Eighty years ago Churchill's general election campaign flounders even more deeply
Churchill continued to flounder in his campaign for the general election by treating Harold Laski's proposition that the left-wing National Executive Committee (NEC) would be the dominant force in any Labour government with an ounce of seriousness. Clem Attlee had disposed of Laski's insulting and irrelevant claim that he would only attend the Potsdam conference as an observer with ease but Churchill insisted on pressing Attlee publicly as to how a Labour government would relate to the NEC. Answering this presented Attlee with no greater difficulty. The kindest analysis of Churchill's moves was that he genuinely did not understand what was going on and was slave to a vision of the Labour Party as a totalitarian force. Labour astutely declined to field a candidate against Churchill in his South Woodford constituency. By implication his reputation as war leader was not to be challenged, leaving unspoken the opposition to him as the leader of the Conservative Party. Att...
