Who's Your Favorite Historical Figure?

[Pat Mustard]

Why? He was wrong about everything but Hitler, he was a shameless opportunist, switching effortlessly between Liberals and Tories depending on who was more likely to give him a ministry, and he was a mass murderer of civilians.

There's the public persona gaining real merit in fighting Hitler to the last. Which not many british politicians of the time were ready to do.

But there's also the lesser known historical figure. The opportunist, colonialist, who never shied away from ordering atrocities in the Middle East.

And there's a rather tragic private person. Suffering under life long depression and other ailments.

All in all an important historical figure. Admirable in some that he did. Despicable in other departments. Not one of the worst, but also not one of the best. Which, I would say, goes for most political historical figures.

What's little discussed is that Churchill's antipathy to Hitler probably stemmed more from his snobbishness rather than Hitler's politics. If Goring were Fuhrer I'd doubt Churchill would be so quick to denounce Nazism.