“ Winston Churchill was a villain “

I’m a Labour voter, but find his comments ill-judged from a PR point of view


BBC


John McDonnell has branded Sir Winston Churchill a "villain" over his role in dealing with striking miners in 1910.

Speaking at a Politico event and when asked whether Churchill was a hero or villain, the shadow chancellor replied: "Tonypandy - villain".

During the Tonypandy riots of 1910, troops were sent out to control striking miners who wrecked town centre shops and mine-owners' property.

Churchill was voted the greatest Briton in a BBC poll in 2002.

In response to Mr McDonnell's comments, Labour MP Ian Austin posted a picture of the wartime leader on social media.

He tweeted: "Look who takes pride of place on my mantelpiece in Dudley: a real British hero, the greatest ever Briton, the man who motivated Britain to defeat the Nazis and fight not just for our liberty but the world's freedom."

Presentational white space
Health Secretary Matt Hancock tweeted that Churchill "was one of the greatest ever to have lived".

The Tonypandy riots took place on the evenings of 7 and 8 November 1910 and involved violent clashes between striking miners and the police, with soldiers arriving on the second day.

One miner was killed.

The incident haunted Churchill for the rest of his career and many of his critics saw it as an anti-trade union stance.

Ridiculous question.

Hero without a doubt, can't believe we are even debating it.

The guy has done many questionable things, yes, he done well during the war and should be recognised for that but he should also be held accountable for the terrible things he did too. outside the war he wasn't a good PM.

Name me a leader that has only done good things? It comes with the job. You're undoubtedly going to disappoint some people.

WC did a lot more good for this country and indeed the world as a whole. Hero in my opinion.

Hero!

Name me a leader that has only done good things? It comes with the job. You're undoubtedly going to disappoint some people.

WC did a lot more good for this country and indeed the world as a whole. Hero in my opinion.

Its not as simple as "he done some bad thing too" he did some absolutely terrible things.

He was a massive racist.
He Let Millions Of Indians Starve To Death.
He Supported Chemical Warfare Against ‘Uncivilised Tribes’
He Believed In Racial Hierarchies
He Covered Up The Katyn Massacre
He has a lot of blood on his hands.

Im not trying to start a debate im just saying you shouldn't blindly think he's a hero and forget the terrible things he did.
He should be held accountable for them and should not be forgotten but he should be recognised for his accomplishment during the war

Poor question in my view.The moral code was totally different in those days.

As a war time leader a hero Cometh the hour cometh the man in that case Outside of the war a very poor and outdated political figure who did many poor things for the nation
He was voted out after the war with a landslide defeat so the people at the time wanted change and his pre war record did not help him
I only found out recently that the British public did not hear his fight them on the beaches speech on radio until 9 years after the war In fact the only people that heard it was those people in parliament on the day of the speech.

Poor question in my view.The moral code was totally different in those days.

Spot on Martin

Name me a leader that has only done good things? It comes with the job. You're undoubtedly going to disappoint some people.

WC did a lot more good for this country and indeed the world as a whole. Hero in my opinion.

Its not as simple as "he done some bad thing too" he did some absolutely terrible things.

He was a massive racist.
He Let Millions Of Indians Starve To Death.
He Supported Chemical Warfare Against ‘Uncivilised Tribes’
He Believed In Racial Hierarchies
He Covered Up The Katyn Massacre
He has a lot of blood on his hands.

Im not trying to start a debate im just saying you shouldn't blindly think he's a hero and forget the terrible things he did.
He should be held accountable for them and should not be forgotten but he should be recognised for his accomplishment during the war

No I agree. And a list of good things could be as easily drawn up.

All things you mention above are a lot more terrible than the Tonypandy riot. However, they are also beliefs that whoever was in power would more than likely have shared. As did the majority of this country back then. Times change.

Poor question in my view.The moral code was totally different in those days.

This.

Name me a leader that has only done good things? It comes with the job. You're undoubtedly going to disappoint some people.

WC did a lot more good for this country and indeed the world as a whole. Hero in my opinion.

Its not as simple as "he done some bad thing too" he did some absolutely terrible things.

He was a massive racist.
He Let Millions Of Indians Starve To Death.
He Supported Chemical Warfare Against ‘Uncivilised Tribes’
He Believed In Racial Hierarchies
He Covered Up The Katyn Massacre
He has a lot of blood on his hands.

Im not trying to start a debate im just saying you shouldn't blindly think he's a hero and forget the terrible things he did.
He should be held accountable for them and should not be forgotten but he should be recognised for his accomplishment during the war

Different times, different standards. He was a great wartime leader without whom we’d literally all be speaking German. Gandhi (by your standard) was also a massive racist, who believed in racial hierarchies. McDonnell is a terrorist loving Marxist playing to the Leftist filth in the cheap seats and self loathers.

"It's about time we started honouring those people involved in the armed struggle. It was the bombs and bullets and sacrifice made by the likes of Bobby Sands that brought Britain to the negotiating table. The peace we have now is due to the action of the IRA".[18]

The words of John McDonnell from 2003 supporting the murderous acts of the IRA and this arsehole has the nerve to question the actions of probably the greatest British man of modern times.

The truth is Winston Churchill was not perfect, who is, but trust me WC scrapped better things off the sole of his shoes than this tosser McDonnell.

Name me a leader that has only done good things? It comes with the job. You're undoubtedly going to disappoint some people.

WC did a lot more good for this country and indeed the world as a whole. Hero in my opinion.

Its not as simple as "he done some bad thing too" he did some absolutely terrible things.

He was a massive racist.
He Let Millions Of Indians Starve To Death.
He Supported Chemical Warfare Against ‘Uncivilised Tribes’
He Believed In Racial Hierarchies
He Covered Up The Katyn Massacre
He has a lot of blood on his hands.

Im not trying to start a debate im just saying you shouldn't blindly think he's a hero and forget the terrible things he did.
He should be held accountable for them and should not be forgotten but he should be recognised for his accomplishment during the war

Katyn Masacre.
would any right minded individual have kicked off about a masacre 4 years earlier when desperately needing Stalin on side in the fight against Fascism.

for me anyone that puts that in a list quite simply has no grasp of the situation at the time.

Name me a leader that has only done good things? It comes with the job. You're undoubtedly going to disappoint some people.

WC did a lot more good for this country and indeed the world as a whole. Hero in my opinion.

Its not as simple as "he done some bad thing too" he did some absolutely terrible things.

He was a massive racist.
He Let Millions Of Indians Starve To Death.
He Supported Chemical Warfare Against ‘Uncivilised Tribes’
He Believed In Racial Hierarchies
He Covered Up The Katyn Massacre
He has a lot of blood on his hands.

Im not trying to start a debate im just saying you shouldn't blindly think he's a hero and forget the terrible things he did.
He should be held accountable for them and should not be forgotten but he should be recognised for his accomplishment during the war

Different times, different standards. He was a great wartime leader without whom we’d literally all be speaking German. Gandhi (by your standard) was also a massive racist, who believed in racial hierarchies. McDonnell is a terrorist loving Marxist playing to the Leftist filth in the cheap seats and self loathers.

Just because it was a different time doesnt make it acceptable, letting millions starve to death is a terrible thing in any century, i know Ghandi was a racist whats your point? we weren't talking about Ghandi so i fail to see what your reason is for bring them up, if you want to talk about how terrible they were then go make a separate thread.

Like i said before if you read it properly the terrible things done shouldn't be forgotten just because he did do a lot of good i'm not denying that but he did do good but also a lot of bad too

Name me a leader that has only done good things? It comes with the job. You're undoubtedly going to disappoint some people.

WC did a lot more good for this country and indeed the world as a whole. Hero in my opinion.

Its not as simple as "he done some bad thing too" he did some absolutely terrible things.

He was a massive racist.
He Let Millions Of Indians Starve To Death.
He Supported Chemical Warfare Against ‘Uncivilised Tribes’
He Believed In Racial Hierarchies
He Covered Up The Katyn Massacre
He has a lot of blood on his hands.

Im not trying to start a debate im just saying you shouldn't blindly think he's a hero and forget the terrible things he did.
He should be held accountable for them and should not be forgotten but he should be recognised for his accomplishment during the war

Different times, different standards. He was a great wartime leader without whom we’d literally all be speaking German. Gandhi (by your standard) was also a massive racist, who believed in racial hierarchies. McDonnell is a terrorist loving Marxist playing to the Leftist filth in the cheap seats and self loathers.

Just because it was a different time doesnt make it acceptable, letting millions starve to death is a terrible thing in any century, i know Ghandi was a racist whats your point? we weren't talking about Ghandi so i fail to see what your reason is for bring them up, if you want to talk about how terrible they were then go make a separate thread.

Like i said before if you read it properly the terrible things done shouldn't be forgotten just because he did do a lot of good i'm not denying that but he did do good but also a lot of bad too

McDonnell made the statement
Ghandi seems to be held to a different standard
You’re an idiot.

Name me a leader that has only done good things? It comes with the job. You're undoubtedly going to disappoint some people.

WC did a lot more good for this country and indeed the world as a whole. Hero in my opinion.

Its not as simple as "he done some bad thing too" he did some absolutely terrible things.

He was a massive racist.
He Let Millions Of Indians Starve To Death.
He Supported Chemical Warfare Against ‘Uncivilised Tribes’
He Believed In Racial Hierarchies
He Covered Up The Katyn Massacre
He has a lot of blood on his hands.

Im not trying to start a debate im just saying you shouldn't blindly think he's a hero and forget the terrible things he did.
He should be held accountable for them and should not be forgotten but he should be recognised for his accomplishment during the war

Different times, different standards. He was a great wartime leader without whom we’d literally all be speaking German. Gandhi (by your standard) was also a massive racist, who believed in racial hierarchies. McDonnell is a terrorist loving Marxist playing to the Leftist filth in the cheap seats and self loathers.

Just because it was a different time doesnt make it acceptable, letting millions starve to death is a terrible thing in any century, i know Ghandi was a racist whats your point? we weren't talking about Ghandi so i fail to see what your reason is for bring them up, if you want to talk about how terrible they were then go make a separate thread.

Like i said before if you read it properly the terrible things done shouldn't be forgotten just because he did do a lot of good i'm not denying that but he did do good but also a lot of bad too

McDonnell made the statement
Ghandi seems to be held to a different standard
You’re an idiot.

but i wasnt talking about Ghandi was i YOU brought him up without anyone mentioning him, i know what Ghandi was.
Call me what you want, you underestimate how little i care, you're just a petty c**t resorting to insults and im done with you and this thread, i've had my say.

Without his leadership we'd have probably lost the second world war and the world would now be a very different place.

Ridiculous question.

Yes, and a very ill informed one. Hardly surprises me really .
Albeit a long time ago, I did a study of the Tonypandy Riots ,a subject which I chose because I had close relatives on both sides.
The fact of the matter is that whilst Churchill was certainly the man in ultimate control , he reversed the decision to deploy troops the moment he was informed of it. Instead , he brought police reinforcements from Bristol.

I could think of far more onerous decisions which Mr Churchill had to make , such as ordering the RAF to attack and destroy the French fleet to prevent it falling into German hands, during which we killed many thousands of French sailors, and inflicting massive civilian casualties upon German cities by carpet bombing. I don't judge him unkindly for this since he was engaged in a massive global conflict which threatened our national survival , but to come up with this unfortunate local incident as noteworthy in the great man's list of regrettable expediencies is absolutely ridiculous .

He certainly was a great wartime leader but you cant excuse his bad actions by "they were different times".

Otherwise, you can use the exact same reasoning to excuse Hitler for butchering Jews as they were different times...

He certainly was a great wartime leader but you cant excuse his bad actions by "they were different times".

Otherwise, you can use the exact same reasoning to excuse Hitler for butchering Jews as they were different times...

Its not an excuse just a historical fact.People just behaved differently and had different values to today.He was well regarded by his peers.I suppose if Hitler had won the war then history would have been written differently and Bomber Harris may well have gone down as one of the most evil guys in history and maybe would have had to answer to the Dresden bombings in a war crimes court.

The result of that poll is a lot closer than I expected, maybe not such a ridiculous question?

The result of that poll is a lot closer than I expected, maybe not such a ridiculous question?

you read this board everyday mate ,so do you really think there are less than 8 idiots on here ?

"It's about time we started honouring those people involved in the armed struggle. It was the bombs and bullets and sacrifice made by the likes of Bobby Sands that brought Britain to the negotiating table. The peace we have now is due to the action of the IRA".[18]

The words of John McDonnell from 2003 supporting the murderous acts of the IRA and this arsehole has the nerve to question the actions of probably the greatest British man of modern times.

The truth is Winston Churchill was not perfect, who is, but trust me WC scrapped better things off the sole of his shoes than this tosser McDonnell.

I can name a leader that did good things for our country it was Clement Attlee, bar from winnng the war in a coalition government, Churchill made awful decisions,and racist remarks, there is always a moral code, Clement Attlee was one the best leaders in the 1945 Labour government that made our country better for all the people,who give us our NHS, Welfare state which took millions out of poverty,better housing with a mass house building programme which put Britain on the road to recovery after the war.

That's put the last nail in the coffin for Labour. Well done Corbyn and co!

If that’s the case, Churchill is also a villain for his wartime leadership.

John McDonnell is unable to fathom the paradox of his own words.

For those that say he made Rascist remarks, well, so did everyone in the late 19th early 20th century, regardless of their country of birth. For heavens sake it was the norm right up until the late 20th century, it's not right in this age where we live, and know, and love people from a different heritage but back then you could have been talking about someone from another galaxy ffs.

His decisions which won the war have allowed me to write this message

Different time we used to rule half the world back then