Much has been made of the results of the latest poll of British Academia, mostly because they’ve decided to give Clement Atlee the top spot ahead of Churchill.
Now I’d rank Atlee highly, he established the NHS and the foundations of the welfare state but he’s no Churchill.
To be honest I think the best poll in this instance is the Greatest Briton poll, Churchill won that one comfortably beating off Elizabeth I, Princes Diana (yawn), John Lennon, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Shakespeare, Newton, Nelson, Darwin and Cromwell besides the hundreds of other applicants who didn’t make the top 10.
Political science professors can go waffle all they want but Churchill had the penultimate laugh when he beat Labour in the next General Election and the last one when Atlee didn’t even register in the top 100 of the Greatest Britons poll.
It’s the British people who are fit to judge the merits of Churchill’s premiership and they already have. As Churchill once said of Atlee: “a modest man who has much to be modest about”.
Later
John
Posted by John Swaine at December 1, 2004 12:12 PM | TrackBack