Winston Churchill

Winston Churchill was a Conservative politician, member of the Parliament, and prime minister of the United Kingdom.

History

Churchill was born to an aristocratic family, being descendants of John Churchill.

Churchill served as a commissioner officer of the British Army from 1895 through 1899, seeing deployment to India and South Africa. He worked as a war correspondent and stood as the Conservative candidate in a June 1899 parliamentary by-election. Shortly after losing, he returned to service in January.

He again ran as a Conservative in the October 1900 general elections, this time winning. He was a frequent critic of Balfour despite the party affiliation; he voted against the government's bills to raise the army's budget, institute trade protectionism, and curb Jewish immigration. Ultimately, he defected to the Liberals in 1904.

After the Liberal landslide victory in the 1906 general elections, Churchill entered government under Campbell-Bannerman, joining the colonial office. When Asquith became PM in 1908, Churchill was appointed to the Board of Trade. He lost his ministerial by-election, but was handed a new safe seat the following year. The most important bill he proposed in this role was the Trade Boards Act in 1909, which established boards that were empowered to litigate on behalf of workers, and created minimum wages in select industries.

In 1910 he was appointed as home secretary; the next year he was made first lord of the Admiralty. Churchill was deeply involved with the mobilization of the British navy at the outbreak of World War 1. However, after the disastrous Gallipoli campaign which he had championed, Law made Churchill's resignation a condition of establishing a coalition government.

From November 1915 through May 1916, he returned to active duty military and served as a lieutenant colonel. He remained an MP throughout.

In 1917, when George seized control of a faction within the Liberals and became the coalition PM, Churchill returned to government as minister of munitions. His approach towards munitions factory strikes varied but did include threats to conscript striking workers. Although the Liberals lost the December 1918 election, George's coalition government remained; Churchill was promoted to secretary of state for war and secretary of state for air, simultaneously. Notably, he opposed demilitarization of Germany, arguing that they would be a key deterrent against Soviet expansion. In his wartime roles as well as secretary of state for the colonies, which he was moved into in 1921, he opposed entanglement in Iraq. He was involved in the installation of Faisal and Abdullah. He also was involved in the creation of Israel.

The Chanak Crisis precipitated the fall of the coalition and therefore the 1922 elections. Churchill was hospitalized at the time, and lost his seat in the election. In the October 1924 general elections, Churchill won a new seat, now as a Conservative. Baldwin appointed him chancellor, and he remained in that role up to the government's defeat in the May 1929 general elections.

He spent a decade in the backbenches, until the outbreak of World War 2. When Chamberlain declared war, he appointed Churchill to the admiralty and his war cabinet. He represented the government in the Norway Debate. While the vote of no confidence failed, Chamberlain was nonetheless forced to seek a national government following the invasion of Belgium on May 10th. Labour made ousting Chamberlain a precondition on any coalition, and Churchill immediately emerged as the best candidate to replace him in a national government. So, all on May 10th, Chamberlain resigned as PM and Churchill was sworn in.

Churchill led the national government throughout the war. The Battle of Britain effectively began one month into his term. Despite his fervent anti-communist ideology, he extended diplomacy to Stalin, culminating in the Yalta Conference.

In May 1945, with a general election due the next month, Labour opted to discontinue the coalition. Officially Churchill resigned and was reappointed with a new coalition government composed of Conservatives and a faction of Liberals. The Conservatives nonetheless lost the election. Despite some pressure to resign in favor of Eden, he remained as leader of the opposition.

The Conservatives won a slim majority in the October 1951 snap elections, returning Churchill to government. His health declined and Eden was largely the de facto head of government; he nonetheless refused to resign until 1955. He remained a member of the Commons until the 1964 general elections, which he did not stand for. Churchill died the next year.

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