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Never was so much owed, by so many, to so few.

kaya'08

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Exactly 70 year to this day, one of the best statesmen of living history, Sir Winston Churchill, made this famous speech. It instilled hope and glory into the hearts of all men and gave us strength to go fourth and destroy the heartless, cancerous Nazi regime.

The fight was testament not to the British planes, or the British guns and bullets; but to the British heart, her national unity and her desire for peace.
While Europe crumbled under the magnificent terror of the Nazi regime, the British fought hard and long on every land, on every sea, and on every continent.

A recording of Winston Churchill's speech will be played at Whitehall at 1552 BT, exactly 70 years after the speech itself. It will be followed by a Spitfire and Hurricane fly-past over Whitehall.

 
My great grandfather never fought in the battle of Britain, but he was in the RAF as a glider pilot, and landed at Pegasus Bridge on D-Day. In fact his picture is in the Pegasus Bridge Museum.

I love this speech, and of course the other one "Lasts for 1000 years... greatest hour"
 
-- one of the best statesmen of living history, Sir Winston Churchill --

I've read a lot of historical reprises that tried to paint him out as some kind of villain, that his past showed weaknesses and character flaws which demean him as a figure - however nothing can take away the fact that he led us through our darkest hours, that he brought together an alliance to defeat the Germans and that we did not lose the war. I listened to the broadcast with hairs standing up on the back of my neck.
 
I've read a lot of historical reprises that tried to paint him out as some kind of villain, that his past showed weaknesses and character flaws which demean him as a figure - however nothing can take away the fact that he led us through our darkest hours, that he brought together an alliance to defeat the Germans and that we did not lose the war. I listened to the broadcast with hairs standing up on the back of my neck.

As far as i'm concerned, considering what the man achieved despite the odds, he is a national hero.
 
Indeed. Nobody else could have done it, especially in the opening days of his premiership when other people in his cabinet just assumed that the country would fall in due course to Hitler.


Mind, he's not a hero to everyone. To fascists, unsurprisingly, he's That B... Churchill, to the far left and socialists he was a capitalist exploiter who used the cover of war to deny workers' rights and civil liberty. And to the Poles he's the man who reneged on Britain's promise to fight a war for Poland and handed their country on a plate to Stalin.



That B*****d Churchill: Amazon.co.uk: Major M.F. Thurgood: Books

TUC | History Online - for a movement riddled with communists, I'm not surprised the TUC romanticises the Soviets. All Lefties together!

This Pole still feels stung. And he/she is by far not the only one: YouTube - Poland is a greedy hyena of Europe. Winston Churchill

He saved England, guarded the democratic world and bought time for America. But sacrificed Poland: YouTube - World War II - Carving up Poland (part 1)


________________________________

BALANCE: YouTube - Polish Pilots of the RAF



I think so - Churchill: Time for a memorial in Poland?
 
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I've read a lot of historical reprises that tried to paint him out as some kind of villain, that his past showed weaknesses and character flaws which demean him as a figure - however nothing can take away the fact that he led us through our darkest hours, that he brought together an alliance to defeat the Germans and that we did not lose the war. I listened to the broadcast with hairs standing up on the back of my neck.

Churchill IS a national hero for how he led the nation through such difficult times, especially the period of isolation (1940-1941). This doesn't make him some kind of saint. He was a wartime leader and Britain was lucky to have found someone with a bit of genius for motivation and morale building. He was not any kind of genius as a peace-time leader. In that he was seen as divisive and a leader not for the whole nation but for the ruling class. That is why, just one month after VE Day, he was so comprehensively defeated in a General Election. His utterly forgettable second period as PM (1950-1955) bears testament to the idea that wartime and peacetime require utterly different skills and abilities, perhaps that's what makes figures such as FDR and Lloyd George more exceptional politicians than Churchill. Churchill was a great wartime leader, not a great politician.
 
When I saw the title of this thread, I thought it was talking about the credit crisis in the current recession, and how much money people owe.

What a relief.
 
Churchill IS a national hero for how he led the nation through such difficult times, especially the period of isolation (1940-1941). This doesn't make him some kind of saint. He was a wartime leader and Britain was lucky to have found someone with a bit of genius for motivation and morale building. He was not any kind of genius as a peace-time leader. In that he was seen as divisive and a leader not for the whole nation but for the ruling class. That is why, just one month after VE Day, he was so comprehensively defeated in a General Election. His utterly forgettable second period as PM (1950-1955) bears testament to the idea that wartime and peacetime require utterly different skills and abilities, perhaps that's what makes figures such as FDR and Lloyd George more exceptional politicians than Churchill. Churchill was a great wartime leader, not a great politician.

I can agree everything you say Andalublue - we all just need to recognise that without his leadership, there probably wouldn't have been a 2nd term as PM to lose.

-- And to the Poles he's the man who reneged on Britain's promise to fight a war for Poland and handed their country on a plate to Stalin.

I can understand the viewpoint, however Britain was in very poor shape to take on the USSR alone and I certainly don't think the US would have backed us further. The USSR started out pretty poorly in WW2 combat but their forces and equipment took huge strides in development towards the end of the war.
 
In that he was seen as divisive and a leader not for the whole nation but for the ruling class. That is why, just one month after VE Day, he was so comprehensively defeated in a General Election.

It was because Labour promised greater rewards and reform which ordinary people wanted and thought was their due. Though people here found it ugly and distasteful, there wasn't that much pre-war spirit to crusade against Nazism until Hitler started annexing territory and rumbling the war clouds.

But that remark proves what I mean about leftist hangups about class, in much the same spirit as right wing extremists put everything on race. (Indeed, people on the fringes of both these classes have even wanted war based on them!)
 
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But that remark proves what I mean about leftist hangups about class, in much the same spirit as right wing extremists put everything on race. (Indeed, people on the fringes of both these classes have even wanted war based on them!)

Yes, I know you rightists don't want to believe that class exists, or that if it does, the distinctions between the classes are a jolly good thing. What your statement proves is that you have very little grip on modern British history. If you don't blieve that the 1945 election was one to be viewed and understood through the prism of class politics, then I suggest you do some reading on the subject. I'd suggest The Age of Extremes by Eric Hobsbawm.
 
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Not saying it didn't play a part, or that for a great many people (including Margaret Thatcher) class issues have been as much a part of the culture as fish and chips. Class issues have changed the culture.

But to see everything through the prism of class is to be as bad as those who see everything through the prism of international conspiracy theories. I don't believe in tugging the forelock but I also don't have a complex about the class system as the Left do.


And as far as I'm concerned, as long as the little man gets his chance and there's little room for political correctness, I couldn't give a stuff about the background of our leaders. If they behave badly it's because they're a bunch of Barclay's Bankers rather than toffs or scruffs.
 
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But to see everything through the prism of class is to be as bad as those who see everything through the prism of international conspiracy theories.
That's not what I said. I said you need to see the 1945 GE through that prism, not EVERYTHING.
 
From what I remember at school, the reason people voted Labour at the end of the war was because Labour promised a post-war period of reform and rebuilding.

Ordinary people had more faith that Labour cared about and reflected the cares of their class, not to just spitefully whack the toffs and Aristos as the hard Left say.
 
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From what I remember at school, the reason people voted Labour at the end of the war was because Labour promised a post-war period of reform and rebuilding.

Ordinary people had more faith that Labour cared about and reflected the cares of their class, not to just spitefully whack the toffs and Aristos as the hard Left say.

I've never heard anybody say that it was in order to "spitefully whack the toffs". Who uses that argument? Perhaps you have sources.

There was a strong belief that after the unbearably heavy sacrifice that the working classes paid for the Great War, the "country fit for heroes" that they were promised never materialised. It was straight back to the ossified and hideously unequal class structure of Edwardian and Victorian times. THIS time, they vowed, things would be different and that's what Labour promised and, as it turned out, really did deliver. The post-WWI betrayal of the working classes by the ruling classes, culminating in the great depression is what made the 1945 Labour victory almost inevitable.
 
The hard Left still bang on about class war, bashing the bosses and such today. Ordinary people weren't and aren't interested in class war, barring individual resentment at the state of someone's lot and hoping for better. Either that or they're little Wolfie Smiths who lash out about anything.



CLASS WAR - Better than a race war, which is what makes the Reds superior!

TUC Day of Action | Workers' Liberty


It's all negative with these left wing extremists, whilst ordinary people tend to be optimistic in their votes for change: Indymedia London | Events | Show | Class War Games

Jon's union blog: Class War stepped up by the bosses

Red Flags on the Red benches and blaming others for class war: Socialist Appeal - Labour's 1945 landslide and beyond

Labour had its fair share of stereotypical fatcat bashing: The Labour Party


Aaah, let's have a ceremonial bonfire of the back-issues to see it out: Last issue of anarchist paper Class War: Class War is dead..Long live the Class War

British Anarchism and the Miners Strike

‘This is class war’

Scenes from the class war: Ken Loach and socialist cinema

The end of anarchy, now that the Class War is over - News - The Independent


WHY WE NEED


___________________________________________________


NEVER MIND THE MURDERS AND OPPRESSION, the Left needs your help!! Solidarity brothers!left wing scumbuckets.jpg
 
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Exactly 70 year to this day, one of the best statesmen of living history, Sir Winston Churchill, made this famous speech. It instilled hope and glory into the hearts of all men and gave us strength to go fourth and destroy the heartless, cancerous Nazi regime.

The fight was testament not to the British planes, or the British guns and bullets; but to the British heart, her national unity and her desire for peace.
While Europe crumbled under the magnificent terror of the Nazi regime, the British fought hard and long on every land, on every sea, and on every continent.

A recording of Winston Churchill's speech will be played at Whitehall at 1552 BT, exactly 70 years after the speech itself. It will be followed by a Spitfire and Hurricane fly-past over Whitehall.




There'll always be an England
While there's a country lane,
Wherever there's a cottage small
Beside a field of grain.
There'll always be an England
While there's a busy street,
Wherever there's a turning wheel,
A million marching feet.


Red, white and blue; what does it mean to you?
Surely you're proud, shout it aloud,
"Britons, awake!"
The Empire too, we can depend on you.
Freedom remains. These are the chains
Nothing can break.


There'll always be an England,
And England shall be free
If England means as much to you
As England means to me!
 
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Now there's an irony - a bloke with a hammer and sickle flag romanticising over good old England, even the Empire bit!






____________________________________

THERE'LL ALWAYS BE AN ENGLAND? Not with the EU about to dismantle it, as their own blueprints prove!

EU wipes England off the map - as Gordon Brown flies the flag of St George over Downing Street | Mail Online

New EU map makes Kent part of same 'nation' as France - Telegraph


TREASON, TREASON, TREASON!



Hehe, you wouldn't believe the places I've been through near-on five decades of life -- I've managed to make pro-Russian/Soviet/French/British/EU/Socialist/Tory/Labour a political career.
 
Hehe, you wouldn't believe the places I've been through near-on five decades of life -- I've managed to make pro-Russian/Soviet/French/British/EU/Socialist/Tory/Labour a political career.

This makes you undecisive, confused, and without conviction.
 
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There'll always be an England
While there's a country lane,
Wherever there's a cottage small
Beside a field of grain.
There'll always be an England
While there's a busy street,
Wherever there's a turning wheel,
A million marching feet.


Red, white and blue; what does it mean to you?
Surely you're proud, shout it aloud,
"Britons, awake!"
The Empire too, we can depend on you.
Freedom remains. These are the chains
Nothing can break.


There'll always be an England,
And England shall be free
If England means as much to you
As England means to me!
Good Christ do I hate the English.
 
And what would your attitude be if I was to say that about the Americans (as many liberals rush to do)?

Or the Muslims?
 
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