Nicholas Shakespeare BOOKtalk

John Reith had long funded who

profile -- had long funded air who

profile career, despite the fact

that his father told him it was full

of snares and as abutments.

He was

invited to become Minister of

information, and a safe seat was

found for him at Southampton. He

later admitted to Churchill that he

was rather frightened of the House

of Commons. Not nearly so frightened

as they are of you, Churchill

replied. Still, he didn't mind

sitting for Southampton. He said, I

would much rather have Southampton

than Bournemouth or any other place

with no special interest. He was

returned unopposed, and entered the

House in February 19 40. He enjoyed

being a new member, and he thought

certain aspects of politics most

revolting, like the necessity of

keeping in with one's constituents.

Luckily for him, after a few months

and just one major speech, he was

kicked upstairs to the Lords in a

re-shuffle. No more constituents.

It is deeply embedded in Britain's

national consciousness, the image of

a country standing alone against

Nazi Germany galvanised by the

leadership of Winston Churchill.

There wasn't anything inevitable

about his arrival in Downing Street.

It took a complex set of events to

force out his predecessor and to put

Churchill in his place. There was

defeat and fatal misjudgment,

unravelled by my guest in his new

minute. Set the scene for us. The

Second World War is under way,

Poland has been overrun by the Nazis

but it has gone quiet.

Chamberlain

thought he could strangle Germany by

an economic blockade. He hoped by

April, May the war would be over.

Churchill who he had brought into

his cabinet, in September, as first

Lord of the Admiralty was constantly

arguing, he wanted action against

Germany, and at every cabinet

meeting he brought up the idea of

mining the entrants to the area in

Norway providing all The Iron ore

and finally, in April, the Cabinet

gave him the go-ahead to mine the

entrance to the area and the next

day Germany invaded Norway and

Denmark, suddenly church isles great

plan for dramatic action became the

first kind of next action after the

invasion of Poland, and church,

having promoted it directed this

disastrous military campaign which

lasted about three weeks, in which

he sent ships from England to

Norway, they landed, in three

different parts of Norway, and

within two weeks, we were, three

weeks before Dunkirk we are

evacuating our army from Norway.

He

is the author of an debacle.

It is

Prso the worst military catastrophe

since the Crimea, Parliament,

suddenly, the ministers had been led

to believe this was a great military

victory, trumpeted in the press, we

have landed, taken it suddenly the

public and the politicians woke up

to the fact that we were evacuating

our army, and Parliament was

assembled to ostensibly, it was a

procedure for the holiday to have

ten days of holiday, so the

opposition and the rebel Tory MPs

decided to use this two day debate

to try and unseat Chamberlain, but

he had a majority of 21. He was

unseatable. Nobody when the debate

begins to examine the causes of this

debacle. Churchill is going to wind

up for it. The first time he has

wound up for a debate in 11 year, he

will wind up to try and explain the

catastrophe of which he was the

architect, Chamberlain is going to

open it. Nobody hen he got up on

Tuesday 7th May at 3.30 to explain

this catastrophe, believed that the

Government would be unseated.

When

we look at the Norway debate, what

some people call the hinge of fate,

the moment Britain decided to change

its leadership, the two main

protagonist are Neville Chamberlain

and Winston Churchill. They are not

debating against each other, they

are supposedly on the same side.

Chamberlain is almost dismissed as

the weak man who was Hitler's, he

manned to pull the wool over his

eyes, what was Chamberlain really

like as a Prime Minister? Minister?

Husband he as whack a figure as

people believe?

What was gripping to

me, I approached this through church

hill's lens, the official version is

written by Churchill eight years

later Theth Gaerring Storm we see he

is a dupe, a weak, stubborn

individual, weak, vain and Churchill

dominated the procedure, again, you

put the wool over this, and they got

on much better than history or

Churchill allowed at the time, and

there is evidence that Chamberlain

thought he was in, Churchill was

incredibly loyal to him, which isn't

something we necessarily feel about

him. He has twice crossed the floor

of the House of Commons and

reratted. And during this period I

think it is Churchill's loyalty that

allows him to slip into

Chamberlain's shoes, and when

Churchill becomes Prime Minister

Chamberlain is the person who allows

him to fight the Battle of Britain,

Chamberlain instead of what happened

in 1916 when Asquith is taken over,

he goes off in a huff and Lloyd

George has to kind of rule without

the help of what Churchill had the

Chief Whip helping him because...

He

had his back.

It is Chamberlain's

Spitfires and hurricanes are winning

the Battle of Britain. Churchill

argued for bomber, he said I will

never find such a colleague again.

That is after May when came were

lain is holding the fort when

Churchill is in France.

Let us look

at the transition that happens

during this debate. It is an

electric moment in the end, but it

starts off low-key, everyone expects

the Government to have a rough ride

and suddenly things boil up. What

happened to make that occur?

There

is a moment at which Admiral Keys

who had argued, a great friend of

chup hill but he argued to --

Churchill to go into Norway, become

a swashbuckling as he has done in

Zeebrugge in 1918. Suddenly, he

hears that the Navy, the reputation

of the Navy has been traduced.

The

Navy is coming the blame.

He is so

outraged. He gets up and he is a bad

speaker and he suddenly giving what

many people say is the most

devastating speech they have heard.

He attacks Churchill, he attacks the

Admiralty. Up to that moment I think

the government were going to get

away with it. Suddenly, here is a

staunch supporter and hitherto of

the Government attacking it. The

next later that night, another

member gets up. A great friend of

Churchill. A fellow constituency for

30 years, adjacent to Chamberlain.

He is the Godfather of Chamberlain

's son. They train every day. He

gets up and delivers the most

devastating attack, even more

devastating than Geoffrey Howe's

attack on Margaret Thatcher, to a

colleague. He ends it with a speech

from Cromwell addressing the long

Parliament, in the game of God go.

This is one of the most dramatic

moments I think in it is accepted in

Parliamentary history. What is

curious, act the fact the entire

eyes and ears of the nation are on

it and that Parliament is full,

no-one knows whether Chamberlain was

present to hear it. It is so

gripling even though I love the

expression, the darkest place is

always underneath the lamp. Here,

no-one has gone over this with with

more forensic attention than all the

historians of the last 50 years but

we don't know if Chamberlain is in

the room.

One of the fascinating

things is this photograph of that

debate, with Chamberlain on his

feet, it is blurred. It is out of

focus. It is underexposed but you

can kind of make out some some of of

the main players. It is thought one

of the blobs at the back is Amy

jabbing his finger at Chamberlain.

That seems to me, these photographs

were taken Ellis Italily. You

weren't allowed to take picture,

there are no pictures of Chamberlain

in the old House of Commons which

was bombed in 1941. These are the

only ones that exist of these two

famous important individuals in our

history. As you say they are like

jellyfish, blurred and they are

taken by a Conservative MP who

Churchill later makes a minister,

with a spy camera he gets from

Latvia, and he takes them, and you

are not allowed he would have been

expelled from the chamber and

suspended. The sergeant at arms

suspects he is taking them, he slips

him a note and brings out a

cigarette lighter which he rubs

along his nose. These photographs

when the House of Commons is bombed,

many of the records were

obliterated. These were only

discovered in the 60s and finally

printed up and they are the only

real recordings of this event, and

again it showed me it was a metaphor

to me that we think we know about

this stuff, it is so familiar but it

is not. It is still new. I mean...

But to move on to the next big

event. The two speeches from Admiral

Keys, the killer blow is

administered by David Lloyd George.

Lloyd George gets up, he has gone up

in a sulk. He has left the chamber

and so he misses this altercation

between Chamberlain and Morrison,

until the second day of the debate,

Labour are not going to divide the

house, because they don't feel, they

think, what is going to happen to

them it will consolidate the

Conservatives just as Jeremy Corbyn

was consolidated when there was a

vote of no confidence. It will make

him stronger. They are not going to

divide is House. On the second day

an intelligence officer comes back

from Norway, who is a prospective

Conservative MP and he is so upset

with what he has seen in Norway he

has written a memorandum, and he

instead of going into the the House

of Commons in his combat fatigues to

give it to the Chief Whip or the

Conservatives he gives it to at Lee.

He says the Leader of the

Opposition, he says you have to act.

This is what happened in Norway. It

was a disaster. If we still have

these people in power. Soth Lee

reads this and decides to convene

the Labour executive and Shea we are

going to diI vice the house. The

Conservatives think they have got

away with it. Despite Keys and

aimry, they think they will get

through this vote for Whit sun

holiday, Herbert Morrison gets up to

speak for Labour. At the end he says

we are going to divide the house.

Chamberlain makes this catastrophic

responsibilities. He says we have

friends in the House. Using the

Parliamentary term but it is

interpreted is this is a personal

thing. I have friend who will back

me up so to speak. Speak. Lloyd

George is absent but he has been

told about it. They say come down

David. There is a great altercation

in Welsh from celeb meant Davis the

liberal MP. Saying you have to come

down and attack Chamberlain because

he is appealing to friends.

What did

he say?

He comes down, he gets up,

he doesn't want to attack Churchill

his old friend, and Lloyd George

gets up, and he says that this

period calls for sacrifice and the

is no greater sacrifice that

Chamberlain must give up the seals

of office.

El Is devastating. It is like eight

years of of pent up criticism

against Chamberlain is uncorked.

Churchill is overheard saying it is

difficult for me to end the debate.

Churchill then goes down to wrap up

the debate, and there is endless cat

calls from Labour. It is bedlam. He

is trying to defend an untenable

position, and he is trying to defend

Chamberlain, who he would like to

replace.

This is where we get to the

six minutes in May of this title. It

denotes the time it took for the

vote. What happened in that vote,

because it was just a vote to

adjourn. It was a purely technical

motion. What happened?

One of the

grip things in researching this, I

discovered that at the end of every

debate there is a Victorian egg

timer, the clerks turn it over you

have six minutes for the politicians

to go into the aye or the No lobby.

Then the doors are locked by the

keepers and you can't vote after

that. So when the MP, the division

is sounded, on Wednesday 8th May

about 11.13pm, still no-one really

knows what is going to happen, the

majority of 213 seems unassailable,

and so they cross the floor, people

like John Profumo who is the first

debate he is going to vote in. He is

a Conservative MP and he goes into

vote against the Government and he

is spat on by a government minister.

People are watching which they are

going. Only as they come out of the

lobbies does the yelling begin.

People are shouting trait efor or

yes men, the teller come out. There

is silence and the Government have

only got a majority of 81. Having

had a majority of 213, and this is

one of the biggest you have to

remember that in Munich not a single

Tory MP voted against that.

This

represents a haemorrhaging.

This is

a haemorrhaging of support. He could

carry on. Chamberlain never goes

back except for a brief period. And

then, the kind of argy-bargy begins,

so the great favourite

It is a

fascinating account. Churchill

ultimately wins it but does this

book to some grow pull him off his

pedestal. He reveals he does

culpable in the military disaster.

Subtitles resume on "Thursday

in Parliament" at 2300.