A fifty-year career that should have ended several times: wrong about Gallipoli, wrong about the gold standard, wrong about India, and then, in May 1940, refusing, against his own foreign secretary, to talk terms with Hitler. The voice on the radio is half Shakespeare, half barrister.
The fork
May 1940. France is collapsing, the army is trapped at Dunkirk, and the foreign secretary, Halifax, wants to sound out a deal through Mussolini. Churchill, prime minister for a fortnight, outmanoeuvres him in the War Cabinet. He survived the Dardanelles because British party politics needed him, not because of destiny.
What they wanted
He means to keep Britain fighting until America comes in. He also means to keep an empire the century is already packing up. Both can be true in the same throat.
What it cost
Gallipoli; his contempt for Indian nationalism; the Bengal famine of 1943, when his cabinet refused most of the shipping Bengal asked for; and the history he wrote about himself. Voters thank him in 1945 by sacking him.
The fight
Admirers like Manchester and Roberts build cathedrals; critics, Madhusree Mukerjee among them, point at India, Ireland and Bengal. The radio, the Channel and the 1945 election are on the record.