Winston Churchill: A Profile In Resilience.
His political trajectory was shaped by a series of missteps and disastrous moves, that by the 1930s, his career was pronounced effectively over and yet by 1940, his mistakes made him a perfect fit for the role of saviour of his country. This is the story of the extraordinary resilience of Winston Churchill.
Herbert Henry Asquith, The liberal British prime minster from 1908–1916, in a letter to one of lady friends, wrote of a cabinet colleague:
He will never get to the top of British politics, with all of wonderful gifts; to speak with the tongue of men and angels and to spend laborious days and nights in administration, is no good, if a man does not inspire trust.
A clear indictment, by all parameters. And on whom was it pronounced?
Winston Spencer Churchill, no less.
And for a very long while, it seemed as though, Asquith’s prediction would come to pass, mirroring his late father — Lord Randolph Churchill’s political career — in the number of hare brained causes that he had championed, bone headed wars that he had fought and contemporaries whom he had alienated.
This article will take a look at a number of his missteps and how they shaped the man widely regarded as Britain’s greatest ever prime minister and the greatest Briton, in a BBC poll…