Churchill was the right man for the time and to vilify him is pointless

When Mr Bell refers initially to the TV coverage of his state funeral in 1965 I get the impression from his description that he only saw the BBC version. The Independent Television coverage was arguably more appropriate, starting as it did with two of our then finest actor-orators. Lawrence Olivier brilliantly recited Wordsworth's The Happy Warrior followed by a very moving eulogy from the greatly talented Paul Scofield. The funeral was the only occasion I recall witnessing my father weep.

Mr Bell perhaps ignores the critical fact that Churchill was firstly a fighting soldier who had seen action. Who better to lead the country in time of war? Yes, he had failures behind him but I am certain he learned from them. As for him being an egoist, how could he possibly have kept going without self-belief when so many were against him during the trials ahead ? As I expect many of us have seen in our own lives, the problem comes when egoism at the top over-rides duty to others. Doubtless Churchill did understand the wartime suffering inflicted on the common citizens whom he valued and the consequences of this. I know of no evidence to suggest he did not.

I hold the view that during the Second World War it required one imperialist to fight another one. Although Neville Chamberlain died in 1940 soon after handing over the reins to Churchill, does anyone really believe that he would have been as an effective leader against Hitler, who was a far better example than Churchill of defined egoism?

I have no doubt that Churchill was the right man for the time but perhaps accept that the Labour Party were right in adopting the post-war slogan " Cheer Churchill, vote Labour". The needs of the UK after the sacrifices both demanded and given to defeat the Nazi were by then different and so therefore were the qualities and profile of the peacetime government and PM. Perhaps the ageing Churchill did go on too long in office thereafter.

Churchill may be subjected to pointless vilification these days but his determination to win when we were alone is noted even by Ian Bell as his lasting and overshadowing legacy. Surely that is a power of will which we all still admire and now sets the standard in our fight against terrorism.

" This is the happy warrior; this is he

That every man in arms should wish to be "

Bill Brown,

46 Breadie Drive,

Milngavie.

I CANNOT be alone in envying Ian Bell his perfection, lack of "warts and all", ever having had plans which failed. A few points spring to mind:

Most doctors were also against the NHS. With the UK bankrupt, many thought Attlee's reforms "unaffordable", as indeed some proved to be. Mr Bell forgets that, with Campbell-Bannerman, Asquith and Lloyd George, Churchill was one of the founders of our welfare state.

Churchill himself said "it is your victory" to the crowds on VE Day.

The "vast sacrifices of the USSR" population were indeed crucial, but in part caused by Stalin's alliance with Hitler (including military and industrial support) from their joint rape of Poland in September 1939 to June 1941. It was Churchill who forewarned Stalin of Hitler's invasion and, irony of ironies, then realised he had to bring the USSR in as our ally.

Yes, he was an imperialist, but much of his opposition to India's independence was his belief that the Hindu/Moslem divide would worsen (proved true), the "Untouchables" would suffer (a realistic fear), and it would be more vulnerable to Russian/Soviet imperialism (ditto).

Churchill's comment on the Bengal famine was hardly edifying, but in 1943 the outcome and remaining duration of the war were by no means certain; in six years of non-stop life-and-death decision-making, tragedies were not always avoidable; and from where would the food have been diverted?

He was not entirely to blame for Gallipoli. It was not bound to fail, and had it succeeded the First World War might well have ended much earlier, with consequences for the Middle East, Europe, Russia and the world more favourable than the actuality.

He took advice from all the so-called experts before returning to the gold standard, just as he took advice from Lawrence, Bell et al on the Middle East countries' borders. Eugenics too was supported by many "experts", and Dean Inge, Wells, Shaw, and the Webbs.

Dresden was not merely a peace-loving town producing nice porcelain; it was an important military supplier and transport hub. But even Churchill had doubts about its bombing. And one of the advocates of a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the USSR was Bertrand Russell (a hero of Mr Bell's?); again, the world might well be a better place now, had that at least been threatened.

To dismiss him merely as a "reckless egotist" is grotesque. As Lord Alanbrooke thought several times in the Second World war : "I don't know what we'll do with Winston; then I realised I don't know what we'd do without him".

Finally, his "beloved empire" is not forgotten; it lives on in the unique Commonwealth.

John Birkett,

12 Horseleys Park,

St. Andrews.

IAN Bell is right to expose many of the myths surrounding Winston Churchill.

Perhaps the greatest myth is that he was some kind of anti-fascist. Nothing could be further from the truth. Throughout the 1920s and 30s, Churchill was an open and enthusiastic supporter of European fascism. This included support for Mussolini in Italy, for the fascists during the Spanish civil war, the Salazar regime in Portugal, the Metaxa dictatorship Greece, the Horthy regime in Hungary et al. Throw in his earlier support for the Tsarist dictatorship in Russia and some very disturbing anti-Semitism and a very different figure emerges.

As for his opposition to the Nazis; this was not because they were Nazis but because they threatened British national and imperial interests.

The reality was that Churchill was an old reactionary who had a generalised contempt for democracy. Evidence of this was in his opposition to women's suffrage or in the extension of democracy to the millions of subjects in the British Empire. No doubt he would have opposed the extension of the franchise in the 19th century if he had been around at the time.

His view of the role of Britain's system of government was that its function was to serve the interests of Britain's ruling class and its imperial interests abroad. One wonders what his attitude to British democracy would have been if a government came to power which threatened those same interests?

William Bonnar,

129 Ardmory Avenue, Glasgow.

IAN Bell exposes the real Winston. In the early 1950s, I sat in a cinema in Dagenham when Churchill appeared in the Newsreel. The audience stood up, booed and jeered. Some walked out. These were the people in the east end of London who had endured the bombs and rockets, whose men had fought in the war, whose children had been evacuated - it was their war. Yet Churchill opposed the welfare state. No wonder they voted against him.

Bob Holman,

76 Balgonie Road, Glasgow.