Fight and Be Right: Fight and Be Right, #1

Prologue

It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link of the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.

Cabinet War Rooms, Whitehall

United Kingdom

March 2nd 1936

There was a dull thud and a trickle of dust from the ceiling as a bomb landed nearby. A few members of the Cabinet involuntarily glanced upwards, before returning their gaze to the man stood at the head of the table. Winston Churchill took another swig from the glass of whisky in front of him, and puffed on his cigar. Never, in the face of human conflict, was so much risked by the irresponsibility of so few!

He pounded his fist on the table and gestured to his right.  "Mr Allen has received the demands of the ‘Worker’s Action Committee’ He spoke the title with scorn. Assuming I can stand to hear them again, would he care to repeat them to the rest of the Cabinet?"

The Minister for Labour pulled a paper from the sheaf in front of him and cleared his throat.

There are several demands, but three primary ones. Firstly, the Committee demands that the amendment to the Septennial Act to be rescinded, allowing the dissolution of Parliament and elections to take place. Secondly, the lifting of all restrictions on the leaders and members of the Socialist Party, including the release of political prisoners, and thirdly, Allen paused for effect; The immediate opening of negotiations with the German Government, preparatory to a general cease-fire and an eventual permanent peace treaty...

There was an appalled silence. Allen continued; The letter goes on to state that if the Government does not undertake to meet these demands by midday tomorrow, a General Strike shall be called, beginning at midnight. This will include the stoppage of all civilian forms of transport including docks and railways, printing trades, the iron and steel, metal, and heavy chemical trades, and electricity and gas supply for power.  Work deemed immediately essential to the war effort shall be continued, as will civil defence and work required for public safety.

There was another explosion from above as the cabinet digested the news. Austen Chamberlain broke the silence.

Can we open negotiations? I am sure the bulk of the workers do not share the extreme views of their leaders. We could offer a generous compromise; wage increases, relax the rationing restrictions a little. The common man thinks with his mouth and wallet, after all.

The Baron Willoughby de Broke shook his head at the Chancellor.

Food rations cannot be increased- we need to stockpile in case the Americans extend their exclusion zone, and increasing consumption would slow the industrial transfer to Ireland. And who do we negotiate with? Cripps and Lansbury are in gaol already, and both are too cautious to try something like this in any case. I fear that in imprisoning their leaders we have merely cut the first heads off the Hydra.

He paused. The only Socialist leader we could talk to is the Red Baronet, and what use would that be?

Tom Lawrence, the security minister, looked up from his papers.

It would of course be quite possible to... remove Mosley from the picture. I have men in Paris watching him. They could arrange an accident easily enough, I’m sure. Shall I see to it?

The Viscount Halifax winced.

Relations with France are frosty enough as they are; assassinating Mosley on French soil would be the surest possible way to strengthen the hand of those who want France to enter the war against us. It simply cannot be risked.

All I can hear is dithering! Churchill shouted, emptying his glass. Even in peacetime, a General Strike is a challenge to the State, to the Constitution and to the nation. In war, it is quite simply treason! The conflict is progressing well. We are holding along the Himalayas, resistance in East Africa has almost ceased, the Turkish rebels will soon be dealt with and there has been significant progress in convincing the Russians to re-enter the war. There is no room for compromise- at home, abroad, or anywhere! What is Socialism? It is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, the gospel of envy; its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery!

Chamberlain shook his head.

Winston, it’s not just the Socialists. That’s the problem. Baldwin, Smith and McKenna are supporting the strike too- and whatever you think of them, you can’t paint the Liberal Conservatives as being revolutionaries. Can’t you see? You said yourself that our military strategy needs time to reverse the problems we encountered over the winter. If we don’t buy time on the Home Front then we may not get the chance to see it bear fruit.

Churchill made a dismissive gesture. Come now, who honestly cares about the Whigs? They’re just a bunch of old women. No. No compromise. No surrender. The workers ought not to have allowed themselves to be led by the nose in this shocking manner. They do not respect weakness! We must let them Strike; then, we shall strike ourselves. There was a general murmur of approval around the table.

Chamberlain narrowed his eyes at the Prime Minister. You seem to have forgotten your own father’s words, Winston. The Chancellor stabbed his finger at Churchill. "Carlisle, 1895- you speak of being there often enough. ‘If the national Party to which you and I belong is deaf to hear and slow to meet the demands of labour, the result may be that the labour interest may use its power to sweep both away!’"

The dull rumble from far above perfectly matched the Prime Minister’s reddening face. How dare you bring my father into this! roared Churchill; the whiskey tumbler soared across the room and smashed against the large map of the world on the far wall.  Do you take him for a coward? He was never one to flinch from a fight. Look at the transport strike in ’92. He would have followed exactly the same course as me!

Chamberlain raised his eyebrow and removed his famous monocle. And what of my father’s legacy in this, Winston? he asked icily. He was just as concerned with the condition of the workers as your father was. But it is futile to argue on this. We risk destroying everything they ever accomplished, Winston- everything! Not just by the aerial bombs of the Luftstreitkräfte, but by the raised fists of the workers- and the truncheons of the constabulary.

The Prime Minister glared at the Chancellor. You are using their memory as an excuse for inaction, Austen.

And you are using their memory as an excuse to act.

No. You do not understand. I don’t know if you ever did. There must be no surrender. You wish to compromise with the Reds; in that case you are the one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. Go if you wish. I shall continue regardless.

Chamberlain sighed. You are a fool, Winston. A stubborn fool. If you try to confront the workers, you will lose, you must know that. Why fight to the death against your own people? I will have no part of this. You shall have my resignation letter in the morning.

The Chancellor picked up his papers and rose to leave. Several others around the table moved to join him. Goodbye Winston. Destroy the country at a whim, if you choose.

The remaining members of the Cabinet watched them leave. Churchill stared at the door for a while, and then sighed heavily.

So be it. We cannot be blown off course. This nation will not capitulate, whether to German, Chinaman or to Red. The strikers are acting treasonously, and will be dealt with accordingly. The army will break the pickets, and the rest can see how they like breaking rocks on Orkney.

Halifax made to speak, but the Prime Minister held his hand up to stop him. "That is the end of it. No more discussion- as Mr Lincoln said, ‘Seven nays and one aye; the ayes have it’." There was another rumble from above. Churchill gazed at the door again, and then pulled a pen from his pocket, adding his signature to a piece of paper.

My friends, you can measure a man's character by the choices he makes under pressure. I have made my choice. History shall judge.

Chapter 1

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.

(Taken from Perpetual Bridesmaid: The life of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales Star Press, 1979)

"In the summer of 1876 the Prince of Wales had a narrow escape from suffering immense embarrassment. One of the Prince’s companions in India had been the Earl of Aylesford; in his absence, the Countess had assuaged her lovesickness by courting the Marquess of Blandford. Unfortunately for all concerned the affair was discovered, and an angry Earl threatened divorce proceedings. The Prince shared his friend’s anger. He publicly supported the Earl, and rashly suggested that the Marquess should divorce his own wife and marry the Countess.

The Prince’s rash intervention turned a situation which had previously been merely unfortunate into one that was potentially dangerous. In the past his own interest in the Countess of Aylesford has not been strictly platonic, and his former paramour had kept a series of incriminating Princely letters. When his remarks became known, the Countess promptly gave them to the Marquess, who quickly realised that the threat of the letters being published was a massive bargaining chip. He privately said as much to anyone who could listen, but one day when he came to show them to his brother, the rising politician Lord Randolph Churchill, the documents were nowhere to be found. At the time, it was widely assumed by those that knew of the case that the letters were a figment of the Marquess’ imagination; in fact he had carelessly left the letters on his table and they had been tidied by a maid, becoming confused with a batch of other papers in the process[1]. The mystery of the ‘Aylesford Letters’ would only be solved in the 1910s when they were rediscovered in a drawer in Blenheim, their status by then reduced to a historical curiosity..."

(Taken from ‘Lord Randolph Churchill’ by Timothy James, Picador 1978)

The Churchills were by now much in demand; Lord Randolph was now one of the accepted dandies of the day. He dressed immaculately, frequently sporting a dark blue frock-coat, his shirts were coloured, and he wore an exceptional amount of jewellery for a man. A succession of balls, dinners and parties filled the couples’ days. They were to be seen at Epson, Ascot and Goodwood, where Randolph satisfied his love of the turf and his wife electrified the social world with her beauty[2].  There was progress in the political sphere too. Churchill’s irritation at Beaconsfield over his refusal to appoint him as a Lord of the Treasury was short-lived[3], and the Prime Minister was soon a regular fixture at Lady Churchill’s dinner parties again. 

The resignation of the Earl of Carnarvon over the perennial ‘Eastern Question’ in January 1878 precipitated a general re-organisation of the Colonial Office. James Lowther, the previous Undersecretary of State, had been promoted to become Chief Secretary of Ireland; despite some misgivings, Beaconsfield decided to test his belief that Lord Randolph might be a "young man of promise". At the age of 29, Churchill entered into Government for the first time[4]...

Under the watchful eye of his ally Sir Michael Hicks Beach[5], Lord Randolph proved to be a capable and enthusiastic presence in the Colonial Office; the responsibilities of being a junior member of the Government occasionally chafed however, and on occasion his tongue got the better of him.  The advent of the Zulu war at the beginning of 1879 gave Churchill the chance to enter the limelight. The Undersecretary of State seized on this opportunity with alacrity, and made his mark by violently disagreeing with Hicks Beach over the issue of Sir Bartle Frere’s recall[6].  Unfortunately, the High Commissioner’s Royal connections outweighed even the objections of the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, and in a bizarre compromise Frere was first censured, and then promptly begged to stay on[7].

Characteristically, Churchill’s attitude to the war oscillated wildly between bouts of patriotic fervour and disgust that it had been allowed to take place in the beginning. His speech following the battle of Rorke’s Drift was a masterpiece of rhetoric; "We will not say thereafter that the Borderers fight like heroes, but heroes fight like the Borderers!" However, as the war went on Churchill came to share Salisbury’s view that the real rival to British power in the region came from the Boer states, and in May he scandalised the Commons by implying that King Cetawayo should stay on his throne after his defeat, anticipating by several years London society’s paradoxical affection for the Zulu leader[8]...

As early as June the Prince of Wales had suggested that Churchill might be the perfect candidate to lead a survey of the Cape in the wake of the war. At first Beaconsfield and Salisbury were sceptical, but the prospect of removing Churchill from Westminster for a few months seemed increasingly appealing as the end of the summer recess loomed, and the idea’s warm reception from Hicks Beach ensured that the idea was endorsed by the cabinet in September..."

(Taken from ‘Enfant Terrible: Randolph Churchill, the early years’ by James Roberts, Imperial 1978)

Lord Randolph had always been an enthusiastic traveller, and he seized with gusto the chance to visit South Africa. After an uneventful passage, the couple arrived in October 1879 and quickly set about dazzling the social world of Cape Town. Endless dinner parties in colonial society soon began to pall however, and after a month of engagements the Churchills left the Cape to go inland. The Churchills travelled far and wide, hunted enthusiastically, and met South Africans of all classes. On one such expedition, Randolph shot an antelope; its head was stuffed, sent back to England and given to his son Winston for his fifth birthday[9].

Lord Randolph’s remarkable propensity for making a few life-long friends was demonstrated on his first day visiting the town of Kimberley when he met a man destined to be one of the most controversial figures of the period. In the autumn of 1879 Cecil Rhodes was merely another one of the many civic leaders that Churchill had been introduced to during his progress across the region. However the young diamond magnate made a deep impression on the visiting Minister, and the appreciation was mutual. The two young men probably realised that they shared much in common; Churchill’s visit to Kimberley began a friendship through correspondence that developed rapidly into a lifelong bond[10]...

In early January however, the Churchills’ African jaunt almost ended in tragedy. The couple had just arrived in Durban when Randolph began to feel unwell and suddenly came down with a severe fever; he was quickly rushed to hospital, where malaria was diagnosed. For a time, his condition was judged sufficiently serious for Lady Churchill to keep a constant vigil by his bedside, but after a few days his spirits rallied; by the end of the month he was judged well enough to begin the journey home, and luckily the disease had few long term effects[11]...

Although he was not to find health in Africa, Lord Randolph did at least discover wealth, for he acquired several thousand Rand Mines shares at their original par value. These rose almost daily in value, and soon were worth enough to more than cancel the Churchills’ debts. For many years to come, Randolph was to have the luxury of knowing his personal finances were secure[12]..."

(Taken from ‘Lord Salisbury: A Biography’ by Ian Jenkins, Star 1987)

The election results telegraphed to Biarritz by Arthur Balfour were disastrous, and as Salisbury told Sir Augustus Paget, they came as a complete surprise to us; there was no premonitory sign of such a revolution."... Only 237 Conservatives returned to the Commons, against 352 Liberals and 63 Irish Home Rulers, giving Gladstone an overall majority of 52, and a majority over the Conservatives alone of 115[13]. Salisbury advised Beaconsfield to resign before meeting Parliament so as not to emphasise the scale of the defeat in a formal division. He wondered if the result might have a larger portent then a mere electoral blip. "The hurricane that has swept us away is so strange and new a phenomenon, that we shall not for some time understand its real meaning, he wrote to Balfour. It may disappear as rapidly as it came: or it may be the beginning of a serious war of classes. Gladstone is doing all he can to give it the latter meaning..."

(Taken from ‘Lord Randolph Churchill’ by Timothy James, Picador 1978)

The year 1880 did not only mark the end of a Government; it marked the end of a political epoch. All the questions that had occupied men’s minds in the 1860’s and 1870’s were swept away by new problems, and these threw up new men. Parnell had begun to emerge; Chamberlain was at least famous in the Midlands; Salisbury and Northcote, although unknown political quantities, had held Cabinet office. All these men, who were to make their mark in the next decade, had at least begun their advance. The arrival of a fifth newcomer was utterly unexpected, for it was at this moment that Lord Randolph Churchill stepped from relative obscurity and into the centre of the political stage...

Chapter 2

I am certainly not one of those who need to be prodded. In fact, if anything, I am the prod.

(Taken from ‘Lord Randolph Churchill’ by Timothy James, Picador 1978)

"The Conservative Party’s abrupt entry into opposition and Churchill’s loss of office hardly dented the enthusiasm of the former Minister; indeed, while the mood of the Tory benches in April 1880 was despondent, even bewildered, the young Parliamentarian found that the freedom the backbenches offered him suited him far better than the strictures of the Colonial Office.

It did not take long for Churchill to make his mark. Fewer than two months after the election, an initially minor controversy regarding the desire of the Atheist MP Charles Bradlaugh to affirm rather than swear the Oath of Allegiance blew up into a national cause celebre thanks to the intervention of two Tory Members, Sir Henry Drummond Wolff and Mr John Gorst. Drummond Wolff and Gorst frustrated Bradlaugh’s attempts to take his seat at every turn, and soon Churchill joined them, speaking so forcefully and charismatically that in later years he would be credited with originating the controversy. Over the next few months Churchill, Gorst and Drummond Wolff contrived increasingly ludicrous reasons to prevent Bradlaugh from affirming the oath, to the great amusement of the House and the intense discomfort of both Gladstone and Stafford Northcote, the new Tory leader in the Commons[14]..."

(Taken from The Encyclopaedia of British Politics, ed Fred Timms, Star 1976)

FOURTH PARTY, THE: The Fourth Party was the name given to an alliance of four MPs, Lord Randolph Churchill, Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, John Gorst and Arthur Balfour, in the 1880-1885 Parliament. Brought together during the ‘Bradlaugh Affair’ of 1880, the group sought to highlight the weaknesses both in the Government and increasingly also the Conservative opposition[15]... 

(Taken from ‘Britain, from Churchill to Chamberlain’ by Peter Moorcroft, Star 1983)

"In the opening years of the 1880 Parliament, the ‘Fourth Party’ soon became infamous; by early 1881 Churchill, Gorst, Drummond-Wolff and Balfour harassed the Government at every opportunity, often to a surreal degree. Hours, even days of Parliamentary time would be wasted discussing the smallest detail of the affairs of the Academy of Music, or the Meteorological Office, and the Prime Minister was unable to impose himself on the House. Time and time again, his natural love of debate and oratory would draw him into the trap of responding to his tormentors; as Balfour later related,

"Lord Randolph would merely ask, in a charming way, a number of detailed questions of Mr Gladstone on which he requested elucidation. The Prime Minister would respond- at which point Lord Randolph would lean forward and develop his theme, emphasising his points by moving his head and keeping his hands quite still. As he continued, the Prime Minister would stir like an irritated lion, crossing and uncrossing his legs and shuffling his feet, and as the cheers of the Opposition mounted he would cast aside all dignity and start shouting ‘No! No!’ as the whisper went around, ‘Randy’s drawing him!’

Mr Gladstone would eventually jump to his feet, recover his composure, and deliver a majestic reply; at which point another of us would jump up, and politely beg a further question of him... This could frequently go on for days at a time!"[16]

...at the time, the ‘Fourth Party’ was indulged with faint condescension, seen as a group of four irrepressible and roguish young men descending on the House of Commons after an excellent dinner with nothing but a fertile imagination to guide them[17]. This image hopelessly underestimated the four men however; while their colleagues rolled their eyes, chuckled or despaired at the new lows to which parliamentary behaviour had sunk, the ‘Fourth Party’ had in fact signalled the end of the Victorian political era. The passing of the great Benjamin Disraeli in April 1881 was another signal of the coming revolution; the increasing hostility of the ‘Fourth Party’ to the hesitant leadership of Sir Stafford Northcote was another..."

(Taken from The Gladstone Parliament by Sir Henry Lucy, Star 1912)[18]

"There is no reasonable doubt that had Lord Randolph been born 200 years ago he would have been the Scott of the Long Parliament, with his inexhaustible series of speeches, whilst Sir Drummond Wolff might have filled the part of Haselrigge, and Mr. Gorst might, with some modification, have stood for the shrewdly calculating Robinson. A renegade like Robinson the member for Chatham could never be, since the charge implies some sudden facing about from principle, and Mr. Gorst has never enthusiastically championed either great political party, finding enough to do in minutely criticising both.

Fortunately for Lord Randolph and the world his lines have fallen in more pleasant places. Whatever may on occasions be the secret hankering of Mr. Gladstone, he has not the power of placing Lord Randolph's head on Temple Bar, as Scott's was finally put by the man whose soul he had vexed with motions for adjournment, inconvenient questions, and interminable speech-making. The assured position of the House of Commons, and the boundless freedom secured for members, place all on a level, and Impudence can shrilly bark at the heels of Dignity without fear of consequences. Lord Randolph differs in this important respect from his prototype of the Commonwealth; that he barks all round the House with charming impartiality. Scott confined his insults, innuendoes, and open attacks to the Lord Protector, and was not unsuspected of having ulterior views with respect to the Stuarts.

Lord Randolph is free from entangling- scruples of party ties or personal attachments. A Parliamentary sapeur, nothing is sacred to him not even the cherished designs of the faithful and attached legal wing of his party. It is this catholicity of aggravation that endears Lord Randolph Churchill to a considerable section of the House. It is true that this is not quite a new departure in modern Parliamentary life. Lord Randolph Churchill learnt it from the Irish members, who gained their prominence and their power from this habit of untrammelled attack. But it is new, and some members even think it nice, to have the son of a duke thus comporting himself…"

(Taken from ‘Enfant Terrible: Randolph Churchill, the early years’ by James Roberts, Imperial 1978)

"As early as October 1880 Lord Randolph found himself looking to the question of the future leadership of the Party, should Lord Beaconsfield retire. His conclusions were characteristically impudent, although ironic in retrospect. Stafford Northcote, whom he derisively referred to as ‘the Goat’, was;

"quite nauseating, and simply unworthy of the leader of the Tory Party. I have heard that Lord Beaconsfield is quite unwell and before long we may have to choose a successor. The Fourth Party are thoroughly in favour of Lord Salisbury as opposed to the Goat..."

The death of Beaconsfield in April the following year and the establishment of as ‘dual leadership’ with Lord Salisbury as Leader of the Lords and Northcote as Leader of the Commons[19] was a bitter disappointment to Churchill. For a time, he continued his pro-Salisbury stance; indeed, the involvement of Salisbury’s nephew Arthur Balfour in the Fourth Party inclined many to believe that the grouping was simply a way of spreading Salisbury’s influence in the Commons. However, even as early as the following autumn the group showed more independence of mind when an anonymous article written by ‘two conservatives’, appeared in the Fortnightly Review. It launched a full-scale attack on the Tory leadership and the aloofness of its ruling circle, and was widely assumed to have been written by Churchill and Gorst[20]...

(Taken from The Encyclopaedia of British Politics, ed Fred Timms, Star 1976)

PHOENIX PARK ATROCITY: Assassination of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Earl Spencer by Irish Nationalists in June 1882[21]. In May that year, W.E Gladstone's decision to release the Irish Nationalist leader Charles Stewart Parnell from prison and the subsequent ‘Kilmainham Treaty’ led to the resignation of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, W. E. Forster. As a result, Earl Spencer was asked to return to his old position as Lord Lieutenant to take charge of the Government's Irish policy. Barely two weeks after he arrived, the Earl was walking in the grounds of the Viceregal Lodge in Dublin when three men ran up to him and stabbed him repeatedly with surgical knives[22]. The murder provoked outrage in Britain, and Charles Parnell’s speech condemning the attack proved to be one of the factors that catapulted him to national fame...

(Taken from ‘Lord Salisbury: A Biography’ by Ian Jenkins, Star 1987)

Attacking Gladstone’s Irish policy in public meetings over the ten days following Spencer’s assassination was liable to offend sentiments and backfire, and Salisbury told his colleagues he would not do it. But Randolph Churchill had no such objections. Just a week after the killing on May 18th Churchill sent a letter the Times commending the Cheltenham Conservatives for their resolution that the murder was due to "the feebleness of the Government; he wrote that The resolutions appear to me to be absolutely right, not only in the horror they express at the crime committed in Dublin, but also of the close connection they trace between the crime and the so-called ‘treaty’ that has caused it!" This was as good as blaming Gladstone for his friend’s death[23].

The letter was generally regarded to be in somewhat bad taste. Yet it nonetheless struck a nerve within the Conservative Party. Stung into action by its reception, Salisbury was keen to emphasise his own credentials on the issue and in June, he spoke out against conciliation and Parnell’s freedom; "Where there is suspicion or a strong belief that your conciliatory measures have been extorted from you by the violence they are meant to put a stop to, all their value is taken away"...

(Taken from ‘Enfant Terrible: Randolph Churchill, the early years’ by James Roberts, Imperial 1978)

Churchill’s policy in Opposition had become clear by 1882, and it consisted mostly of the tactic of stealing the Radicals’ clothes. He had the priceless ability of adopting other people’s arguments and using them to far greater effect; by the end of the year, his success was causing much alarm amongst both the Radicals as well as amongst the more respectable elements of the Tory Party.

Churchill was not a man who settled down to long term projects; his politics were mainly intuitive. Crucially however, he appreciated the huge vacuum at the heart of British politics, a vacuum that would be filled by the Unionist Party and the political reorganisation of the 1890s. This unstable situation had been created by the two developments of the previous generation. Firstly the growing ‘Whig-Radical’ rift in both parties[24], and secondly the vital importance of the new electorate created by the Reform Act of 1867. By the early 1880s, the political fault lines of the coming generation- Ireland, Reform, Protection, the popularisation of Socialism- were already beginning to become apparent. There was strong disillusionment with both major parties which made a responsive atmosphere to a new and invigorating philosophy...

The twin fathers of this great political shift would be Churchill and Chamberlain, and their political paths first crossed in the summer of 1882. Churchill had made a series of speeches across the country enunciating a vague doctrine of ‘fair trade’, which was in fact a precocious attack on the sacrosanct laissez faire. This achieved such surprising popularity that Gladstone asked Chamberlain to follow Churchill around the country answering him. It was by reading Randolph’s speeches that the first seeds of Tariff Reform were sown in Chamberlain’s mind, as well as his growing realisation of the political kinship the two men shared. Many years later, Randolph’s son Winston asked Chamberlain when he first began to have doubts about the Liberal Party. ‘It was following your father around the country’ was the reply[25]...

(Taken from Tory Democracy, Churchill and the emergence of the Unionist Party by George Farr, in the British Political Review, August 1983)

The Burkean principle of the complete independence of parliamentarians had previously been a touchstone of Conservative thought; traditionalists such as Salisbury and Northcote had always looked askance at the Liberal notion that the Party’s voluntary sector could seek to direct what MPs did in Parliament. In September 1882 Randolph Churchill set out to change this tradition, as part of the drive towards what he had begun to refer to as ‘Tory Democracy’. At this point Churchill still had little idea of what the phrase meant, only that it had political utility. In conversation with Balfour that summer, he said; "I have no notion of what this Tory Democracy is. To tell you the truth, I believe it is principally opportunism. Say you are a Tory Democrat and that will do."[26]

Churchill’s plan was deliberately controversial; he intended to transform the entire political structure of the Conservative Party. In September, he used his popularity to be elected Chairman of the key seven-man Organisation Committee of the Party’s Council of National Union, and the following month he passed a motion at the annual meeting of the Union calling for the abolition of the Party’s central committee. The Party leadership were not amused. For once acting swiftly, Stafford Northcote angrily reproached Churchill, accusing him of causing ‘infinite soreness and difficulty’. Lord Randolph’s rejoinder was blunt;

"I do not see my way to complete acquiescence in the views you have been kind enough to express to me; Since I have been in Parliament I have always acted on my own account, and I shall continue to do so for I have not found the results of such a line of action at all unsatisfactory"

The row was by now serious enough for Lord Salisbury to intervene; to Randolph’s (largely unjustified) surprise and irritation, he came down on the side of Northcote, pointedly praising him for his ‘sagacious guidance’ which he claimed had produced an ‘energetic and united party in the Commons’. Salisbury’s intervention was enough; a chastened Churchill decided to withdraw the motion and wait for another, more opportune moment[27]..."

(Taken from Irish Terrorism; 1880-1938 by Eoghan Matthews, Republic 1982)

"On the evening of March 15th 1883 a lady’s hat box was placed in Printing House Square in London, in front of the offices of The Times. At around 8.30 PM it exploded, smashing windows and injuring one bystander. Half an hour later, a large bang interrupted MPs having dinner in Parliament. Rushing outside, Members discovered that a large bomb had been placed behind a ground floor balustrade in the Government Offices of Charles Street, which housed the Local Government Board and the Home Office[28]. For the first time, the heart of British Government had been touched by American–made terror..."

(Taken from ‘Lord Salisbury: A Biography’ by Ian Jenkins, Star 1987)

The Arrears Bill disaster two years previously had caused Salisbury acute embarrassment[29], but this was nothing compared to the political scandal that broke when Salisbury wrote an article for the National Review advocating State intervention in the financing of slum clearance[30]... Coming as it did a month after the anonymous publication of The Bitter Cry of Outcast London, a bestselling attack on overcrowding in which the words ‘Incest is common’ shocked the Victorian conscience, Salisbury’s article engendered huge public controversy....

Salisbury was attacked on all fronts: for crypto-socialism by the 10th Earl of Wemys, by the left-wing press for not going far enough, and for political opportunism by Joseph Chamberlain. The scandal deepened in December. THS Escott of the Fortnightly Review had decided to send a former war reporter, Archibald Forbes, to Hatfield in the hope of finding Salisbury’s own labourer’s cottages in disrepair. Upon missing his train, Forbes lazily reported back that while Hatfield was in perfect condition, his London properties in the vicinity of St Martin’s Lane ‘were amongst the worst in London’[31]. To everybody’s surprise, when Escott sent a second investigator to verify Forbes’ findings they were found to be accurate. Furnished with proof of the hypocrisy, Joseph Chamberlain wrote a devastating riposte to Salisbury’s article in the December issue of the Fortnightly Review, accusing him of ‘fine words and no action’, and asking if he would now support free schools and trade unions.

The resulting storm of criticism made the previous controversy seem minor by comparison. Salisbury was universally derided as the worst kind of absentee landlord; Punch produced a famous cartoon entitled the Tory Tenement, depicting Conservative figures living in drunken squalor while Salisbury looked on nonchalantly. Salisbury’s political enemies made great use of the scandal as well. In January 1884 the Government announced the creation of a Royal Commission on Housing as a deliberate demonstration that Government was willing to do more than simply talk about the issue[32].

Coming so soon after the disaster of the Arrears Bill, the housing scandal left Salisbury a much diminished figure on the Tory benches. By February 1884 Gladstone was nicknaming Salisbury Prince Rupert for the way he misled his Party, always at the charge. The same month Drummond Wolff wrote to Churchill to say that Salisbury was like ‘a broken reed’. The embarrassment of the hypocrisy charge was deeply wounding, but in ideological terms Salisbury now found himself the subject of distrust on the Right for betraying lassiez-faire principles. His admirable qualities- intelligence, wit, oratory and political calculation- were undiminished. But by the spring of 1884 there was a general sense that Salisbury had passed his peak of influence in the Conservative Party. The controversy over the Reform Bill six months later would only serve to entrench this impression..."

Chapter 3

Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.

(Taken from Tory Democracy, Churchill and the emergence of the Unionist Party by George Farr, in the British Political Review, August 1983)

The ‘St Martin’s Lane scandal’ and the subsequent embarrassment of Lord Salisbury gave Churchill the perfect opening to resume his campaign for ‘Tory Democracy’, by which he generally meant naked self-advancement. In March 1884 he re-opened the controversy he had instigated eighteen months previously by demanding that his powerbase of the Conservative Council of National Union should be made entirely financially independent. He followed up this move by making a blistering speech in Birmingham, proclaiming that;

"The Conservative Party will never exercise power until it has gained the confidence of the working classes; and the working classes are quite determined to govern themselves. If you want to gain the confidence of the working classes, let them have a share and a large share- a real share and not a sham share- in the Party Councils and in the Party Government!"[33]

The speech was a triumphant success, and this time, Salisbury’s weakness meant that Northcote had to stave off Churchill’s attempt at a coup d’etat largely on his own.  Events moved swiftly. On March 19th the Council passed a new report defining its new duties, and the following day Lord Percy, Northcote’s ally on the Council, moved its rejection; this was defeated by 19 votes to 14. The report was then approved by a majority of twelve. By now Northcote was thoroughly alarmed, and in an unfortunate moment decided upon an ultimatum just as Churchill had decided to compromise. The result was confusion; for a time the prospect loomed of the National Union being locked out of its own offices, and a stalemate ensued throughout April and May.

In the event, the deadlock was only broken by outside events. While the veiled insults and internal chicanery had carried on throughout the late spring, in late May political events in the Commons had moved to a point when Churchill judged it best to fall back into line with his Party. Salisbury was asked to mediate once again through Balfour; the result was a generous compromise which gave the Council significant new powers, although not everything that Churchill had asked for; most notably, the Primrose League was still not recognised as an organ of the Party[34]. The rift was sealed at the annual conference of the Party Union that July, and the labyrinthine struggles of early 1884 soon gave way to the more traditional battle in the House of Commons. It was clear however that although Churchill had become a significant challenger to the leadership of Stafford Northcote, he was not yet able to confront him directly and win..."

(Taken from Irish Terrorism; 1880-1938 by Eoghan Matthews, Republic 1982)

"At nine PM on May 30th 1884, explosions erupted across central London. Two bombs went off in St James’ Square, one outside the Junior Carlton Club and one outside the Duke of Cleveland’s house. Ten minutes later, a clockwork-fused bomb left in a urinal underneath the headquarters of Special (Irish) Branch misfired with a flash and a cloud of smoke. However, far more injurious to the pride of the nation was the bomb that went off in Trafalgar square at the same time, severely damaging one of the famous Landseer Lions that guarded Nelson’s Column[35]... "

(Taken from ‘Lord Randolph Churchill’ by Timothy James, Picador 1978)

Just before Parliament broke up for the summer recess in June 1884, Churchill scored another conspicuous success. A debate about the increasingly serious situation in the Sudan gave Lord Randolph the chance to excoriate the Government