The Legacy of Winston Churchill - Professor Vernon Bogdanor 

I discovered this series and lecturer by accident but have been enlightened and entertained as I go through them all. Whata treasure!

I am delighted to have come across Professor Bogdanor’s talks. This one is wonderful: Churchill was a giant and I very much hope that young people are inspired by the deep integrity of this man, who achieved so much.

Enjoyable lecture about a remarkable man. Thank you for uploading this.

Thank you for an insightful and enjoyable dissertation on a pillar of history and the free world.

He once said, the price of freedom is continuous vigilance a truth that will always be!

"Indeed, Churchill's career in politics was so various that it is virtually impossible to summarize in 60 minutes." Now THERE'S an epitaph.

This was a truly great and inspiring presentation.

He said: Greek dont fight like heroes. Heroes fight like Greeks.

That was probably the greatest speech ever in Congress.

Great lecture, & an especially interesting comment by Bevin (I believe Prof. Bogdanor said), that Churchill's greatest contribution to the war effort was that "He talked about it". Pity the politician in the same position today, when sweeping contextualization or vision in a speech would be reduced to a sound-byte or 140 characters in a tweet. What strikes me, too, is the sense that Churchill could depend upon his audience having a shared and cohesive national mythology to draw upon for allegory ... today everyone (including me) constructs their own, atomized, personal myth from the virtual nation of the internet.

Another great lecture by Professor Bogdanor

Great talk!

Thank you.

Great lecture

Lots of denunciation of Churchill (sorry, but you have to give reasons for it to qualify as criticism) in the comments but nothing on what the British should have done instead.

Totally false that there is a historical consensus that Gallipoli would not have worked. It could quite conceivably have worked in which case the Ottomans could be knocked out of the war, Russia supported, Bulgaria kept out and the Central Powers would be massively weakened. Given what was known at the time and given the alternative was further infantry attacks in France before sufficient artillery was available, it was worth trying. Even though it failed, it sucked in Ottoman reserves which otherwise would have had to be fought elsewhere.

Now watch Churchill's Funeral...the Nation's farewell : ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-87Xkr8z3lEo.html

Winstiten Churchill was 20 th century s great world leader Cum diplomat whose diplomatism brought the world war 2 to an end

What was the reason he said if my dad was the American I'd have made it here on my own? And how did the dieppe raid (wasnt that 3 years earlier) influence him wishing not to push troops any further?

This was more like a Sunday sermon, where right after, you can't remember anything of what was said.

I was rather sceptical about Churchill and his legacy and hoped that Professor Bogadanor would help me more fully understand Churchill's contribution and legacy to politics and leadership. I am afraid this didn't happen. There was much that was laboured in the lecture and other things glossed over or ignored. I was glad that Gallipoli was addressed, but until I looked elsewhere I wasn't aware of the extend of the losses. 300,000 allied casualities, the vast majority of these came from the British Empire. The implications of this forced Churchill out of government and back into the army. How interesting it would have been to hear how Churchill continued to be a member of parliament, went to fight in France and returned to being a full-time mp - were others allowed to do this. I had hoped that Professor Bogdanor would have returned to the topic when he spoke about the second world war when at one point Churchill wanted to again storm the Dardenelles, however he was prevented by our US allies. During the lecture it is acknowledge that Churchill made errors in his various ministeries. The return to the Gold Standard for the sterling areas at a rate of $4 to £ was a disaster which saw the UK going into economic decline earlier and for longer than the Wall Street Crash. Yet we only have a nod by the Professor that some economists thought it did, with no real discussion. Again the legacy of Churchill and the effects this would have politically on his party's elections, particularly in Wales where the miners saw him as an enemy was not discussed. Churchill referred to himself as a 'rat' who had double ratted on his party. But what was he like to those who politically supported him - it remained unsaid. I wondered how loyal Churchill was to the likes of Ralph Wigram and others who leaked information to him which allowed Churchill to challenge the government of Stanley Baldwin on its defence policy. When Churchill was back in the government of Chamberlain as First Lord of the Admiralty we had the catastrophe of the Norway Campaign that had gone wrong. No discussion took place about Churchill's involvement in the campaign or on the repercussions to the government. Lloyd George in the parliamentary debate was to say "There could not have been a more serious condemnation of the whole action of the Government in respect of Norway". Not only did Churchill come away relatively unscaithed he became PM. In his memoires Viscount Alanbrooke, the head of the British Army, is critical about many of Churchill's interferences in military tactics, but we have no discussion of this. Whilst Diepe is mentioned, I would have liked to have heard about Operation Market Garden. Professor Bogdanor is not entirely accurate in what he says about not knowing the effect of Churchill's rhetoric. From 1937 until the 1960's Mass-Observation was used by government to understand what the public was thinking. I remember the BBC documentary The People's War which was based on the findings. It would have been useful to hear how the contempary listeners who recorded for Mass-Observation experienced the speeches. There was hardly any discussion about the 1945 election. The gaffe of Churchill's 4 June 1945 speech which likened his former Deputy Prime Minister Clement Attlee to the Nazis. Again the election does not discuss that Churchill was ahead in the 'home' vote whilst he was heavily defeated when the votes came in from military serving abroad. Churchill's constituency was Woodford, the Labour Party as a tribute to Churchill's leadership during the war did not run a candidate against him. Churchill did not go to the count but sent his wife Clementine, she understood that the game was lost when Alexander Hancock, an independent, took over a quarter of the vote. Indeed nothing is said about the fact that Churchill as leader of his party only was successful in becoming PM on his third attempt (1951). Pre-war and post war Churchill lived well above his means, in the 30's he was on the edge of bankruptcy. His writings and histories were undertaken as commercial enterprises to shore up his lifestyle as were his post war lecture tours in the USA. We are not told of Churchill's health following his first 1949 stroke and the one in 1953. Again we have large brush strokes of the government of 1951-55 and how involved the Prime Minister really was in developing the policies of his government, or the relationship which his annointed successor Eden. So all in all for me a very unsatisfactory lecture.

I read that in his last years Churchill could not remember WWII.

The Professor, being a Blairite, obsessed about Europe through a huge chunk of the second half of his address, way out of proportion to Churchill's actual involvement with Europe during his second time in office.

Churchill the Opportunist Of course, central to the neocon mythology built up around their almost deified idealization of Churchill is that he fought for (in Bush's words comparing Tony Blair to Churchill), "the right thing, and not the easy thing," right over popularity, principle over opportunism. Except that isn't true. Churchill was above all a man who craved power, and a man who craves power, craves opportunity to advance himself no matter what the cost. When Churchill entered politics, many took note of his unique rhetorical talents, which gave him power over men, but it also came with a powerful failing of its own. During WWII, Robert Menzies, the Prime Minister of Australia, noted of Churchill "His real tyrant is the glittering phrase so attractive to his mind that awkward facts have to give way."

The worst that can be said of Churchill is that he was right in his insight of affairs.The ability of the british military to carry out his ideas, was at fault.If Germany and Britain had allied at say 1900 or there abouts,we would have a very different world.

Utter rubbish! Pure fiction!

The US and Canada should merge in a United States of North America under a parliamentary system.

He was a fraud.

It's sickening the way they mimic authentic members of the establishment with the toffy accent, the clothes, the hair, the manner, and set themselves up as cultural/historical interpreters, posing as if speaking for the culture when they're actually outside of it. The effort they go to to disguise what they actually are is astounding. Only the beaky nose, the gimlet eyes and the indigestible name give it away. While this desperate effort to appear to be a member of the culture, an insider, and more than that a voice of authority is understandable as a neurosis, it's less understandable why institutions feel the need to harbor them and provide them with a platform and oxygen.

This guy hits highlights but highlights don't define someone. Jack of all trades but master of none. I am suspicious of jewish historians ON English/british persons. This guy moves Churchill into HIS agendas.