Winston Churchill Lecture

Speeches

He never had a speech writer Someone said. He sets his ideas to rhetoric and musicians set their ideas to music, but he wasnt a natural speaker. His speeched were meticulously prepared but if he judged the mood badly his speeches could be a disaster as there was no opportunity to retune his speeeches to his audience

On 22nd April 2004 he had a disaster. He made an inprompu speech. He had a complete memory loss and stood down speechless. He never made an improntu speech again; only wih copious notes

Atlee said that Churchill was not a great parlimentarian especially as he could not always anticipiate the mood of the House and persuade the members. Atlee was right. He could not have made the "Norway" speech by Lloyd George that ultimately brought Churchill to the Prime Ministership.

His ambition was unconcealed and the bankbenchers resented it. He for instance delivered a scating attack on Balfour only for Balfour to The fact that they knew they were Blafour

1924 -1299 - Martin Gilbert said that the Exchequer was a failure later. Also he used such scathing language about Indian leaders that when he started to warn about Europe that he was ignored becuase he seemed to pandering to the extreme right wing. He also made a personal misjudgment over the abdication of Edward VIII and he became discredited and as Robert Rhodes James said that by the late 1930's he had failed.

Even after the fall of Czechoslovakia and his attack on the Munich Declaration was derided. In was only in March 1939 that the country woke up to threat. On May 12th he became PM but he was more noted for the warm words for Chamberlain than for Chuchill but on May 13th everyhting changed with the "Blood Sweat Toil and Tears".

After the war his speeches were not up to his standard and many thought he should have retired. But he had a wonderful Indian summer in his second premiership. He prepared for twenty hours on the last Defence debate just two weeks before he retired where he announced Britain's determination to develop Britain's own nuclear weapon.

28th July 1964 was his last day in the House of Commons

References

As delivered by Nicholas Soames April 26th 2011