Churchill's Popularity

Introduction 

In journalism and publishing today there is a cottage industry dedicated to slandering “debunking” Winston Churchill. If one wants to hate Churchill, you don’t need to look for very long before you can find an author attacking Churchill from a particular political perspective you happen to share. However, despite this, a positive view of Winston Churchill is firmly established in the minds of most members of the public. According to YouGov, he is still liked by 64% of the public and only disliked by a mere 12%. In other words, there are more than five times as many Churchill supporters than there are detractors.

But was this always so? Some people lately have claimed that Churchill was actually quite unpopular during his lifetime, including during the Second World War. In order to publicize his latest book, Geoffrey Wheatcroft published an essay in The Times describing him as “unpopular, error-prone and reckless”. Incidentally, this isn’t a bad description of Wheatcroft's book.

Kehinde Andrews, Professor of Black Studies at Birmingham City University, made the same point at a recent panel on the legacy of Churchill:

“It’s actually interesting because at the time […] I mean Churchill wasn’t even that popular at the time […] I mean, he was never elected and after this war effort where he supposedly single-handedly led the world against the Nazis, he actually lost the election. And so, this […] is a kind of historical re-placing him back on his pedestal.” (Quoted in Andrew Roberts and Zewditu Geybreyohanes, "Racial Consequences, p.11)

But is this true? Should we trust the word of a distinguished Professor of Black Studies at a noteworthy former polytechnic?

What Actual Historians Say About Churchill’s Popularity

In 2013 Professor Richard Toye published a book on the reception of some of Churchill’s speeches. Professor Toye's argument was that:

The conventional story – that Churchill’s oratory produced unanimous or near-unanimous rapture – is therefore unsatisfactory. A good speech by him might provide a few days’ spike in morale, but it could not in itself effect a long-run shift in people’s beliefs about how the war was going. It is hardly surprising that his speeches were best received when things were going well; we should not exaggerate his capacity – even in the case of Dunkirk – to persuade people that things were better than they were. This does not mean that we need to reject the idea that Churchill’s speeches were successful, but we do need to rethink the nature of their success. If they sometimes caused people to feel depressed, this was usually because of his accurate predictions that the war would last much longer than many expected. This enhanced his credibility in the long run, in spite of the negative emotions created in the short term. Ironically, moreover, the near-relentless focus on the speeches with ‘the quotable bits’ has distracted attention from some equally successful but seemingly less rhetorical ones… (Toye, Roar of the Lion, pp.228-229)

Professor Toye accepts that Churchill was very popular, writing that:

“It is important to stress that Churchill did have widespread popular support and that very few people disliked him as an individual”. Elsewhere Toye describes Churchill’s popularity as “astonishingly high” (Toye, Roar of the Lion, p.6 & p.201).

Robert MacKay, in his book on civilian morale in Britain during World War Two gives a different assessment of the impact of Churchill’s speeches:

When it comes to assessing the effect of attempts to reassure the public and to stimulate its patriotic feelings and behaviour, Churchill's speeches stand out as playing a unique role. Was he telling the people what they wanted to hear? A fight to the death? No surrender, come what may? It would seem so. Many contemporary accounts - not just the fancy of retrospect - testify to the very real sense in which he both inspired and personified the people. Molly Weird told of how her mother responded to him: "She loved, above all things, listening to Churchill..."Here he comes. The British bulldog. By God, he puts new life into you". 'What they like most', wrote Mollie Panter-Downes, ' is his great gift for making them forget the discomfort, danger and loss and remember only that they are living history'. His 'blood, sweat and tears' speech, she though, 'struck the right note with the public because it was the kind of tough talk they wanted to hear after months of woolly optimism'. Churchill's own view on this was characteristically modest: 'I was very fortunate: I did nothing more than give expression to the opinion of the people of this country, and I was fortunate in being able to put their sentiments into words'. The implication is that the speeches were not primarily attempts to persuade at all. Frances Partridge was not sure about this: 'I remember, how loathsome his early speeches seemed to me and wonder if it is I who have changed, or Winston? Have we all given in and become war minded, where once we stuck our toes in?' George Beardmore, while coolly objective about the oratorical skill being deployed, was none the less happy to admit that this was a voice both for and of the people: 'A marvelous speech and a long one by Churchill last Sunday in his appeal to the Americans...His closing passage "Give us the tools and we will finish the job" [emphasis in the original], was so intense that it kept a roomful of us silent for three minutes after he'd gone... His genius is that while he puts into magnificent words what we are thinking, he manages at the same time to inspire'. Isaiah Berlin, too, noted Churchill's ability to 'impose his imagination and his will upon his fellow countrymen...[He] lifted them to an abnormal height in moment of crisis', turning them 'out of their normal selves, and, by dramatising their lives and making them seem to themselves and to each other clad in the fabulous garments appropriate to a great historic moment, transformed the cowards into brave men and so fulfilled the purpose of shining armour' (Robert MacKay, Half the Battle, pp.177-178)

 

 How the British People Felt About Churchill

We are fortunate that Gallup repeatedly polled the British public on the question “In general, do you approve or disapprove of Mr. Churchill as Prime Minister?”. The answers strongly contradict Professor Andrew’s remarks that Churchill was not very popular during the war. The results of every opinion poll Gallup took were published in a multi-volume hefty tome in the 1970s. The page references in the table below are from The Gallup International Public Opinion Polls: Great Britain 1937-1975: Volume One: 1937-1964 by George H. Gallup.

The average approval rating for Churchill between Jul 1940 and May 1945 was 87%. The modal approval rating was 91%. The lowest his approval rating dropped was 78% and the highest reached was 93%.

A doubting Thomas might claim that the Gallup polls are clearly rubbish since the Conservative Party lost the election quite decisively in 1945. But in fact, the Gallup polls predicted a Labour lead over the Conservatives as early as June 1943:

It seems that the public was quite able to divorce Churchill from his party. They liked Churchill; they preferred that the Labour Party win the 1945 election. These are not contradictory statements.

Conclusion

Churchill had a long career in politics. There were times when he probably was unpopular, on the whole. This is probably true of most people in politics, other than those content to make zero impact on history. But it is quite clear that during the most important time of his political career, and one of the most important moments in his country’s history, Churchill enjoyed the backing of the British people and was incredibly popular.

Bibliography

Gallup, George H. (ed.), The Gallup International Public Opinion Polls: Great Britain 1937-1975: Volume One: 1937-1964 (Random House, 1976)

MacKay, Robert, Half the Battle: Civilian Morale in Britain During the Second World War, pp.177-178 (Manchester University Press, 2002)

Roberts, Andrew and Geybreyohanes, Zewditu, "The Racial Consequences of Mr Churchill": A Review (Policy Exchange, 2021)

Toye, Richard, The Roar of the Lion: The Untold Story of Churchill's World War II Speeches (Oxford University Press, 2013)