Was Piers Morgan right?

No idea, didn't see the programme but simply wonder if it is yet another situation of people judging the past by today's standards? Not a fan of WC since having to read his book 'My Early Life' for O level!

Why is it loathing your country to say Winston Churchill was racist? Many people loathed Churchill before he became regarded as untouchable and a national icon. He was hated by all dockers. It was completely ironic that the cranes in London's docklands were used in his funeral, seeming to bow as he passed. Most of the dock crane operators did it, not out of respect but because they were paid overtime.

True about the cranes. He was hated in South Wales, never forgiven for sending armed troups to control the miners .

Did see this debate! Churchill was very flawed but he stood against an extremely racist regime and fought for a free society.

Why is it so difficult to accept we are all flawed. Churchill is a complex character. His contribution during ww2 surely can’t be dismissed

And WW1 Gallipoli ?

not poular in Scotland either ,he sent tanks and troops into Glasgow to shut down a demo,My granny was at it so I had the story first hand .To stop the Scottish troops from taking the dmonstrators side they were confined to barracks .

The refusal after the war to acknowledge the heroism of Bomber Command or indeed to acknowledge them at all has always stuck in my craw. I know that our enemy had become our friend but it it was a hard pill to swallow. Gallipoli? Yes, but Churchill did acknowledge that awful misadventure and spent time in the trenches in France. He survived and curiously so did Hitler!! Was Churchill a racist? Almost certainly, and a imperialist, but then most of the population were way back then, so nothing particularly odd about his attitude. Undoubtedly a flawed character, but then aren't we all in our own way?!!

Really interesting thread. Was not aware of his actions in Wales and with the dockers. Was listening this morning to Radio 4 and an essay on him about his early life. It appears he had no parental affection. His mother only wrote him 6 letters to boarding school, while in the same period he wrote 76 ( I think those figures are right). And in one seven month period, only saw him for thirteen days. His father seemed to be controlling and always belittling him but Winston hero-worshipped him.

Churchill was probably racist. He certainly opposed women's suffrage believing at one time "women are well represented by their fathers, husbands, and brothers". He was also Home Secretary when women demonstrated outside Parliament in 1910 after the failure of an act which would have given them the vote. The women were physically and sexually assaulted by the police and anti-suffrage men. Churchill refused to apologise for the police actions. The day became known as Black Friday.

I would be surprised if Churchill was not a racist by modern standards they were not very politically correct in those days.
As a journalist in the Boer war I'm sure he was not fair and accurate in his reporting, but then that hasn't changed much today. His Galapoli campaign in WW1 was a disaster, Britannia might have ruled the waves but it did not rule the beaches.
The interwar years he was in the wilderness, lobbying for rearmament but nobody wanted to know until 1938. Not until he was elected PM in WW2 was he well suited to the role, without his leadership Britain would probably have lost the war. Winning the Battle of Britain in particular enabled the allies to Bomb Germany to a point where it could not replace losses.
A racist most likely but compared with Hitler he was Mother Theresa and rightly the most famous person of the 20th century

That's absolutely true, but not unusual for upperclass children of that era. Winston had an adored Nanny called Mrs Everest whom he and his younger brother Jack called Womany. This lady virtually took the place of their mother and wrote to him regularly at school even persuading Lady Randolph Churchill to remove Winston from his first prep school because he was severely beaten and, understandably, desperately homesick. Lord Randolph died of syphilis after hideous illness almost seeming to take it out on Winston by continually belittling and relentlessly criticising him. Not an easy childhood for all the privilege.

He was Dundee's Liberal MP until he lost to the local Neddy Scrymgeour, a devout prohibitionist.

I'm not so sure he is the most famous person of the 20th century.

OK lets accept, Churchill should have been strangled at birth.

Hitler would probably then have succeeded in invading Britain, or at least making us a client state. Anyone contributing Jewish.

Oh really what should we do then. Not acknowledge that he had some faults? Give him a halo?

I certainly won't cast the first stone. He was a man of his time .

I don't think anybody has done that trisher, but it is true, that warts and all, without Winston the war would have been lost, and however angry or disappointed anyone feels there is simply no denying that.
I wonder how people is 60/70 years time will view us?!!. It is very difficult to judge the standards and people of long ago with standards and people that prevail in present time!

We shouldn’t forget the 46,000 Allied Troups who died in
The Battle of Gallipoli

Back to oldbatty's question that Piers Morgan put to the professor "Why do you live in a country that you loathe?" ..... why does he?

Cometh the hour, cometh the man, I guess. Churchill was an extremely complex character, with many weaknesses alongside his undoubted strengths. He was a supporter of eugenics too, at one time. My dad was a Durham miner and loathed him. But yes, he was what was needed as a great wartime leader and our lives would have been very different without him.

Because he earns more here than any other country that will have him. There are plenty of others who do the same they loathe the UK but will take the money and all the other advantages like freedom of speech, which they don't always have in their home country.

You've lost me there.

maybe he loathes the UK ,many do but love the country they live in ,in my case Scotland .Ask the 100 000 Independence supporters who marched through Edinburgh last weekend.You'll find they mostly feel the same .