Great Political Speeches: Winston Churchill Quiz

Answer:

From his place on the Conservative backbenches, Winston Churchill had been warning about the rise of fascism for some time before the outbreak of World War II. He was asked to serve as Prime Minister when the Conservatives' coalition partners said that they would not serve under the previously elected PM, Neville Chamberlain.

Churchill came to the House of Commons on the afternoon of May 13, 1940, to ask for a vote of confidence in the new national government that he had assembled. He re-iterated the promise he had made to his cabinet of ministers earlier in the day; the famous phrase, "I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat".

That his speech was better received by the opposition parties than it was by his own party says much about the tricky politics of the time. The Conservatives were unhappy that Chamberlain had been ousted, especially as it been at the behest of the Labour Party leadership. But Churchill's stirring peroration, along with other equally inspiring speeches in the following weeks, galvanised both the Commons and the public.

Churchill became the face of the resistance that Britain showed in the face of German aggression as he led the nation through to the end of the war. However, despite his widely admired leadership during a time of such national threat, he was voted out of office within weeks of the end of the war, when the British public decided that Clement Attlee was the person they wanted to lead them through the post-war recovery.