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War with Honour: Churchill and the British Conduct of the Second World War 1940–1945

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The Politics of Crisis

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Abstract

This was Britain in the Phoney War led by Neville Chamberlain, as portrayed by the then minor official, John Colville, who wrote that to be at Downing Street at that time was like ‘working in a comfortable well run private house’. It seems that ‘on Friday evenings Chamberlain and his wife retired to Chequers whence no murmur was heard. There was a telephone at Chequers, but it was in the pantry and only to be used in the event of dire emergency.’1 Then, with the change of Prime Minister in May 1940, ‘Churchill arrived on the scene like a jet-propelled rocket,’ Colville recorded.

‘The greatest adventurer of modern political history’ There was no unseemly hurrying. Everything was done with smooth efficiency in accordance with established routine. At 9.30 a.m. precisely the Prime Minister and Mrs Chamberlain set off, with a detective walking twenty yards behind him, to circumnavigate the lake in St James’s Park. At 9.50 they returned.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Leeds, UK

    Geoffrey K. Fry (Professor of British Government and Administration)

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© 2001 Geoffrey K. Fry

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Fry, G.K. (2001). War with Honour: Churchill and the British Conduct of the Second World War 1940–1945. In: The Politics of Crisis. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230628113_5

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