The Churchill Series – May 9, 2006

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

When on May 7, 1940 Harold Macmillan, a member of the Commons and future Prime Minister, told Churchill, “…[we]must have a new Prime Minister, and it must be you,” he was expressing the feelings of the majority in the Commons and the country. But Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain didn't share those feelings.

Despite chants from both sides of the aisle that he, “Go, go, go, …” Chamberlain spent much of May 8 and 9 maneuvering to remain in office. He sought to lead a coalition government, but Labour and the Liberals refused to serve under him.

Their refusals and rebellion within Chamberlain’s own Conservative ranks doomed his premiership.

Faced with helping select a successor, Chamberlain was determined it should not be Churchill.

He invited Churchill and Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax to a meeting at Downing Street on the afternoon of May 9. Halifax was seen as the only possible alternative to Churchill as Chamberlain’s successor.

Some realized then, as most do now, that Chamberlain intended the meeting to be a kind of trap. He would propose telling the King to send for Halifax to form a government, and count on Churchill’s patriotism and sense of colleagueship to induce him to say he’d support whatever decision the PM made.

Friends had cautioned Churchill to say as little as possible at the meeting. Events were running in Churchill’s direction and beyond Chamberlain’s control. Martin Gilbert tells us what happened at the meeting:

Chamberlain told the two contenders that Halifax was the one being “mentioned as most acceptable.” (That was not true of Commons or the public. – JinC)

Halifax explained, however, that he was reluctant to try to guide the fortunes of war from the House of Lords. He would be held responsible for everything, he said, but would not have “the power to guide the assembly upon whose confidence the lift of every Government depended.” Not being able to lead in the Commons, Halifax said, “I should be a cypher.”

Churchill made no comment.

Halifax then said that he thought “Winston would be a better choice.”

Churchill did not demur. He was, Halifax noted a few hours later, "very kind and polite, but showed that he thought this was the right solution.” …

Late that evening Churchill received a call from his son, Randolph, who was in the Army training in northern England. Gilbert continues

What, asked Randolph, was the latest news?

“I think I shall be Prime Minister tomorrow.”

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Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life. (p. 637-643)