The Tory Party At War

Summary

Podcast Summary: WW2 Pod – "The Tory Party At War"

Episode Details:

• Title: The Tory Party At War
• Release Date: May 28, 2025
• Hosts: Comedian Al Murray and historian James Holland
• Guest: Kit Covell, historian and author of Blue Jerusalem

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1. Introduction to British Conservative Politics During WWII

The episode delves into the intricate dynamics of the British Conservative Party during the Second World War, a subject often overshadowed by the broader narratives of the war. Host Al Murray introduces Kit Covell, who authored Blue Jerusalem, a book that explores the internal machinations of the Conservative Party amidst the global conflict.

Notable Quote:

[04:18] Kit Covell: "Churchill is a man who is very much not loved by the Tory grassroots or by the Tory hierarchy."

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2. Winston Churchill's Complex Relationship with the Conservative Party

Kit Covell discusses Churchill's atypical position within the Conservative Party. Despite being a staunch Tory, Churchill was initially distrusted and disliked by many within his own party. His departure from the Conservatives and subsequent rejoining heightened tensions, positioning him as a central yet controversial figure.

Key Points:

• Churchill's Popularity: Initially viewed as an "alcoholic" and "dangerous," Churchill's reputation transformed into that of a national hero.
• Party Schism: His polarizing presence indicated deep divisions within the Conservative ranks during the war.

Notable Quote:

[05:08] Kit Covell: "He's not his. His support is not within the Conservative Party yet today he's thought of as the greatest Conservative leader there's ever been."

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3. The Impact of "Guilty Men" on Conservative Reputation

The discussion shifts to the influential book Guilty Men, which criticized the Conservative government's appeasement policies pre-WWII. This publication solidified negative perceptions of the Tories, portraying them as responsible for Britain's initial wartime setbacks.

Key Points:

• Public Perception: Guilty Men reinforced the idea that Conservative policies led to military defeats, such as Dunkirk.
• Historical Narrative: The book remains pivotal in shaping the historiography of appeasement and Conservative leadership.

Notable Quotes:

[14:03] Al Murray: "Guilty Men is... an absolutely remarkable piece of journalism."

[15:04] Al Murray: "Is the truth. It's certainly in politics."

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4. The 1942 No-Confidence Debate and Strategic Critiques

In July 1942, following the fall of Tobruk, a no-confidence debate emerged within the Conservative Party. Tory MPs, led by Sir John Wardlaw Milne, criticized Churchill's strategic direction, particularly his approach to arms and armaments.

Key Points:

• Weapons Procurement: Criticism focused on British tanks being under-gunned and under-armored compared to German models.
• Strategic Direction: Debates encompassed whether to prioritize land warfare, bomber fleets, or naval strength.
• Political Maneuvering: Conservative backbenchers used strategic critiques as a means to challenge Churchill's leadership without directly opposing his popularity.

Notable Quote:

[25:47] Kit Covell: "John Wardlaw Milne says, 'What we need is a grand war supremo.'"

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5. Debates Over Military Strategy: Land, Air, or Sea

The episode explores the divergent opinions within the Conservative Party regarding the optimal military strategy. Some advocated for a focus on tanks and land warfare, others on building a formidable bomber fleet, while a faction emphasized naval dominance to protect the British Isles and Empire.

Key Points:

• Land Warfare: Emphasis on improving tank performance and reliability.
• Air Warfare: Proposals for massive bomber fleets to conduct nightly raids over Germany.
• Naval Focus: Advocating for a strong navy to safeguard the Empire and defer continental conflicts.

Notable Quote:

[30:08] Kit Covell: "Sir Nor Pemberton Billing... argues for gigantic fleets of bombers that would stream over Germany every night."

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6. The Labour Party's Ascendance and the 1945 Election

Amidst wartime challenges, the Labour Party began to gain traction by presenting compelling visions for Britain's post-war future. The Conservatives, beleaguered by internal dissent and public criticism from works like Guilty Men, struggled to maintain their standing.

Key Points:

• Public Opinion: By mid-war, Labour appeared more capable of addressing Britain's reconstruction needs.
• Election Results: The 1945 general election resulted in a landslide victory for Labour, reshaping British politics.
• Manifesto Strategies: Notably, the Conservative manifesto focused on national unity and competency without explicitly mentioning the party itself, while Labour emphasized competence and welfare.

Notable Quotes:

[43:12] Al Murray: "They do suffer a national defeat and labor do very well pretty much everywhere."

[43:38] Kit Covell: "The Conservative Manifesto doesn't mention the word Conservative once."

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7. The Role of Beveridge and the Welfare State

The conversation highlights the pivotal role of William Beveridge and his report, which laid the groundwork for the post-war welfare state. While Beveridge's report was officially mundane, its introduction captivated public imagination by addressing the "five giants": idleness, want, disease, ignorance, and squalor.

Key Points:

• Welfare Reform: Beveridge's proposals for universal healthcare, pensions, and social insurance resonated across political spectrums.
• Political Alignment: These reforms garnered support from Labour, Liberals, and even some Conservatives, showcasing a rare convergence of political ideologies.
• Long-Term Impact: The welfare state became a cornerstone of post-war British society, fundamentally altering the relationship between the citizen and the state.

Notable Quote:

[34:05] Kit Covell: "It really does capture the imagination in a way that I don't think any report has ever done."

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8. The Decline of Imperialism in British Politics

The episode examines the decline of imperialism as a dominant force in British politics post-WWII. Despite Churchill's staunch imperialist views, the realities of the war and shifting global dynamics led to the gradual dismantling of the British Empire.

Key Points:

• Imperial Concerns: Within the Conservative Party, there was significant anxiety about maintaining the Empire amidst wartime alliances, particularly with the United States.
• Shift in Focus: The war catalyzed a transition from Empire-centric politics to a focus on national reconstruction and welfare.
• Alternative Histories: Covell posits that different outcomes during the war could have drastically altered Britain's imperial trajectory.

Notable Quotes:

[44:49] Kit Covell: "When people talked about Britain, the 1940s, many of them thought of Britain fundamentally as the British Empire."

[46:09] Al Murray: "Beaver Brooks... sees siding with the Soviet Union as a good thing, because it'll save the British Empire from the Americans."

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9. Contingency and Alternative Outcomes in WWII British Politics

Covell emphasizes the role of contingency, personality, and unexpected events in shaping the course of British politics during WWII. He argues against the notion of inevitability in historical outcomes, highlighting how different decisions and circumstances could have led to alternative political landscapes.

Key Points:

• Historical Contingency: The unpredictable nature of war meant that political outcomes were not predetermined.
• Leadership Decisions: Individual choices by leaders like Churchill and Rab Butler had profound impacts on the direction of the Conservative Party and, by extension, British society.
• Future Implications: Covell suggests that understanding these contingencies is crucial for a nuanced view of history.

Notable Quote:

[49:44] Kit Covell: "That's why we love it. That's why it's so interesting. That's why it's fun."

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10. Conclusion and Recommendations

The episode wraps up with Covell recommending further readings to explore British politics and WWII history in greater depth, including works by David Edgerton and Rob Crowcroft. Al Murray reflects on the lessons from the war, emphasizing the complexity of political identities and the enduring impact of historical narratives.

Notable Quote:

[51:09] Al Murray: "Which you can when they die, you can take out and you can read, know exactly what was going on in their heads."

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Key Takeaways:

• Churchill's Dual Legacy: Viewed both with disdain and reverence within the Conservative Party, Churchill's leadership was pivotal yet divisive.
• Impact of Guilty Men: The publication significantly tarnished the Conservative reputation, influencing public perception and wartime politics.
• Internal Party Debates: Strategic disagreements within the Conservatives highlighted broader questions about Britain's military focus and post-war reconstruction.
• Labour's Rise: Effective post-war proposals and shifting public sentiment led to Labour's decisive victory in 1945.
• Decline of the British Empire: WWII acted as a catalyst for the gradual dissolution of British imperialism, reshaping national identity and global standing.
• Historical Contingency: Understanding the unpredictable factors that influenced wartime politics offers a richer, more nuanced historical perspective.

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Additional Resources:

• Books Mentioned:
  • Blue Jerusalem by Kit Covell
  • Churchill: A Career and Failure (unnamed author)
  • One Million Allies if We Choose by Tom Richingham
  • Rise and Fall by David Edgerton
  • Works by Rob Crowcroft and Morris Cowling

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This episode offers a compelling exploration of the Conservative Party's internal struggles and strategic debates during WWII, providing listeners with a deeper understanding of Britain's political landscape during a tumultuous period.

Transcript

[Al Murray]

Thank you for listening to we have ways of making you talk. Sign up to our Patreon to receive bonus content, live streams and our weekly newsletter with money off books and museum visits as well. Plus early access to all live show tickets. That's patreon.com wehaveways.

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[Kit Covell]

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[Al Murray]

Welcome to we have ways of making you talk with me Al Murray, but no James Holland yes, we have a very special guest today and I've been wanting to talk to for ages since I first came across his book and to talk about an aspect of the war as well that we tend not to touch on on the podcast that much, which is British politics with a view to what the Conservative Party's up to. Because after all the the received version of events is there's a national government and Labour win in 1945. So let's not worry, let's just not worry about what happened within that national government and certainly within the Conservative part of the national government in the five years preceding the general election, 1945, the khaki election of course, which leads to the post war consensus and the Attlee government and the nhs, the welfare state and all those Sort of touchstones of the way people look at the war through the prism of post war politics. And last year I was recommended an absolutely amazing eye opening and sort of game changing book to read by the historian Kit Covel called Blue Jerusalem, which is about exactly what I've just sort of outlined. And I'm so delighted to be joined by Kit, all the way from Brisbane. Kit, welcome to. We have ways of making you talk.

[Kit Covell]

Oh, yeah. Good evening. Lovely to be here.

[Al Murray]

Well, yeah, it's evening for you, morning for me. You're in Brisbane and where's your office? You said you're just up the road from.

[Kit Covell]

Yeah, so I'm actually just up the road from MacArthur's office. He was based in the fanciest brand spanking new office building in Queensland. One considerably nicer than the government one that I work in to this day.

[Al Murray]

Right, okay. Well, I suppose, you know, that befits the man, doesn't it? Well now you took on perhaps the, I mean, undiscovered area in a way of Conservative Party politics during the Second World War. And I think for most people, you know, obviously Churchill's a, a Tory, but he's not an obvious Tory, is he? And he's in a way atypical of the Conservative Party by 1940, isn't he? So I mean we should start really with Churchill because so much happens in, in his wake and despite him and with and without his involvement within the Conservative Party and then within the national government. Where does Churchill fit into the Tory party picture when he, when he comes to office in May 1940?

[Kit Covell]

Well, I think the first thing you have to say is that Churchill is a man who is very much not loved by the Tory grassroots or by the Tory hierarchy.

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[Kit Covell]

Reading correspondence from Tory members to each other, they talk about this kind of violent, dangerous alcoholic who shouldn't be let anywhere near the levers of power. And of course, sometime later he's a great national hero.

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[Kit Covell]

So he's distrusted because he's a man who's not just ratted. He famously left the Conservative Party from the Liberals but does something even worse which is re. Ratted by.

[Al Murray]

Comes back.

[Kit Covell]

Coming back.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, yeah.

[Kit Covell]

So he's not. His support is not within the Conservative Party yet today he's thought of as the greatest Conservative leader there's ever been.

[Al Murray]

Yeah. Which suggests that there has to have been a schism within the Conservative Party in order to make that flip. People have to have been left behind by the process of the war and during the war because after all, appeasement we're using that word advisedly. Appeasement is the mainstream Conservative Party politics in the 30s, isn't it?

[Kit Covell]

Yeah, absolutely. For the very good reason that most conservatives want to conserve things and they recognize that a huge global war could potentially massively disrupt, perhaps even end the empire and also completely change the social constitution of Britain and the place of the wealthy and the upper class and put labor on top. So they want to keep as far away from it from possible. And they don't like Churchill banging the drum.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, because I think one of the things to remember about, one of the things to bear in mind, there has been no revolution in the United Kingdom. In Britain, there has everywhere else, pretty much France's, post First World War, you know, Germany, there's been a revolution, or there's been two. There's obviously been the revolution in Russia, the Soviet Union. If you are the Tory state and you've managed to. I mean, you can pin the First World War on the Liberals, which is the other thing you can do politically, can't you? You can say that wasn't us. You know, the thing to bear in mind is that they've got through that episode by the skin of their teeth are conservatives, haven't they? They're the political party that survived and they've threats from the left, haven't they? And so they want to hang on to where they are.

[Kit Covell]

They want to hang on to it. They want to hang on to it politically. They also want to hang on to it personally because it is the sons of Conservative politicians who are likely going to be the officers who get cut down in what they imagine to be a repeat of the First World War, like a whole Gen. Because in some ways there has been a revolution in Britain. It hasn't been a political revolution, but it's been a social revolution. A whole generation of young men have been wiped out about, particularly amongst the officer class. Gender relations are fundamentally changed and they see all of that and worry, well, God, what happened last time? Can you imagine what it's like again?

[Al Murray]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And with the specter of the Soviet Union in the distance. Because after all, that's the thing that colors so much politics in the 30s, isn't it? It's the Soviet Union rather than Nazi Germany, as people are thinking, well, that's what's on offer, isn't it? And it's the bleakest view of a social upheaval that you. That's what they're worried about.

[Kit Covell]

Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Literally, you have conservatives who, you know, Skip ahead of it. When, after the fall of France, they're off. Famously, Chips Channel great, wealthy American socialite and Conservative mp, he's burying his Faberge eggs down at the bottom of the garden. Actually asked his manservant to do it for him, his most gardener, because he's worried not just about the Germans heading up and taking it, but the social revolution that might accompany some kind of invasion and the whole world and his financial position being turned upside down.

[Al Murray]

Yeah. Because after all, I mean, so much the worry about bombing is about social upheaval, isn't it? You know, Dewett's theories about strategic bombing are that the population rise up and say to a government, enough's enough. We're not prepared to put up with this. That's the idea of the leverage of bombing the civilian population. And everyone thinks that's what's going to happen in the British political classes across the board. So you could. I mean, had I eggs at the time, I don't know, would you? I probably pawned them rather than buried at the bottom of the gun there. So Churchill, is this. One of the things you've got to do with Churchill is turn him into a live politician. What are politicians like, particularly when they've fallen out with their party? They look for positions, don't they, around which to build momentum and power and to mark themselves out. So he's anti Indian independence, which must be to reassure imperial Tories that he's one of them, really.

[Kit Covell]

Yeah. Plus he believes it. Believes in it. That kind of helps as well.

[Al Murray]

Well, yeah, but this is the fascinating thing with Church, isn't it, because he does pick positions and you think he probably believe this as well as it being bonkers and doesn't do him any favors, but he probably does believe it. He backs Edward viii, which is absolutely crazy, given the direction of travel. You know, public opinion, in political opinion definitely believes it.

[Kit Covell]

I mean. I mean, there is a wonderful. There's a wonderful book out there with a perfect title, much better than mine, which is about Churchill up till 1939, which is called Churchill A Career and Failure, because, particularly over the 1930s, he keeps on picking issue after issue and it just going completely the wrong way.

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[Kit Covell]

In many ways, he's rescued by the Second World War by the fact that his prophecy has come true.

[Al Murray]

Yes.

[Kit Covell]

And one of the interesting things this is, of course, you know, people forget he was in Neville Chamberlain's Cabinet as well.

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[Kit Covell]

The two of them actually got on quite well, except for the fact that Churchill kept on writing minutes to Chamberlain with the view that he would have some records later to write about his. In his post war book which drove Chamberlain up the wall.

[Al Murray]

Yeah. When Chamberlain says that Winston's preparing his memoirs, it's quite extraordinary, isn't. But the point is, is as you say, the war rescues him. But he has chosen Nazism as the great threat, rearmament as the sort of one of his causes. And as you say, it just so happens he turns out to be right.

[Kit Covell]

Yeah, parts of it turn out to be right.

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[Kit Covell]

One of the things that he suggests as a recipe to prevent war is the creation of enormous bomber fleet which. Yeah. Works in 1944. 45, but in 1938, as we find out in 1940 is a bit of a disaster.

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[Kit Covell]

And if Chamberlain and the government had gone along Churchill's way and spent all of the money on not great two engine bombers rather than Spitfires and aerial defence, we could have fighter defense. Yeah. We could have been in real trouble. So he's someone with a bit of a. Kind of a mixed record, but important thing, he gets the overall thing right. He knows where the threat is coming from.

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[Kit Covell]

And you can. And people do say many things against him but he's. He's right, he's just right. Yeah.

[Al Murray]

And he's good at transmitting that too, is the other thing is he's. Is his sort of interface with the press. He's good at that, isn't he? Because he's a journalist. Right. So he's able to handle people like Beaverbrook or at least have a fruitful relationship with him because they fall in and out with each other because they're both mercurial. He's still able to cultivate those relationships and maintain them and therefore run a way of transmitting how he feels about stuff fairly effectively. Even though he's been cast out from the party.

[Kit Covell]

Yeah. And I mean, the party really do go after him. There are people within the higher echelons of the party that are working to actively undermine Churchill. And that's one of the reasons why he is, you know, very careful when he gets into office that he does actually take up eventually the mantle of the Conservative Party leadership after Chamberlain resigns and, you know, then dies because he, you know, he's also looking. So often the case in British politics, particularly during the Second World War, is that everyone is in some ways fighting the last war. They're looking back to what happened in World War I and Churchill is deeply paranoid that he's going to end up stranded like Lloyd George, being the head of a coalition the head of a government, but without a party behind him. So with a degree of reluctance, but also a lot of realism, he says, yes, I will be the leader of the Conservative Party. I mean, it helps. They don't really have any other options either. And that is, you know, that's a relationship that works in the long term, but it's an uneasy one for quite, Quite a long period.

[Al Murray]

Yeah. I mean, how long do you. Would you say? How long is he really having a hard time with them?

[Kit Covell]

Well, I mean, this is the question. There are no party is universally is united. There's always factions, there's always groups that are opposed. I think he manages to get the bulk of the party membership onside quite quickly. It might seem remarkable to us these days.

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[Kit Covell]

I mean, you used to always say that our Conservative Party is an incredible organization because it gets rid of its leaders very quickly, but then it rallies around them, which, you know, if recent years has proved to be anything but the case. But it was happening in the, you know, in the Second World War. And you have amazing things like the fact that Conservative Party clubs quickly change their name from, you know, Chamberlain House to Churchill House.

[Al Murray]

Right, okay.

[Kit Covell]

And so he gets the membership on side. It take a little bit longer with the. The MPs. Famously, when Churchill makes his first appearance in the House of Commons after becoming Prime Minister, there's relative silence when he walks in. But when Chamberlain turns up, there's this great explosion of applause. And actually Chamberlain and Churchill, who continue to get on quite well after Churchill takes over, Churchill has to ask Chamberlain to kind of, can you get the lads on side, really? And then eventually. Yeah, and then Churchill pays him back. Because after Guilty Men comes out, the kind of tirade against the pre war Conservative governments, there's an awful lot of knives out for Chamberlain. And Churchill says basically to his Labour colleagues, stop it, leave him alone. So they end up having a pretty kind of good working relationship for that part of the war in which they're together.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, Guilty Men is. I think, it's well worth talking about because its influence, I think, is we're still in the wake of. Of Guilty Men in terms of the historiography of the Second World War, particularly, you know, appeasement. When you hear a modern politician saying, we can't appease the way Chamberlain did. Guilty Men is at the core of that argument, isn't it? And. And that tradition.

[Kit Covell]

Yeah. I mean, and for those who don't know, Guilty Men is a book, it's written by Cato, which is the anonymous name For a group of three authors, one Liberal, one Conservative, also former captain of the England rugby team, and most famously, Michael Foot, the future Labour leader. And it's an incredible plumbing. It's a wonderful piece of journalism. And it's all about the idea that British army in France and at Dunkirk is damned before they take the field. That's the big place. But they have been let down by the government, by the Conservative government of the 30s, and they're to blame, not the soldiers.

[Al Murray]

Yeah. What's interesting about this, for instance, in Montgomery's memoirs, he. He says that completely. He says, we were down from the outset, we never any chance politicians had let us down. It's very interesting that he completely. Whether he thinks that or not, you know, or whether he's running with opinion, in his memoir, he says the same thing. It's a very. It's an argument with tremendous traction, isn't it? And definitely it's one of the problems that the Conservative Party has to deal with over the next five years, isn't it? Is that in the end, the public in general think, well, this is your war and the mess at the start made it last so long is your fault.

[Kit Covell]

Yeah. And who's the person who saves, you know, saves, quote, unquote, the country is. Churchill, who you didn't like, was actually brought into office as a result of a backbolt revolt, and in the Conservative Party against Chamberlain. But he only got there because he had the support of the Labour Party. And, you know, who is it that's actually doing the fighting or, you know, putting the government together? Well, there are Labour people there. So that old argument, the one that worked so well for the tories in the 1920s and 30s, and frankly worked brilliantly for the Tories for much of the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, that labour was the unpatriotic party and that Tories the party, the flag just doesn't work as a result.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, yeah. They can't make it fly at all, can they?

[Kit Covell]

No. And they tried desperately. They tried desperately. And there's some wonderful stuff in the 1945 general election, some almost black propaganda that they put out there. The Conservatives push a book that pretends to be a set of correspondence between a German spy and his mother masters in Berlin, saying, oh, how wonderful it's going to be that we'll have labor in charge, because, you know, they'll never, you know, they'll never stand up for Britain. So they do everything they can to try and make the argument, but it just won't fly for, you know, Very good reason.

[Al Murray]

Because part of the issue with guilty men is it's sort of right. And, you know, a polemic with enough truth in it will lay waste to all other argument, won't it? Is the truth. It's certainly in politics. And that's what. That's what happens with it. I read it ages ago. Is an absolutely remarkable peace journalism. It's sort of. You can't argue with it. You can see why it was so powerful at the time.

[Kit Covell]

And it also comes at a time when there are a lot of other really important arguments being made that kind of reinforce some of the cases of being made in guilty men. So. And it very much links to this idea of the people's war.

[Al Murray]

Yes.

[Kit Covell]

So the Conservatives have let down the army, they've let down the country. See what happens in Dunkirk. Who rescues the country? It's the people. Yeah, it's the classic J.B. priestley, George Orwell story about the little boats turning up and rescuing the men from the beaches. While we all know, certainly listening to this pod, that it's not. And actually, you know, stick our hand up as a. As a Pole, you know, Polish destroyers there as well, as. Well as other Allied. Allied boats. But it's a military effort. Not really your man in his dinghy or your paddle steamer. But it's an incredib. Powerful story. I mean, even though I know it's wrong, when I hear people talking about it, I get that little chill up the spine. It's just so beautiful, this sense of, you know, people coming to rescue it, really. I mean, it tapped into some very deep, deep stories. That the heart of British historical life.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, absolutely. And it is still, you know, it's the one where you're best off. I always think it's your best off not intervening in a pub argument saying, actually, it's a Royal Navy, just let that one. Or a dinner party. Just let. I just let that one run. There's no. There's no point going, Well, I think you'll find actually they're off the mole, that they're just, you know, they're destroyed. There's no point. I mean, it is interesting, isn't it, because. Because there are lots of arguments about the idea of a people's war. And there. There is this. There is this distinction, isn't there, between a conservative war is a. Is a country's war a patriotic war, Isn't it? On the left, it's a people's war. Because those are the two different worldviews, essentially, aren't they? You could. And they overlay one another to an extent. But then do come away. The. The left is a class analysis of that, isn't it? Rather than a national, as it were, patri existic interpretation.

[Kit Covell]

Yeah. And absolutely. And these two interpretations were running together at the time. There were people who were making the argument that you've just made. The first broadcast after the BAF is rescued is not from JB Priestley, it's actually from the Director of Military Intelligence for the BF who makes a broadcast praising the forces. Sometimes I think the thing that I find most interesting is that in the conservative press and in the conservative world, what's celebrated is not Dunkirk but Kallai. And that's seen as the kind of the great mark of British military heroism. So there's a counter narrative to the sense that there is the people rescue the army. It's A, the services coming together to rescue themselves. And B, actually Arthur Bryant, the very popular historian of his day, kind of talks about, well, who were the bravest people who fought in the rear guard? It was the guards. Oh God, the men with the blue and burgundy striped ties. Who are the real heroes of this? And this is an argument that continues on throughout the war between left and right. Who are the real victors? Who are the people who have won the war? Is it the quote, unquote, people which are reimagined mainly as the working class with a really important role for the trade unions and that understanding of the people, or is it the military? And the military viewed as being particularly an aristocratic upper class led force?

[Al Murray]

And there are people on the left who want a sort of people's army in the Soviet style, without any ranks and all that sort of thing, aren't they? They think that there needs to be that kind of shake up. You need to. It didn't work. BF didn't work. So abandoned that way of doing things in the army, start again and. And have a. Literally a people's army out there. I mean, there are people actually making this argument.

[Kit Covell]

Yeah, absolutely. You know, George Orwell is one, the author, he fought in the Spanish Civil War along with. With another chap called Tom Winteringham, who's very important, another Spanish Civil War veteran Tom Winteringham is talking about. So imagine this, you're reading your daily newspaper and you've got an article in there from Tom Winteringham talking about how you can make your own grenade to disrupt a German tank. And this is the sense we don't. The argument is we don't need these high bound brass hat, red tab generals look where they got us in the First World War. Look where they got us in the.

[Al Murray]

Just now.

[Kit Covell]

Yeah, what we need is the organized working class. The man with the shotgun pops up against the firestead, ready to go out, fight with his mates.

[Al Murray]

God blimey.

[Kit Covell]

Oh, thank God it didn't happen.

[Al Murray]

Well, that's basically. That's exactly you. You've read my mind. From thousands of miles away. I mean, the thing is, you know, we. Because we talk on the podcast an awful lot about steel, not flesh. You know, in fact, I think it's one of the. In the five, six years we've done this, what are the arguments? We. We've really sort of lent into and looked at and talked about sort of the eminent sense of it, because lately James and I have been talking about how when you look at the Soviet way of doing war, it's the opposite. And they're so profligate with life that they actually cause themselves their later demographic problems.

[Kit Covell]

Far, far.

[Al Murray]

Like in excess of anything British state had to deal with, you know, the 900,000 casualties in the Battle of Berlin in a fortnight. It makes the British army, which is accused of timidity and caution, look eminently sensible, I think.

[Kit Covell]

But steel, not flesh, is a. Yeah, it's a. It's a conservative war because, you know, the revolution that would come from that many people dying for a country, Britain, they're very aware that Britain, of all of the big competent nations, has the smallest population. So what could happen? Well, you could run down your own population, which would have enormous consequences if you win to, you know, balance the power of the world. Or you could do the other thing, which is to enlist the forces of the Empire. There's a wonderful book by Tyler, Tom Richingham, called One Million Allies if We choose, which says, look, give every peasant in India a rifle, every person in the British Empire a gun. And there are people who argue it, and Tories know if you do that well, they're going to want their countries, you know. So for British conservatives, steel, not flesh, is not just a military strategy, it's a political strategy to maintain the kind of world that they want to see after war, which is a. A world in which there hasn't been a social revolution at home and the British Empire very much remains intact.

[Al Murray]

Yeah. I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll take a very quick break and then we'll come back. I'm absolutely loving every. Every. Every morsel of this conversation. It's brilliant. We'll see you in a tick, everybody.

[Kit Covell]

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[Al Murray]

Welcome back to Way of Ways of Making youg Talk. I'm talking to Kit Covell about, well, what's under the bonnet in British politics, conservative politics particularly, because after all, they've been setting the tone through government, really. And, and the thing I really want to talk about as well, Kit, the no confidence debate that Churchill has to face in 1942, where of course he doesn't lose because that's, although that's not impossible, is it? Because Asquith Falls Chamberlain, after all, has been evicted for far, you know, Norway's small beer disaster wise compared to Singapore, Gazala lines, Tobruk, you know, Greece, relentless sort of 18 months of calamity the British army endures in, you know, on foreign shores. What, how, how does this debate come about? Take us through the story of that.

[Kit Covell]

Yeah, so the debate comes about as in July 1942. It's after the fall of Tobruk. It's absolutely the deer of the British Army's fortune. There are debates about the, what's called the strategic direction of the war. And they're essentially people who, you know, are upset with how things are going. Tories this up largely who are saying Church was not doing a great job in all of this. We need a complete reorganization of the way in which the war is being organized at a top level. There's that element. And they are really gunning for Churchill, but you can't say that he's still incredibly popular. So they have to find ways to argue about Churchill and strategy without really arguing about it. So the debate really turns on the question of arms and armaments. And there's a group of kind of recalcrant Tory MPs led by a chap called John Ward, Sir John Wardlaw Milne, who, fantastic character, my goodness, you could go down a Wikipedia rabbit hole there for hours, I promise you. And he argues that one of the big problems of British tanks in the desert, that British tanks are under gunned under armoured and not reliable compared to the German one guns. And this is a critique more broadly of the production strategy that's saying, look, you know, you guys, it's 1942, you guys have been in office two years now, pretty much, and what have you got to show for it? All of the weapons, you know, you've lost every battle you fought, except for the Battle of Britain. And what was that fought with? That was fought with weapons that were designed and built in the 1930s. So they go after the weapons question. A. Because, because there's quite a lot of people in that kind of grouping who actually do know a little bit about weapons, but also because it's a way of getting at Churchill. And finally, because weapons are really important to this kind of steel, not flesh thing. You've got to have the right, you know, if you're going to fight a war of machines, you've got to have the right ones.

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[Kit Covell]

So they take on this argument, they prosecute it pretty well. There are, you know, Churchill relents and he's said it, he's going to set up a new ministry with a new minister to really look at these problems, etc. But the end result is that, as so often is the case with maverick right wing Tory backbenchers, they don't just shoot themselves in the foot and bazooka themselves in the foot. And John Wardlaw Milne says, you know, what we need is a grand war supremo. And the person he proposes is the Duke of Gloucester.

[Al Murray]

Oh, God.

[Kit Covell]

Everyone's like, who?

[Al Murray]

What? What, why?

[Kit Covell]

And what had until that point been quite a measured, restrained, thoughtful, informed, intelligent debate collapses, done. That's the end of that in Churchill. Sally's fourth.

[Al Murray]

Right. That stuff about weapons though is, that's become the story, hasn't it? People do, you know, British tank procurement's hopeless. And very often you'll read stuff about tank procurement and it'll always be, you know, this even came up in Parliament. Well, yeah, but lots of things come up in Parliament and very often they come up for other, other reasons as you've outlined there, that the reason they're asking about. And in a way it sort of reminds you of we can't criticize the King, so we'll criticize his advisors. It's got that sort of feeling, hasn't it? Or if only Chairman Mao knew about this, he'd be terribly upset. It's got that texture to it, hasn't it? Because if a leader is popular, you've got to come at him, as you say, you've got to come at him somehow. And weapons, weapons are obviously important. But this has also become the sort of received view of British weapon procurement in the Second World War, isn't it? That for two years it's hopeless and then they finally figure it out.

[Kit Covell]

Yeah, yeah, it is. And I mean the other, you know, talking about kind of these subterranean political issues is there is this debate about strategy going on. Again, it's related to weapons and it's a question about kind of what weapons Britain should be producing. So there are people who are, you know, we need to fight a land war. So emphasis very much on tanks. Then there are people who are saying, oh, it's a terrible idea, let's just build a massive, massive bomber force. There's a wonderful chap who actually puts Sir John Lord Will in the shade for his maverick nature. Sir Nor Pemberton Billing.

[Al Murray]

Oh yeah.

[Kit Covell]

Involved in the creation of the Spitfire. So he's got a bit of kudos. He's involved in the creation of the RAF as well. You know, he argues for gigantic fleets of bombers that would stream over Germany every night and destroy the enemy. And then actually the most interesting lot who you hear least about are the people who say you should actually spend all the money on the navy. And that really this continental way of fighting is frankly not British. It's not the British way of war. What we should do is protect the home island, protect the, protect the roots of empire, frankly. Let the Germans and the Russians ding dong it out between them and while keeping the, the British Empire kind of safe and wealthy. But yeah, you can't say that. You can't in the middle of 1942, say, I don't actually really care too much who would win between the Germans and the Russ. So you have to find other ways to talk about it. And talking about armaments is, is how you do that.

[Al Murray]

I mean there are, I mean, Alan Clark, who was the Tory politician in the 90s, diarist, that was his view. You know, he, he stuck to that. He said we never should have got involved. Let the Bolsheviks and the Nazis annihilate one another and just let him get on with it. And he's representative of what was left of that view because after all, once the war started and appeasement's over, as a Tory, you've got to kind of pick your path, haven't you? You within the party and there are all sorts of people in the Conservative Party because you've got industrialists, haven't you? So people who represent high business. You've got the sort of small business people. So the Margaret Thatcher's dad, as it were, you've got back to the land Tories who care about, care about nature. So obviously don't like the industrialists much. You've got out and out imperialists. You've got people who are pretty keen on the Nazis as well in the, in the, in the, you know.

[Kit Covell]

Yeah, yeah. There's a fair number of those and.

[Al Murray]

There'S a fair number of those they're having. They're all, all of these people are having to find their place in the different currents that the war's offering them. Right. And at the same time, as we've already talked, as we already said, the Tory party is very much not anyone's flavor within the population. I mean the opinion polling in 1942 is firmly pro Labour, isn't it? It's high 40s in favor of Labour, isn't it? From, from the, really from the middle of the war up to the election. It doesn't really change much, does it?

[Kit Covell]

Yeah, I mean it's safe to say that the opinion polling that's being done in the Second World War is, is nothing like as opinion polls that we have, but you're absolutely right. And you can tell from. Also from things like by elections. And now we have kind of going over mass observation. I know you've talked about on the pod, these kind of social surveys that are being done. It's the case once mid war, Churchill remains popular but the Tories aren't. As soon as, you know, post Alamein, post beverage report, which I'm sure we'll get to.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, yeah.

[Kit Covell]

The sense we're talking about Britain's not going to lose the war at this point, the question is, how is it going to win and what kind of world is it going to win? And it. From that point onwards, when you're asking those questions, it's Labour who seem like the party with the best answers, rather than the Tories.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And after all, the Tories are also. They're tied up with the Great Depression, aren't they? And, you know, Labour took public action. You know, the Great Strike is an attempt to change that order. Because there's that famous post, isn't there, which is with a slum child in a slum behind. You know, your future is the sort of gleaming thing that looks like the National Theater. Churchill very much objected to, didn't like that, kind of, here's your future coming, coming. One of the core things in all of this beverage is what this is all about, isn't it? Is what is the deal? What's the deal between the citizen, his family and the state Once you've started conscripting people, there has to be a deal, doesn't there? Not just we're going to win the war, there has to be a future. And this is where Labour are so closely, intimately tied to that possibility. Beveridge is sort of catalytic in this, isn't he? It gets written down finally. It gets fleshed out in people's imaginations properly.

[Kit Covell]

Yeah. And what's really interesting about Beveridge is when I was at university, I was forced to sit down and read this rather quite a long. It's got social insurance and allied services. This was a gig that was given to Beveridge. So he was given the task of basically trying to reorganize British civil Service. Because Beveridge was a pain to the government. He was always coming up with ideas. They wanted to get rid of him. It's like, let's give him something really boring and time consuming to do. Welfare system. There you go. And 95% of it is deeply, deeply dull. But he uses the 5%, the introduction, to really kind of g up the report, you know, talking about these, the five giants he's going to slay of idleness, want, disease, ignorance, squalor, goes massively beyond his brief and says, oh, here's this marvelous plan I've created, by the way. It relies also upon a plan to. To generate full employment and have a universal healthcare system. But it does catch the imagination. And it catches the imagination partly because the government had been queasy about putting out anything beforehand, but also because it's really good at appealing to lots of different types of people. So what it does is it suggests that, yeah, there'll be some universalism in the project, so everyone will have access to. To things like health services, pensions, et cetera. So that kind of gets your kind of your labor socialist equality vote, but it also gets your kind of liberal vote because it's very much about personal responsibility. It's an insurance scheme, so it's about paying in. And it even gets quite a bit of conservative support because it supports things like family allowances, which are seen as being a really important way to raise the population and create. Create the great little imperial soldiers of the future. So, I mean, he plays an absolute blinder in terms of getting different currents of support on board. And it really does. Yeah. Captures the imagination in a way that I don't think any report has ever done.

[Al Murray]

Yeah. Before. It is interesting, though, because we are. What's emerging in the way we're talking about this is there are moments which are crystallized. So guilty men crystallizes a feeling in a moment, doesn't it? And this is maybe the nature of a society going under some such a. Such stress as a war is that if an argument pushes through, it sort of captures people's imaginations. Not a lot politicians can do about it.

[Kit Covell]

No. And it comes at the perfect timing in terms of. It's just after Alamain, so there's, you know, the sense of possibility, a sense of a turning tide that really, you know, gets. Gets caught up with it.

[Al Murray]

And what do Tories do to sort of try and ride that wave? Because there's the Education act in 1944, famously, which is Rob Butler, isn't it, who is trying to sort of. Of. They're trying to do something, aren't they? They're trying to offer. Offer something while they're still in office. Right.

[Kit Covell]

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, and this is why the book is called with my desperate desire to ensure that I had something punning and cunning. It's called Blue Jerusalem, which is a play on the idea that labor is building a new Jerusalem. So this is Blue, the Tory version. And the idea that conservatives were just sitting in their hands while all of this was going on is. Is for the birds. They were very much involved in questions about reconstruction right from the word go, and had their own bold ideas for the future. So when it comes to welfare, you have people coming up with very serious people, very connected people, like the Courtaulds, one of the largest chemical manufacturers, Dyestuff. It's Called Pep Lord Perry from Ford, Captains of industry, coming up with plans for kind of a corporate welfare system, a system where the government basically guarantees the success of British companies and it's through British companies that you'll be provided with all of your welfare and health services. So very, very different. And you, you mentioned Rab Butler who probably comes up with the most radical ideas of the war for the Conservative Party. It's funny because he's someone who in the post war period is thought of as something of a moderate, the ultimate consensus politician. We heard of this idea of Butler Butlerism but during the war he's far from it. He's partly trying to kind of re resuscitate his reputation. After being closely aligned with Cheney, Chamberlain is. He comes up with ideas for what he calls a new Christian state and he's the big pusher of this, this idea that well, do you want those totalitarian regimes? They might have something going for them. He thinks since 1940 they appear to be winning. Maybe we can learn a thing or two from them. Maybe we can have a population that's all united and geed up together where people have obligations to work and obligations to international service. But how do we stop it descending into Hitlerism and totalitarianism? Well we'll do it through Christianity. So his plan is to yeah, create a new Christian state which has all the best features, the unity, the purpose, the drive of totalitarianism while still maintaining, you know, the best of British in terms of liberty, of the, of the subject, etc. And you guarantee that by making sure that all of the leaders are Christian and the population is quite Christian. And there's lots of these ideas are very much not just Rab Butlers, they're kind of floating around T.S. eliot, Dorothy Sayers. There is a group of Christians who have similar ideas. What's interesting about Rab is he doesn't just talk about this but he actually gets some of it into practice. So I don't know about you Al, but when I was at school you still had to do the act of kind of Christian worship in primary school. We all got together and we sang our, sang our little hymns, occasionally have a talk from the vicar pop down. And that is a result of the 1944 Education Act.

[Al Murray]

I went to a Church of England primary school which is completely in that Butlerian mold, isn't it?

[Kit Covell]

Yeah, it was a Church of England school but it was financed by the state. And here is the state actually supporting religion, predominantly Anglicanism and it's also creating the new leadership Leaders of the Christian state that Butler wants to see created. He's still very much an elitist, he's a Tory. So we think of grammar schools, which are seriously heavily promoted as a result of the 94 Education act, as a great equalizing measure.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, social mobility thing.

[Kit Covell]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, it allows the, you know, the bright son of a bricky or the daughter of a school dinner lady to, you know, to rise up in the race. But for Butler, what was really important was the fact that these bright people would be inculcated in a Christian education so you'd get a new generation of Christian leaders ready to lead, lead the nation, lead this new Christian civilization. As he talked about, gosh, how extraordinary.

[Al Murray]

I mean, arguments about education framed that way. You'd never have. No one would ever think to pitch a thing like that now. It's extraordinary, isn't it? I mean, it really. I mean, obviously past as a foreign country and all that. That is an idea that's pretty alien to the, to the way we think about education. It, I mean, it's, it's extraordinary.

[Kit Covell]

I mean. And this is the same across the Second World War. I think so much we live in the shadow of understandably about what happened. And we have a tendency to think that the future was inevitable, that there was always going to be a Labor victory in 1945, that the type of victory was going to be massive, that the type of labor, the country that comes out of it was going to be the same. But my book is really about saying, look, neither there's, there's various alternative Britons that could have come out of the Second World War. Okay, you know, they might not. They're probably less likely to happen than what happened as a result. But plenty of things happened in the Second World War that no one saw coming.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. The bulk of the politics is reacting to things that no one saw coming. After all, you know, that's what, that's what characterizes it as an event, isn't it? The sudden turns of. Sudden turns of fate that no one's expecting. And the election, it is a landslide for Labour. Everyone knows how landslides work in first past the post politics, they can actually be quite close. The numbers in terms of parliamentary seats are very much tip to Labour, but it's close enough like any British general election, isn't it?

[Kit Covell]

There's an 11% swing, so it is big, it's a big movement. And what's interesting is that it happens in a lot of places. So the Tories end up losing Stockton onto. But they also lose. So you know the Red Wall that was there before.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, of course.

[Kit Covell]

But they also lose Winchester and they lose so many of the like important seats around, around London. It's it. The Conservative Party runs as the national, you know that they make it very. That's right. But they do suffer a national defeat and labor do very well pretty much everywhere.

[Al Murray]

Yeah. And it's Mr. Churchill's proposal to the electorate, isn't it, rather than the Conservative. That's his manifesto, isn't it? What Declaration of policy to the. I mean it's a peculiar business, isn't it? Vote national, help him finish the job rather than. Please don't mention the Tory party.

[Kit Covell]

Yeah, absolutely. I mean it's one of those things where if you actually sit down and read these documents and if you hadn't been inculcated in the way that we think about British politics post 45 you come to some kind of interesting revelations because the Conservative, the so called Conservative Manifesto doesn't mention the word Conservative. Why once. And the Labour manifesto doesn't mention the word equality once.

[Al Murray]

No, it says socialism wants, doesn't it?

[Kit Covell]

Yeah, very quiet. It's all about. Labor is a patriotic party and estate planning is about efficiency. It's not about levelling everyone. Fair shares. Yes, but equality, we'll just keep that on the qt.

[Al Murray]

Yeah. And competence, isn't it the Labour. It's about competence because the Tories have burned their boats in that regard, haven't they? They aren't regarded as competent. One last thing I want to talk about is that is the death of imperialism as a political force in British politics. Because I think, you know, David Edgerton writes about this a lot. You know that in 1939 it's Empire Day. This is the thing that's celebrated in, in Britain and by 1945, everything, all the politics is framed through a national prism. There is an empire isn't mentioned. Time is clearly up. The men fighting in, in Burma, for instance, the British men fighting in Burma, it's really what's in it for the. For them is very much the attitude of the, of the soldier in Burma. You know, you've got to get the job done. But. But for what? And you know, the Indian soldier is looking beyond the horizon of the end of that war and to his future in India. What on earth. How does imperialism get so thoroughly snuffed out?

[Kit Covell]

Again? It's one of those things that's perhaps more subterranean than you think. We have to be always very careful when we talk about Britain. This and Britain, people. People thought about Britain in a way that's slightly different. Very different to the way that we talk about Britain.

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[Kit Covell]

When people talked about Britain, the 1940s, many of them thought of Britain fundamentally as the British Empire. It was kind of indistinguishable. It's one one and the same. There were plenty of Tories who are deeply, deeply concerned about the future of the British Empire. But again, it's a thing that you have to be a bit careful talking about, because what is, from 1941 onwards, the big threat to the British Empire? It's not Germany or Japan, it's probably America. And when they're your allies and you've spent, you know, God knows how many years talking about how terrible Nazi Germany is and Imperial Japan, you can't very well then say, yeah, but really, after the. After the war, we're going to have to deal with the Yanks because they're out to, you know, as Leo Amory says, Cabinet Minister, sorry to say, for India and Burber, the Americans are trying to build their own economic Lebensraum during the war.

[Al Murray]

Crikey.

[Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Kit Covell]

Around the Cabinet table. So that there is strong imperial feeling, particularly within the Conservative Party. But it's hard for them to express it because the danger comes from the Yanks and the Yanks are so important to winning the war. And Churchill is a great Americophile.

[Al Murray]

Yes. I mean, and Alfred Jodl, when he's in Rams, says to Major General Strong, who's the British general, who's part of the SHAF headquarters, he says to him, you know, the American, Americans, the Americans are the actual threat to the British. You know that now, don't you? It's not us, it's the Americans of the Soviets. And you're going to get squeezed in the. Like the meat in the sandwich between the two. And, you know, he's kind of. He's got a point, hasn't he?

[Kit Covell]

Yeah. And that's why. And Chamberlain is super aware of this in 1939. That's why he doesn't want to go to war, because he knows the Americans will get dragged into it and they'll end up pushing Britain around.

[Al Murray]

Yeah. Which is Beaver Brooks, the stuff in Blue Jerusalem about Beaver Brooks being completely politically consistent as an imperialist throughout his career. It's absolutely fascinating. That's why he thinks siding with the Soviet Union is a good thing, because it'll save the British Empire from the Americans. And it's. It's just extraordinary, isn't it? Because he's also, he doesn't care what's going on in the Soviet Union. He's none of his business. That's their empire. That's their business. What matters to him is the British Empire. And you know, in the 60s, he's still saying that, isn't he? Saying we should never, in the Al Alan Clark style, we should never have fought the Germans at all. It was a mistake.

[Kit Covell]

And you know, you should have listened to me. We should have had a second front in 1942. That way the British army would have been in charge, we would have marched to Berlin and we could have divvied up the peace without having to worry about what the Americans thought.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, it's trauma, isn't it? I mean, one last thing is a Labor landslide, a retreat from empire for the electorate. And again, this, this goes to your point. The end of empire is what follows. But that doesn't necessarily mean people voted for it. It doesn't necessarily mean, mean that politicians had that in mind. Atlee is an imperialist, isn't he? By kind of modern measure. Right, yeah.

[Kit Covell]

It goes to Hailbury.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, yeah, well, exactly. But it's. People aren't voting for partition in 1945, are they, for instance, and the end of empire.

[Kit Covell]

No, I mean, I think in 1945, other than some people on the left and some people who are interested in the center, maybe in kind of world federalism.

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[Kit Covell]

The idea that the Empire, empire would be over in all but name within 10, 15 years is inconceivable. And it could have been different, you know, just like the war could have been different. The post war period could have been different. Britain could have. Enoch Powell had his plan to send British troops to India in 1946.

[Al Murray]

Yeah.

[Kit Covell]

Doesn't take a lot, particularly in a Cold War context.

[Al Murray]

Yes.

[Kit Covell]

With, you know, superpowers ranged against one another for things to have been very, very different. And I think whenever we're looking at the history of the second world, we need to, must, must keep that, that fact in mind. And we should approach the war and its politics, especially from the perspective of the people who were there who didn't know what the future was going to hold. They were dealing with the questions that were in front of them and they were relying on the information they had from the past. They were not thinking about all of the things that we know that happened in the 60s and 70s and 80s. There were no mini Margaret Thatchers stomping around the House of Commons in 1940 because they couldn't poss. Imagine A Margaret Thatcher.

[Al Murray]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, amen to that. It is. And it's hard to do, isn't it? Is to shake it off and remember it was a today. You know, I don't know what's going to happen this afternoon. Nor did they 80 years ago. This is exactly the point.

[Kit Covell]

I have to go and bury my favorite eggs after this, just in case.

[Al Murray]

Brilliant, Kit. Thank you so much for coming on to talk about this. It was absolutely fascinating and as you're just saying, a reminder that contingency, personality and, you know, the unknown. Unknowns are actually the. The core of human decision making in history and the way things pan out.

[Kit Covell]

And that's why we love it. That's why.

[Al Murray]

That's why it's so interesting. That's why it's fun. And there's always more to. There's always more. We've lifted a rock here and look at all the wonderful creatures scurrying around underneath it. Thank you, Kit. Thanks everyone for listening. Blue Jerusalem. Any other books that you would recommend? If people are sort of tickled by this quadrant of history, I mean.

[Kit Covell]

Well, I think you've mentioned his name already. David Egerton's work, Rise and Fall. Absolutely splendid book on British history. I'd also very much recommend the work of Rob Crowcroft, who's done some fascinating things on labor during the Second World War. Thinking about the Labour Party and thinking about Atlee as well in a particularly different way. Some of the. Some of the classics on the war still brilliant. Morris Cowling's book for the high quality is great. And the classics that I disagree with, things like Paul Addison's book On the road to 1945 or Angus Calder's on the People's War. Fascinating works that tell us perhaps more about how people thought about the war in the 1960s and 70s and the politics of that period than the do about the war itself. And no doubt, I'm very sure that in 15, 20, 30 years time, someone's going to say, Kit Kwan's Blue Jerusalem. Wasn't that really all about British politics in the 2020s?

[Al Murray]

It did cross my mind when I read it, you know, well, like the simple question of what is the Conservative Party and what part? How do political parties work? How do people pick their positions, how they jockey position, how they carve out space and allies and do factions exist because they believe in things or because factions exist because they believe believing in something gives them an identity and power? And, you know, the amount of people that essentially crossed the floor on Brexit to pick a thing out of the last 10 years.

[Kit Covell]

Where could. That definitely wasn't going on while I was writing the book.

[Al Murray]

No. Well, you know, people. People crossing the floor on that, in effect, changing sides. Well, because. Because it looked like it was the thing that was going to win or because they believed in it? We'll never know. You know, politicians don't come with a black box, do they? Which you can when they die. You can take out and you can read. Know exactly what was going on in their heads. I mean, maybe that would be useful.

[Kit Covell]

Oh, God. And do you want. Could they type it down as well? Because if I have to try and read Anthony Eden's horrific, horrific handwriting ever again. Oh, if you want to be remembered by history, type. That's my advice to any budding politicians.

[Al Murray]

There we go. Thanks so much, Kit. It's been an absolutely fantastic conversation. Have a pleasant rest of your evening in Brizzy. See you soon. Thanks, everyone for listening and cheerio.