Archive for winston churchill
David Cameron says trust Winston Churchill – but only when it suits
Earlier this week, David Cameron made a speech against AV in which he invoked Winston Churchill’s views on electoral systems – and saying, “If in doubt, trust Winston”. Now it’s true Winston Churchill didn’t like AV. But can you guess what electoral system this quote from Churchill was about? The present system has clearly broken [...]
Winston Churchill on electoral reform
Winston Churchill’s view on first past the post wasn’t exactly complimentary when he spoke in 1909: The present system has clearly broken down. The results produced are not fair to any party, nor to any section of the community. In many cases they do not secure majority representation, nor do they secure an intelligent representation [...]
Forgotten Liberal heroes: Clarence Henry Willcock
Listen to Liberal Democrats make speeches and there are frequent references to historical figures, but drawn from a small cast. Just the quartet of John Stuart Mill, William Gladstone, David Lloyd George, David Penhaligon corner almost all of the market, especially since Bob Maclennan stopped making speeches to party conference. Some of the forgotten figures [...]
William Beveridge, benefits and compulsion
With welfare reform very much in the news, William Beveridge is often being quoted and used as a yardstick for comparisons. So I was curious to see what he had recommended about conditions applying to benefits for people who are out of work. This is what his report said on the matter: Unemployment benefit will [...]
Book review: Saving the European Union
Andrew Duff’s book Saving the European Union: The logic of the Lisbon Treaty, written early in 2009, has an endearingly open comment about his own political views compared with those of his colleagues:
My party, the UK Liberal Democrats, and group, the Alliance for Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), have been amazingly tolerant of finding [...]
Winston Churchill: your Lib Dem Voice reader
Unsuspecting reader, you may be thinking that Winston Churchill was a fine Prime Minster, a great wartime leader, a patriotic Englishman and an inspiration to millions of Britons and generations of tabloid newspaper editors.
You would, of course, be quite wrong.
For if we apply the standards of tabloid newspaper editors to Winston Churchill, you find that [...]
Prime Minister removes all Christmas imagery from official Christmas cards
In a move sure to get Christians and tabloid newspaper journalists up in arms, the Prime Minister has removed all Christian imagery from his Christmas cards.
The picture on the front of his cards does not contain any sign of angels, crosses or any other Christian imagery.
But it’s not only Christianity that has been removed, so [...]
A Delicate Balance: the history of Liberals and hung Parliaments
The Liberal Democrat History Group meeting at Bournemouth Conference, supported by The Guardian, looked at hung Parliaments. In his introduction, the meeting chair Duncan Brack explained that one reason for picking the topic is that work such as that by John Curtice has shown that the odds of the next general election producing a hung [...]
Book review: Prime Minister Portillo and other things that never happened
I wrote this review of Prime Minister Portillo and other things that never happened: A collection of political counter-factuals, edited by Duncan Brack and Iain Dale, for the Journal of Liberal History Issue 44. “What if” histories are often disdained by those who see themselves as serious historians, but this intriguing collection – edited by [...]
