for taking too much liquor: “And Bessie, you are ugly. You are very ugly. But I’ll be sober in the morning.” Add to these amusing anecdotes his undoubtedly inspiring orations that include such memorable phrases as: "We shall fight them on the beaches.." or "Never in the field of human conflict...." etc. and we see a man of razor-sharp insight and clarity. All good stuff. But such soundbites aside, it's his naked ambition and ruthless self-promotion that sets him apart from other luminaries in our political history.

I'm beginning to understand that at the genesis of his political career, WSC would write to anybody in power about any issue that he presumed to have an opinion on – and his assumption was (with his unshakeable confidence) that his political seniors would undoubtedly listen to him. In the main, it worked – even though most people disliked his boorish and arrogant approach, they seemed transfixed by his irresistible bombardment of correspondence on all matters ranging from free trade to the abolition of the House of Lords (strangely, he was unsuccessful in the latter campaign, bequeathing that particular quest to New Labour, some 85 years later).

This leads me to conclude that our dear Winston was no real genius – as anyone who lived through the Second World War might otherwise assert – but that he was simply consistent, dogged, and had an overflowing sense of his own importance. The odd thing about this revelation is that I actually recognize something of myself in our erstwhile hero – which brings me to the question: Why am I, Richard Pilgrim, not as famous or as successful as Mr C? After all, I have the same stubborn conviction that other people must be interested in what I have to say (hence this blog - pray indulge me, dear reader), and really that's all that Winston had at the time (no, not the blog – I mean the stubborn conviction etc...), so the parallel should be that I ought at least to be the Chancellor of the Exchequer by now, if not the Prime Minister.

My trouble, I suppose, is that I'm possibly not that much of a bully.