Churchill Sentiment
by Jane Knott
It seems we all want a bit of Churchill – like Shakespeare, he’s part of our national DNA and that’s fine, but Mr Thompson has managed to fall into his own trap in his letter of October 22.
He begins by saying it is historic nonsense to say how great figures in the past would think, act or vote in today’s very different world. He ends by illustrating this very point by saying it’s inconceivable that Churchill would have supported the EU.
Times change and opinions evolve. Churchillian sentiments are certainly in the air at the moment. One of my favourite placards on the march for a People’s Vote last Saturday, carried by an elderly man, read on a black background, “Never was so much lost, by so many, for the satisfaction of so few.”
Churchill’s opening phrase, ‘Never in the field of human conflict’ was omitted, of course, because the EU backdrop to Brexit contains struggle but no conflict – only 60 years of peaceful cooperation – until the moment when we heaved the biggest possible spanner in its works, thereby injuring our own and our common future.