Jenkins on Churchill. . - Reviews - book review

Contemporary Review, April, 2002 by George Wedd

Churchill. Roy Jenkins. Macmillan. [pounds sterling]30.00. 1002 pages. ISBN 0-333-78290-9.

This is a great book. It is the twentieth by Roy Jenkins, and represents the culmination of his work as historian and biographer. Napoleon, perhaps, awaits -- but Napoleon was a less weighty figure, who stepped into a Europe full of voids waiting to be filled, which he did with more than a touch of the charlatan. Except for the Conservative Party in 1937-40, Churchill never found an empty space in front of him or around him, but had to make his way on to a crowded stage by energy and talent. As Lord Jenkins observes, after his Gladstone, Churchill was the obvious next challenge and he has risen to it superbly.

What are the book's strengths? Anyone interested enough to pay [pounds sterling]30 and to put the time into reading it will already have a rough knowledge of Churchill's life and principal deeds, will probably have read My Early Life, that rumbustious classic, and will have dipped into The Second World War. What does Lord Jenkins give to add to the picture of a man who painted his own self-portrait so extensively? First, the standpoint from which the book is written. There is nothing deferential or awed. It is obvious that Jenkins has himself been Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer, and came close to being Leader of his (then) party. He knows what it is like to sit in those solemn over-decorated rooms and see the same sort of business cross his desk. More generally, Lord Jenkins, President of the European Commission and Chancellor of Oxford, is a grandee on the same social level as Churchill. More specifically, Jenkins, like Churchill, likes to live well, and perfectly agrees that someone who work s with furious energy on important matters deserves good food, drink and pleasant surroundings. There is no hint of the disapproval one sometimes hears of a man who took the goods the gods provided.

Second, Lord Jenkins's own experiences give him exceptional insight into parts of Churchill's career which do not always come into the foreground, and enable him to give credit to a reforming Minister, working under Asquith and refusing to be overshadowed by Lloyd George. Labour exchanges and prison reform are just examples. Churchill was, and remained all his life, a remarkably liberal-minded man when it came to 'condition of England' questions. In his second Premiership he gave much support to Macmillan's housing drive, which put so many roofs over heads -- even if small and shoddy houses built in unimaginative masses did a lot of harm to the urban fabric. It was rather de haut en bas -- the duty of an aristocrat to be benevolent to those beneath, with rather too much talk about 'humble cottages' and the folk who lived in them, but, still, a great deal better than the attitude of 'the hard-faced men who looked as though they had done well out of the war'. Lord Jenkins is also good on Churchill's spell as Ch ancellor of the Exchequer in the 1920s, making the point that it is easy to be successful if one's predecessor (in Churchill's case, Snowden) has been prudent. This was the period of the return to the Gold Standard at its 1914 parity. He did not want to do it; all his instincts warned him against it, except for the nostalgia which linked the gold sovereign to the Two-Power Standard at sea and the quarter of the globe coloured red. He was, however, persuaded by the Treasury and the Bank of England that the City depended on the reserve-currency function and the majesty of the little yellow dises, and so the deed was done.

Third, the author is good on Churchill's personal finances. This tends to be terra incognita in a great many biographies. Lord Jenkins has researched it as fully as anyone can without having access to Churchill's bank accounts. (It's a pity that banking rules keep these away from most biographers; I recall briefly studying Nelson's bank accounts, rescued from the boiler in Coutts's basement, and ending with a much better understanding of the man and his marriage). Its amazing how Churchill skated on such thin ice for so long, and how often the ravens turned up to feed the prophet in the nick of time. It was part of his self-confident belief in his own destiny. When Jenkins translates the figure he gives into modern prices, I think he under-estimates the fall in the value of money; but we can easily make the corrections for ourselves.

The book is also very good on Churchill's domestic arrangements. Never was a man so nomadic; houses, flats and hotel suites were bought, sold, rented and borrowed. I lost count of the number of addresses. Where are we now? is the repeated question. Are we in Onslow Gardens, Marsham Street, Hyde Park Gardens, Chartwell, Chequers, or where? He travelled incessantly, at least in Europe, North America and North Africa. When not on public business, he still got around extensively. It is a down-side to his character that he was a free-loader on the largest scale; living well on other people's yachts and in their houses. Lord Jenkins does not say whether he was a generous tipper; one would like to think so, but I suspect not.