‘Blood, toil, tears and sweat’– but not without gaiety
The cut and thrust of a parliamentary debate set against the backdrop of a house of the people’s representatives is the most civilised manner of resolving national disputes. Hence the art of public speaking has been assiduously cultivated by all aspiring and ambitious politicians over the ages. Right from ancient Greece and Rome rival schools of oratory vied with each other in attracting pupils who would go on to become consuls, politicians and statesmen. Winston S Churchill, no mean practitioner of the art himself, called the orator ‘an independent force in the world’ with his own ‘rich armoury of rhetoric’. And, it is said, every witty saying, proverb or pithy epigram adds to the strength, stability and consolidation of a language.
But the actual spectacle of a political row can often be quite savage and irreverent, only verbally, of course. With emotions running high on a charged issue, gifted rival orators can lay into each other with an acerbic and sarcastic tongue. David Lloyd George a British politician of Welsh ancestry, which explains much about his radical views and also his biting gift of the gab, was prime minister from 1916-1922 and earlier, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, the originator of the British welfare state. Incidentally, the other outstanding House of Commons orator, Aneurin (‘Nye’) Bevan, was also of Welsh origin. He belonged to the Labour Party, and as minister of health in the post-war Attlee government (1945-51) he was the chief architect of the National Health Service. When he died, his great Tory rival Winston Churchill called him the ‘greatest Welshman since the Tudors’.
These three especially (and a few others such as F E Smith with his scathing wit and impudent satire) formed the triumvirate of the masters of oratory in early twentieth century Britain. They enlivened the House of Commons with their colourful presence and when it became known that they were to speak, the public galleries would swell with spectators out to savour the rapier wit and amusing jousting of these great Conservative/Liberal/Labour rivals. Sometimes the debates lasted well into the night before a division (voting) on a motion. Late debates were not uncommon in those languid and unhurried times, and the nearly 99.9 per cent male politicians (Lady Nancy Astor being the first and sole exception in 1919) were not hen-pecked as is the norm in our own frenzied and gender-obsessed times. In a word, they were men, not mannequins, and the ‘strong, silent man’ was a much regarded personality then.
In 1909 Lloyd George introduced his ‘People’s Budget’, which taxed the rich and the landed classes to finance his social welfare reforms, such as age-old pensions and national health insurance. The House of Lords, contrary to custom and tradition, refused to pass the Treasury bill which of course directly and adversely affected the personal interests of a large majority of its members.
Lloyd George threatened to appoint two hundred and fifty new Liberal peers to offset the overwhelming Conservative majority in the Upper House. When a Conservative backbencher said that the House of Lords was the ‘watchdog of the Constitution’, Lloyd George shot back, ‘the House of Lords, far from being the watchdog of the constitution, is Mr (Arthur) Balfour’s poodle. It fetches and barks for him. It bites anybody that he sets it on to’. (Arthur Balfour was the leader of the Conservative Party, and yes, also the author of the infamous Balfour Declaration). Lloyd George also threatened ‘a great slump in Dukes’ if the House of Lords failed to pass his ‘people’s budget’. His bold populist struggle led to the Parliament Act of 1911, severely curtailing the Upper House’s power to reject a money bill. The ‘Welsh Wizards’ witticisms are referred to as Lloyd Georgisms. Among the well-known are:
On Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig: ‘Brilliant. Up to the top of his boots’.
On Sir John Simon:
‘He has sat on the fence so long that the iron has entered his soul’.
‘Sir John Simon has won so many cases against others that he lost his own’.
‘His smile was like the glitter of the brass plate on a coffin’.
‘Men shuddered when he took their hand’.
On Sir Winston S Churchill: ‘He would make a drum out of the skin of his mother in order to sound his own praises’.
On the Conservative Party’s shocking defeat in the 1906 national elections: ‘They died with their drawn salaries in their hands’.
‘The finest eloquence is that which gets things done. The worst is that which delays them’.
‘You cannot feed the hungry on statistics’.
‘Diplomats were invented simply to waste time’.
‘Four spectres haunt the poor–Old age, Accident, Sickness and Unemployment. We are going to exorcise them. We are going to drive hunger from the hearth’.
Aneurin (‘Nye’) Bevan, totally self-taught, became a past master at turning a phrase. Some rate him even higher than Churchill as a speaker. On the 1951 Labour election defeat he remarked: ‘There has been no instance of any angels rushing to our defence on this occasion. On the contrary there have been quite a number of little devils turning us round on a spit to make sure we are done well on all sides’.
These lines (referring to Helen of Troy) from Christopher Marlowe’s ‘Dr Faustus’ are arguably considered the best in the entire repertoire of English literature:
‘Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships
And burn’d the topless towers of Ilium?
Nye Bevan gave an amusing twist to this superb poetic fancy, when pointing dramatically towards an austere post-war education minister belonging to the hated Conservative Party (perhaps Barbara Castle), cried out, ‘this is the face that sunk a thousand scholarships!’
But Bevan was at his sparking best when a no-confidence motion was passed against Prime Minister Winston Churchill after the fall of Tobruk to Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s (‘the desert fox’) Afrika Korps in July 1942:
‘…The prime minister has decided to wind up the debate. In this way he will win the debate. But the country is more interested in the prime minister winning the war than in winning a debate. The prime minister wins debate after debate and loses battle after battle. The country is beginning to say that the prime minister fights a debate like a war and a war like a debate…’ and more in the same ego-bruising vein. Churchill is said to have seethed with anger and muttered he would send Nye Bevan to the Tower for sedition, but of course he could do nothing of the sort. A few other Nye Bevan nuggets are:
‘We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run down’.
‘Poor fellow, he suffers from files’.
‘The purpose of getting power is to be able to give it away.’
‘I read the newspapers avidly. It is my only form of continuous fiction’.
‘The prime minister has an absolute genius for putting flamboyant labels on empty luggage.’
But these two gifted Welshmen were in a strict sense ‘outsiders’ in the rigid class — conscious British aristocracy which dominated the island’s power structure. You had to belong to Society, directly or through ‘connections’ to truly belong.
In one of his humorous poems titled ‘Lord Lundy’ the British writer Hilaire Belloc has ‘the Duke — his aged grand-shire — rebuke the tearful Lord Lundy:
‘Sir! You have disappointed us!
We had intended you to be
The next Prime Minister but three:
The stocks were sold; the Press was squared:
The Middle Class was quite prepared.
But as it is!… My language fails:
Go out and govern New South Wales!’
This was probably how the British upper classes genuinely felt about their inalienable right to rule not only their own island but also the world in the early twentieth century.
Of the trio, Winston Spencer Churchill was the one who well and truly ‘belonged’ being a grandson of the Duke of Marlborough and son of the youngest Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Randolph Churchill. He was twice British prime minister and led the pugnacious island nation during its darkest days during World War 11. His stirring wartime speeches rallied the nation and as US President John F Kennedy later remarked, ‘he mobilised the English language and led it into battle’. A journalist, war correspondent, politician, writer and historian with a brilliant prose style (winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953) and amateur painter, he was also ‘the master of all masters’ in the field of oratory and rhetoric.
He was indeed the ‘last lion’ as his biographer Martin Gilbert termed him. He was also an out-and-out racist (who once called Gandhi ‘a half-naked faqir’) and a diehard imperialist who could not countenance Indian independence or even Dominion self-government (‘I have not become prime minister to preside over the liquidation of the British Empire’). His favourite phrase was, ‘I cannot let pass without comment…’ and his combined writings comprising many millions of words, were marked by his flashing wit, his worldly wisdom and superb style.
Many of Churchill’s witticisms are well known such as:
‘I may be drunk Miss, but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly’.
If you are going through Hell, keep going’.
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter’.
‘A sheep in sheep clothing’ (Attlee).
‘A modest man who has much to be modest about’ (Attlee).
‘The American’s will always do the right thing… after they have exhausted all the alternatives’.
A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject’.
Writing about the rebellious tribes of the North West Frontier Province, he particularly mentioned ‘the Salarzais, another pestilent tribe, whose name alone is an infliction, and the Shamozai, to whom my former remarks also apply’.
However two letters written by Winston Churchill must be quoted at length because they truly exhibit his brilliant wit and unrivalled skill at wordplay. The first was written in 1899 (as a young politician aged 25) to an elder, well known American novelist, also named Winston Churchill:
‘Mr Winston Churchill presents his compliments to Mr Winston Churchill and begs to draw his attention to a matter which concerns them both.
‘He has learnt from the Press notices that Mr Winston Churchill proposes to bring out another novel entitled Richard Carvel, which is certain to have a considerable sale both in England and America.
‘Mr Winston Churchill is also the author of a novel now being published in serial form in Macmillan’s Magazine and for which he anticipates some sale both in England and America.
‘He also proposes to publish on the 1st of October another military chronicle on the Sudan War.
‘He has no doubt that Mr Winston Churchill will recognise from this letter—if indeed by no other means—that there is grave danger of his works being mistaken for those of Mr Winston Churchill. He feels sure that Mr Winston Churchill desires this as little as he does himself.
‘In future to avoid mistakes as far as possible, Mr Winston Churchill has decided to sign all published articles, stories or other works Winston Spencer Churchill and not Winston Churchill.
‘He trusts this arrangement will commend itself to Mr Winston Churchill and he ventures to suggest, with a view to preventing further confusion which may arise out of this extraordinary coincidence, that both Mr Winston Churchill and Mr Winston Churchill should insert a short note in their respective publications explaining to the public which are the works of Mr Winston Churchill and which those of Mr Winston Churchill.
‘The text of this note might form a subject for future discussion if Mr Winston Churchill agrees with Mr Winston Churchill’s proposition.
‘He takes this occasion of complimenting Mr Winston Churchill upon the style and success of his works, which are always brought to his notice whether in magazines or book form and he trusts that Mr Winston Churchill has derived equal pleasure from any work of his that may have attracted his attention…’
The second letter was written to The Times on June 12, 1919. It was in response to a suggestion made by the Duke of Rutland, during a period of prolonged drought in Britain, that recourse be had to the Prayers for Rain in the Prayer-Book with a direct appeal to the Heavens:
‘To the Editor of The Times. Sir,– Observing reports in various newspapers that prayers are to be offered up for rain in order that the present serious drought may be terminated, I venture to suggest that great care should be taken in framing the appeal. On the last occasion when this extreme step was resorted to, the Duke of Rutland took the leading part with so much well-meaning enthusiasm that the resulting downpour was not only sufficient for all immediate needs but was considerably in excess of what was actually required with the consequence that the agricultural community had no sooner been delivered from the drought than they were clamouring for a special interposition to relieve them from the deluge.
‘Profiting by this experience, we ought surely on this occasion to be extremely careful to state exactly what we want in precise terms, so as to obviate the possibility of any misunderstanding and to economise so far as possible the need for these special appeals…
‘While welcoming the suggestion that His Grace (the Duke of Rutland) should once again come forward, I cannot help feeling that the Board of Agriculture should first of all be consulted. They should draw up a schedule of the exact amount of rainfall required in the interests of this year’s harvest in different parts of the country. This schedule should be placarded in various places of worship at the time when the appeal is made…
‘I feel sure that this would be a much more businesslike manner of dealing with the emergency than mere vague appeals for rain…
‘What is the use of having these piecemeal interpositions— now asking for sunshine, now for rain? Would it not be far better to ascertain by scientific investigation conducted under the auspices of a Royal Commission what is the proportion of sunshine and rain best suited to the ripening of the British crops?
‘A really scientific basis of climatic reform would be achieved.
I urge you, Sir, to lend the weight of your powerful organ to the systemisation of our appeals for the reform of the English climate’.
It is comforting to retreat into the past, for the past is drained of flesh and blood and fear. But coming back to reality, is there even a remote comparison with our own Machiavellian mercenaries and useless political windbags?
