A. Maccallum Scott, author of the first WSC biography “Winston Churchill” (1905), says the Young Winston was ultimately victorious: “In the first division on Mr. Brodrick's army scheme he was the sole Conservative to walk into the lobby against it. Two years later he had gathered round him a party and destroyed the scheme.” But Churchill’s efforts “meant more than the gaining of a Parliamentary reputation,” as Randolph Churchill wrote in the official biography, volume II, quoting his father’s “My Early Life”: “It marked a definite divergence of thought and sympathy from nearly all those who thronged the benches around me.” Winston, his son continues, was already complaining to his mother about “a good deal of dissatisfaction in the Party, and a shocking lack of cohesion. 'The Government is not very strong....The whole Treasury bench appears to me to be sleepy and exhausted and played out…”
Churchill and a few dissident young Tory members added to the disarray by outrageous Parliamentary manners and criticism of the senior Conservatives; critics dubbed them the Hughligans (or Hooligans), after one of their members, Lord Hugh Cecil. Randolph continues: “It was a modest attempt at a latterday Fourth Party. They began to meet for dinner on Thursday evenings; occasionally they asked leading political personalities of the day, maybe a Tory, maybe a Liberal, to join them at dinner.” A discussion, rather disjointed, of the Esher Committee and Elgin Commision is at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esher_Report -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "ChurchillChat" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/churchillchat?hl=en.
