Steven Fielding: Meet the Nick Clegg of 1942
[Steven Fielding is director of the Centre for British Politics and professor of Political History in the School of Politics and IR, University of Nottingham.]
The Sunday Times quotes a YouGov poll that says Nick Clegg is nearly as popular as Winston Churchill....
Actually the best historical figure with whom to compare Clegg is not Churchill but Sir Stafford Cripps. Stafford Who, you may ask? Those with some history behind them might know that he was Clement Attlee's chancellor, a man of severe moral rectitude, a teetotaller and vegetarian. That, however, did not stop his Conservative opponents referring to this paragon as 'Sir Stifford Crapps' after a BBC radio announcer committed one of the funniest political spoonerisms ever....
Returning home in January [1942] after ending his stint as ambassador to Moscow, he gave a BBC radio speech. This struck a loud, clanging chord with a disenchanted British public – half of whom heard the speech – and 93% of those approved of its message, which when boiled down was just an appeal for greater individual effort to win the war. Almost as vacuous as Clegg's contribution to the leadership debates, you might think. Even so, this one speech catapulted Cripps to the front rank of politics: at the peak of his popularity 34% of people wanted him to replace Churchill at Number 10.
I don't recall Cripps becoming prime minister. Churchill brought him into government where he promptly got lost in administration while El Alamein helped restore faith in his government....
Read entire article at Guardian (UK)
The Sunday Times quotes a YouGov poll that says Nick Clegg is nearly as popular as Winston Churchill....
Actually the best historical figure with whom to compare Clegg is not Churchill but Sir Stafford Cripps. Stafford Who, you may ask? Those with some history behind them might know that he was Clement Attlee's chancellor, a man of severe moral rectitude, a teetotaller and vegetarian. That, however, did not stop his Conservative opponents referring to this paragon as 'Sir Stifford Crapps' after a BBC radio announcer committed one of the funniest political spoonerisms ever....
Returning home in January [1942] after ending his stint as ambassador to Moscow, he gave a BBC radio speech. This struck a loud, clanging chord with a disenchanted British public – half of whom heard the speech – and 93% of those approved of its message, which when boiled down was just an appeal for greater individual effort to win the war. Almost as vacuous as Clegg's contribution to the leadership debates, you might think. Even so, this one speech catapulted Cripps to the front rank of politics: at the peak of his popularity 34% of people wanted him to replace Churchill at Number 10.
I don't recall Cripps becoming prime minister. Churchill brought him into government where he promptly got lost in administration while El Alamein helped restore faith in his government....