The Churchill Series - Feb. 11, 2006

(One of a series of daily posts on the life of Winston S. Churchill.)

There are many quotes falsely attributed to Churchill. One of the best known of them goes something like this: "If you're not a liberal by 20 you have no heart; and if your not a conservative by 40 you have no brain."

According to The Churchill Centre, which researched the matter:

There is no record of anyone hearing Churchill say this.

Paul Addison of Edinburgh University makes this comment: "Surely Churchill can't have used the words attributed to him. He'd been a Conservative at 15 and a Liberal at 35! And would he have talked so disrespectfully of Clemmie, who is generally thought to have been a lifelong Liberal?"

In that short paragraph Addison impresses as an informed, sensitive, and persuasive scholar.

His point about Clementine may surprise some because publicly she always stood on the issues with Churchill. But many of her private letters, including ones to Churchill, show her making the liberal case.
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On the question of Clementine Churchill's liberalism, I find William Manchester's two volume biography, The Last Lion,persuasive.