Talk:Winston Churchill

Hyphen in surname

Although the surname was originally Spencer-Churchill, his father dropped the hyphen and just went by Churchill. (Previously discussed at Talk:Winston Churchill/Archive 2#Surname and a few other times since.) Source: Winston Churchill: War Leader (2009) Bill Price, p. 12. I propose amending or removing the hatnote. Richard75 (talk) 12:06, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with you, Richard75. Go ahead. No Great Shaker (talk) 16:44, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Churchill a statesman?

Is there any reason why Churchill is not described as a statesman in the lead? This article described him as such at one time. Arcturus (talk) 17:26, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

No comments, so amended article accordingly. Arcturus (talk) 18:12, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Romania

Dear Wikipedia , the commune knowledge in Romania is that Sir Winston Churchill gave to Stalin Romania , at Yalta conference , on a piece of napkin,.Is this true ?Or was it at another conference ?., at the end of WW2.2003:CF:BF29:8655:6537:26E6:A3C4:7198 (talk) 11:33, 26 July 2020 (UTC)Razu

Hello, the story is true but it was at the Moscow Conference in October 1944, not Yalta. There is a sub-section in the article which describes what happened. It became known as the percentages agreement. No Great Shaker (talk) 12:04, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Mau Mau Length Query

The section 'Foreign Affairs' had some information added recently which I don't believe should feature for length purposes, I believe it should merely redirect to the Mau Mau Uprising. The section was previously removed after I raised concerns regarding the reference supplied, however, it has since been added back - I'd be keen to know why? EDJT840 (talk) 21:37, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

Apologies, EDJT840. I was looking at the article via two tabs and updated both with the result that the first edit was superseded by the second – mustn't do that. Thanks again for your help with the article. No Great Shaker (talk) 10:45, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Winston Churchill/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Pi (talk · contribs) 21:44, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it well written?

   A. The prose is clear and concise, and the spelling and grammar are correct:

   B. It complies with the manual of style guidelines for lead sections, layout, words to watch, fiction, and list incorporation:

2. Is it verifiable with no original research?

   A. It contains a list of all references (sources of information), presented in accordance with the layout style guideline:

   B. All in-line citations are from reliable sources, including those for direct quotations, statistics, published opinion, counter-intuitive or controversial statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged, and contentious material relating to living persons—science-based articles should follow the scientific citation guidelines:

   C. It contains no original research:

   D. It contains no copyright violations nor plagiarism:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. It addresses the main aspects of the topic:

   B. It stays focused on the topic without going into unnecessary detail (see summary style):

4. Is it neutral?

   It represents viewpoints fairly and without editorial bias, giving due weight to each:

5. Is it stable?

   It does not change significantly from day to day because of an ongoing edit war or content dispute:

6. Is it illustrated, if possible, by images?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   B. Images are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

7. Overall:

   Pass or Fail:

Comments

Beginning review, this is quite an article Pi (Talk to me!) 21:44, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Pi, and thank you for taking this on. I should mention that the article has recently been the subject of a WP:LENGTH improvement drive and we have created several sub-articles so that the bulk of the content could be relocated with the sections here reduced to summaries. We've reduced the readable prose size from nearly 130 kB (far too big) to a manageable 94kB. Do please let me know when you have any questions and I'll do my best to answer them. Good luck. No Great Shaker (talk) 06:50, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

I've just finished tying up some loose ends and I promise I will not touch the article again now till you have finished your initial review. I realised over the weekend that the endpieces were oddments that should be consolidated into a single legacy section as is standard for political biographies. I apologise for not spotting that sooner and hope it hasn't inconvenienced you. No Great Shaker (talk) 10:54, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

• "In the autumn of 1895, he and Reginald Barnes went to Cuba to report on the war of independence" - This sentence isn't sufficiently explained. Since he was a commissioned army officer, it should be explained why he was reporting rather than fighting. Especially since he later had a career as a civilian writer.

Amended. Use of "reporting" was an error – Churchill and Barnes went to Cuba as military observers, not as reporters. The circumstances are clear in Jenkins.

• Politics and South Africa: 1899–1901: It's not clear exactly when he left the army. When it talks about him standing for parliament and writing for the Morning Post the reader would assume that his was after he left the army, but later on he was appointed a lieutenant in the South African Light Horse regiment. Did he re-join the army? Or were his other activities done while he was a serving officer? This needs some clarity.

Additional content re final visit to India. You're absolutely right. He was in the 4th Hussars for nearly three years till the spring of 1899 but he was temporarily attached to the 21st Lancers for the Nile campaign. After Omdurman, he decided to quit the army but he had to return to India and settle everything with the Hussars. As soon as he returned to England, he plunged into politics. I added a bit more about his brief South African commission – until January 1900, he had been only a journalist in South Africa.

• Asquith's government presented the reforms within a People's Budget.[114] This was rejected by the Conservative peers who dominated the House of Lords.: This could so with clarification what the People's Budget was, and why it was rejected.

Yes, needs explanation. This was Lloyd George's famous budget. I've made some additions to summarise DLG's purpose and method of raising funds. Thanks. No Great Shaker (talk) 13:34, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Response

Hello, Pi, I really must apologise. I'd somehow knocked this off my watchlist and I've only just found your comments. I'll get straight onto it. Back soon. No Great Shaker (talk) 12:33, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Hello again, Pi. I've addressed the points which you rightly raised above. Please let me know if there is anything further needed on these. Hope you enjoy the rest of the article. No Great Shaker (talk) 13:52, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

I'm promoting this now. Great article, sorry it took a while Pi (Talk to me!) 19:18, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Pi, and thank you ever so much for doing the review. You took quite a task on. There's no doubt it can be further improved but whether it can ever get to FAC level is anyone's guess. Thanks again, all the best and keep safe. No Great Shaker (talk) 19:43, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Citation problem needing correction

Hello, I don't currently have access to Churchill: A Life (1991) by Martin Gilbert and I wonder if someone could check some page numbers because I don't believe the ones given in the following citations can possibly be correct. The events concerned (1945–1950) must be covered by pages in the 700-800 region. It's possible that someone has cited the wrong book, of course.

383. Gilbert 1991, pp. 22–23, 27.

390. Gilbert 1991, p. 108.

392. Gilbert 1991, p. 109.

393. Gilbert 1991, pp. 57, 107–109.

395. Gilbert 1991, p. 113.

401. Gilbert 1991, pp. 265–266, 321.

403. Gilbert 1991, pp. 250, 441.

Thanks to anyone who can assist. No Great Shaker (talk) 10:25, 26 August 2020 (UTC)

I should be getting my copy of the book back soon (it's out on loan) so I can take care of this then. No Great Shaker (talk) 07:12, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

This is complete. Several "Gilbert" citations were false or incorrect. No Great Shaker (talk) 15:47, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

• @No Great Shaker: I suspect this is a result of the horrible sfn citation method used, and errors introduced by editors changing from one ref system to another. For example, one of the refs removed here {{sfn|Gilbert|1988|pp=814–815, 817}} at some point was a perfectly valid ref to Gilbert's Never Despair. Likewise, {{sfn|Gilbert|1991|pp=846–857}} is also a reference to Never Despair. Here again the reference is to Never Despair. I haven't checked the others you listed, or all of your removals, but I suspect they are all Never Despair. Now if you like I can go back, undo all your removals, and re-do the refs correctly (but NOT using sfn) - I have Never Despair beside me. Then at some point some well-meaning person will change them all to sfn perhaps introducing a typo or two), and someone else will change an edition in the sources section, and they'll all get buggered up again. Or I could give up and recognise that the drive for homogenised "Good Article" status prevents good referencing. I have been trying for years to fix the refs in this article and am sick and tired of people's "good intentions" screwing things up. DuncanHill (talk) 22:12, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

@No Great Shaker: Sorry that last post was so bad tempered - it was not directed at you, you were quite right to note the problems with the citations. I have now restored the ones you removed with the correction so they point at Never Despair. I've left in the additional citations you provided, thank you for finding them. There are templates that can be used in the text to flag individual problem citations - see Category:Inline citation cleanup templates for most of them. I just wish we could get away from sfn altogether, it always leads to trouble. DuncanHill (talk) 23:17, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

No need to apologise, Duncan, because I can understand your frustration. You've mentioned your distaste for sfn before and I'm coming around to your way of thinking. I don't like its dependency on year as with "Gilbert 1991, p. 777." If the author has just one book, like Jenkins, then "Jenkins, p. 680." is sufficient. If, like Gilbert, there is more than one, then I would prefer to see the book's title used to disambiguate as in "Gilbert, Churchill: A Life, p. 777." Thanks very much for resolving the problem and for the other improvements you've done. All the best and keep safe. No Great Shaker (talk) 16:42, 8 September 2020 (UTC)

Even a "Jenkins, p. 680" is storing up trouble for the future - as well as his biography of Churchill, Roy Jenkins wrote at least seven other books that could easily be used in this article, Mr Balfour's Poodle, The Chancellors, Asquith, Baldwin, Truman, Mr Attlee, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Someone comes along and adds a ref to one of those and confusion returns! DuncanHill (talk) 00:58, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Yes, indeed. It would always be best to anticipate that. I'm thinking the safest and easiest method would be to use author's surname (subject to namesakes), title (summarised if lengthy – e.g., Jenkins, Roosevelt, p. 88) and page number(s) in all cases. As you say, sfn actively lends itself to confusion and then makes things difficult when there is a clash of names/years. No Great Shaker (talk) 11:14, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 05:54, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

Winston Churchill in December 1941

• ... that apart from two years between 1922 and 1924, Winston Churchill (pictured) was a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1900 to 1964 and represented a total of five constituencies? Source: Roy Jenkins, Churchill (2001), pages 65, 89, 392, 911. London: Macmillan Press. 978-03-30488-05-1.
  • ALT1:... that Winston Churchill (pictured) was a keen amateur bricklayer? Source: Hubert Renfro Knickerbocker, Is Tomorrow Hitler's? 200 Questions on the Battle of Mankind (1941), pages 178–179. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock. 978-14-17992-77-5.
  • ALT2:... that Winston Churchill suffered from recurring attacks of depression, which he termed his "black dog"? Source: Roy Jenkins, Churchill (2001), page 819. London: Macmillan Press. 978-03-30488-05-1.
  • ALT3:... that Winston Churchill struck up a friendly correspondence with his namesake, the well-known American novelist? Source: "Mr Winston Churchill presents his compliments to Mr Winston Churchill, and begs to draw his attention to a matter which concerns them both" ([1])

• Reviewed: Maypole in the Strand

Improved to Good Article status by No Great Shaker (talk). Self-nominated at 20:22, 27 August 2020 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: I am going for ALT 0; but if the promoting coordinator prefers, ALT 1 also meets all of the requirements and is, IMO, sufficiently hooky. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:11, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

I prefer Alt 0 by far, but while it is stated in the lead (uncited), I can't find a clear statement with a cite at the end of or within the sentence concerned within the article. (Or set of cited statements.) Could you lead me a little here? Or tweak the article? Great work on getting it to GA by the way. Gog the Mild (talk) 21:11, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Gog. My apologies, I did just lift that fact from the lead where it had been stated as a summary of his parliamentary career. I think Gilbert does state the totals but I don't have that book at present (out on loan) so I've found relevant mentions in Jenkins' biography and added a summary statement in the narrative after Churchill stood down at the 1964 election (see Winston Churchill#Retirement: 1955–1964). Hope this is okay. If not, I'll withdraw ALT0 and promote one of the others. Thanks very much for doing the review. No Great Shaker (talk) 05:55, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

No problem. I was happy about the sourcing, but needed the "immediately after the statement" bit. Now done. Thanks. Gog the Mild (talk) 11:40, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, Gog. All the best and keep safe. No Great Shaker (talk) 12:16, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

As an outsider, Alt 0 is incredibly dull. Everyone in the world who has ever of Churchill knows he was a politician. Big whoop. And all of these hooks are overly wordy. I think a the best of the lot would be for a shortened version of ALT1:... that Winston Churchill was a keen amateur bricklayer?. Short, simple, and unexpected. That is how you catch people's attention, which is the entire point of a "hook". And strike all the extraneous metadata from the caption: it's entirely sufficient for the sake of the hook just to say "Winston Churchill". --Animalparty! (talk) 04:40, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Very good points but, while the world knows he was a politician, do they know for how long? 62 years in the Commons is remarkable and five constituencies is possibly a record. I agree about the caption but have left the date and I'm shortening ALT1. Thanks. No Great Shaker (talk) 07:08, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

I think ALT1 is a better hook too. I didn't even know about his non-political interests so learning about him having an interest in bricklaying is quite surprising. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 07:10, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Hi there, what's the status of this? @Narutolovehinata5 and No Great Shaker:?

@Gog the Mild: Vincent^LUFan (talk) (Kenton!) 17:36, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

The status is that I have approved both ALT0 and ALT1 and left it for the promoting coordinator to choose the one they prefer/consider hookiest. (While expressing a personal preference for ALT0, for whatever that is worth.) Gog the Mild (talk) 18:36, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

@Gog the Mild: please add some kind of tick so the bot will move this to the Approved page. Thanks, Yoninah (talk) 12:51, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Yoninah, I can see one there on several of my devices! But I have added a couple more. Let me know if they don't show. Gog the Mild (talk) 15:21, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

• @Gog the Mild: yes, they show, but I meant adding one to the bottom of the thread since there were a lot of posts since your original tick. Thanks, this is definitely approved! Yoninah (talk) 15:41, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

• Well, I came by to promote ALT1 to a non-image slot because it is so bland, but now I see that No Great Shaker overwrote the hook, making it impossible to follow this discussion. (Please don't do that again. Just write your new hooks as alts.) Here is the original ALT1 hook, followed by the shortened version:

(Sorry about that, Yoninah. Didn't know the process. Will bear it in mind. Thanks. No Great Shaker (talk) 11:02, 15 September 2020 (UTC))

• ALT1-1: ... that Winston Churchill (pictured) was a keen amateur bricklayer, constructing buildings and garden walls at his home, Chartwell?
• ALT1-2: ... that Winston Churchill (pictured) was a keen amateur bricklayer?
• Personally, I like knowing something different about Churchill. I prefer ALT1-1. @Gog the Mild:: did you approve the original hook or the edited one? What do you think of the original? Yoninah (talk) 18:55, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Why has ALT3 been struck? I had no idea there was also a novelist named Winston Churchill and found that very interesting, surely many others would not know that either and it gives the other Churchill some main page exposure. Gatoclass (talk) 05:20, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

WP:LENGTH

Back to this. Although the article has recovered its GA status, it is still far too long and needs to be reduced in size to become an effective summary with most of the detail transferred to the six main sub-articles. The RPS is 95 kB (15,740 words) which does not technically breach WP:SIZERULE but its advice is that an article with RPS > 60 kB probably should be divided (subject to scope). The equivalent article at Britannica has an RPS of 43 kB (7,131 words). That may be a bit drastic but their article is nevertheless quite comprehensive. Certainly, if our article were being submitted to a commercial publisher, there would be an immediate demand for a substantial reduction to less than 10,000 words. The answer is simply to make use of the sub-articles – that is what they are there for. No Great Shaker (talk) 08:28, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

Ireland and Iraq

Despite its GA and supposedly semi-protected status, the article is still being vandalised, quelle surprise. Under 'Secretary of State for War and Air', the article now alleges:- 'In the Irish War of Independence, he supported the use of the para-military Black and Tans to combat Irish revolutionaries.' This is a fiction derived from anti-historical Irish-nationalist mythology. The Black and Tans did not exist as a separate force. The term was a nickname for the mostly British emergency recruits to the Royal Irish Constabulary because for the first few months they wore mismatched uniforms, part RIC dark green ('black') and part Army khaki ('tan'). They were not grouped in their own units. They all served as reinforcements for existing RIC units and they were no more 'para-military' (that hyphen is distinctly odd) than the rest of the RIC. Churchill, as a member of the Cabinet and bound by collective responsibility, presumably did support the reinforcement of the RIC during the emergency, but the article is claiming that he supported the formation of special paramilitary units called the Black and Tans, a thing that did not happen. And the RIC did not report to Churchill at the War Office. They reported to their own Inspector General, who reported to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and the Chief Secretary for Ireland.

The article then makes the even more fictitious claim that:- 'After British troops in Iraq clashed with Kurdish rebels, Churchill authorised two squadrons to the area, proposing that they be equipped with mustard gas to use against the rebels.' This is just a lie, and it's not there in the sources. As is by now well known, Churchill actually proposed the use of tear gas, because it might disperse rebels without casualties. His War Office minute of 12 May 1919, reproduced in Martin Gilbert's Companion Volume IV Part 1, reads: 'I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare. It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gases: gases can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected.' Note that he is talking about 'lachrymatory gas' -- tear gas -- and specifically rules out 'the most deadly gases'. Mustard gas never came into it, and, in the event, the armed forces never did care to procure any tear-gas munitions for use in Iraq. Everybody with even half a clue knows this, so the article shouldn't be spamming that foolish lie. A GA article really ought to be better than that. Khamba Tendal (talk) 17:41, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Khamba Tendal, I've changed the title of this discussion because there hasn't been any vandalism. All of your venom is focused on a single paragraph, hence my choice of title. I don't know who wrote that paragraph – I didn't – but everything they have written there is reliably sourced (having said that, I will check the Gilbert book when I can and I have a low opinion of Rhodes James). If you have reliable sources which support your contentions, then please amend the article accordingly with the necessary citations so that both points of view are evident. This is so that one point of view does not carry WP:UNDUE.

Given that you have been warned and blocked in recent months for over-reacting to content you don't like, perhaps you should raise your arguments in a calmer vein as that will give you a better chance of making friends and influencing people. If you leap in like that with all guns blazing, you just get people's backs up, even those who agree with you. Thanks. No Great Shaker (talk) 20:53, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Relationship with Gandhi

My last edit was reverted by No Great Shaker with the following comment: "More of the same POV stuff as earlier today – take it to the talk page and gain consensus". The edit in question elaborated on Churchill's relationship with Gandhi. I've outlined the changes in bold below:

He was particularly opposed to Mohandas Gandhi, whom he considered "a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir", and once suggested that "the Viceroy [of India] sit on the back of a giant elephant and trample the Mahatma into the dirt" to the astonishment of guests at a dinner party.[238][239]

I'm not aware of any previous discussion on the topic so could No Great Shaker or anyone please bring me up to speed? I cited a book (Indian Summer by Alex Von Tunzelmann) so I don't see how the question of an opinion or a point of view comes into the picture. Norcaes (talk) 17:21, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

Past discussions on alleged racism are in the talk page archives and it is always been held that the point should be made, and it is, but without unnecessary elaboration that would breach WP:UNDUE.

Your intended edit is a variation on the same contentious WP:POINT made repeatedly by members of the User:HarveyCarter stable. Yes, Churchill did hold strong imperialist views which in turn were racist in context because that was the worldview held by virtually all people of European origin in Churchill's lifetime, much more so by Americans and Germans than by the British. It was not until the 1960s, the decade of Churchill's death, that the world began to change. You and your fellow bandwagon jumpers need to study social history to acquire some perspective so that you can place ideas, events and personalities into the context of their times.

The article has been written to comply with site standards and one of those, a very important one, is WP:UNDUE. The questions of imperialism and racism have been adequately addressed – they are even mentioned in the lead, quite rightly – but labouring the point over and over again is a breach of UNDUE.

In addition, how can we be sure that the book you have cited is a reliable source? The quotation you are trying to add doesn't appear in Gilbert, Jenkins or the other reputable sources. Also, you added the quote in a way that makes it seem as if Gilbert is a source for it, but he is not. The reprehensible remark about Gandhi posing as a fakir is more than sufficient to make the point about Churchill's questionable opinion of Gandhi's campaign for Indian independence. No Great Shaker (talk) 10:38, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

I think you would be best served by assuming good faith (WP:AFG). That was my first edit on the article, and I certainly had no intention of "disrupting Wikipedia to illustrate a point" about a policy (WP:POINT) or jumping on any bandwagon.

I'm not sure how you reached the conclusion that Churchill's beliefs were nothing but the norm when the sentence following my edit states "His views enraged Labour and Liberal opinion." and the section on imperialism states "Churchill's views on race as a whole were judged by his contemporaries within the Conservative Party to be extreme". Nevertheless, I don't mean to contest Churchill's morality, and I don't see why my edit was construed to be an attack.

If past consensus has held that such an edit is a breach of WP:UNDUE, then I won't contest it. I would be happy to learn what constitutes a good or bad source in your view, but without the presumption that my knowledge of history is lacking. Norcaes (talk) 15:15, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Edit request

 Not done

Include Royal Navy in his military service, in the infobox. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.5.158.68 (talk) 10:29, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

This has come up before. Churchill was never in the Royal Navy. DuncanHill (talk) 13:19, 19 September 2020 (UTC)

Okay thanks.

Weasel words in the lead

My emphasis:

Conversely, he has been widely criticised for some wartime events, notably the 1945 bombing of Dresden, and in recent years his imperialist views and certain comments on race have led many to question his legacy.

I know it's the lead, but many readers only go to the lead. We should do better than this. At the very least, I suggest widely is removed. And what exactly does question his legacy mean? His legacy is what it is. Arcturus (talk) 11:26, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Hello, Arcturus. You are right. The use of "widely" is POV and the last bit, a recent edit, is a gross exaggeration. I've removed both as per your request. Thanks. No Great Shaker (talk) 16:21, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Hi No Great Shaker. Thanks for that. It reads better now. Of course there is another "widely"; the paragraph in question starts with it. However, taken as a whole with the statement it introduces, the assertion is so obvious that I think it's beyond challenge. Arcturus (talk) 10:11, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

The 1945 bombing of Dresden was a result of general bombing policy formulated by the War Cabinet and the Imperial General Staff and whilst Churchill was a member of the War Cabinet he had no more direct involvement in the bombing of that city than any of the other members. And it is a curious fact that few of the critics of Britain's bombing policy ever have a harsh word to say about the Nazi, Italian and Japanese bombing policies.

Whilst Churchill's views may have appeared racist he had at least travelled the world and had contact with various peoples, which is more than some of his critics had. Such views were held by many people at the time, of all races. Get over it.