Posted on 07/26/2012 1:01:51 PM PDT by RummyChick
At an event in London, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said, "I'm looking forward to the bust of Winston Churchill being in the Oval Office again."
Mitt Romney at London fundraiser: "I'm looking forward to the bust of Winston Churchill being in the Oval Office again." #watersedge?
— Kasie Hunt (@kasie) July 26, 2012
President Obama famously sent Churchill's bust back to Britain soon after coming into office. As the Telegraph reported then:
A bust of the former prime minister once voted the greatest Briton in history, which was loaned to George W Bush from the Government's art collection after the September 11 attacks, has now been formally handed back.
The bronze by Sir Jacob Epstein, worth hundreds of thousands of pounds if it were ever sold on the open market, enjoyed pride of place in the Oval Office during President Bush's tenure.
But when British officials offered to let Mr Obama to hang onto the bust for a further four years, the White House said: "Thanks, but no thanks."
With all the money FR is given annually, I can't believe we can't have a forum with an abuse button and embedded html code when every fly by nite web blog around has one.
And by “abuse” I mean “Hide Use”...so see...an EDIT button would be great too. Most other forums I use have one of those too.
Churchill was clinging on to a fading past on that one I’m afraid. If Churchill had had his way, The British Empire would have disintegrated violently, as the French one did. Britain was exhausted financially and psychologically from the strain of the war, and its colonial subjects where restive, and in many cases, experienced combat veterans.
If Atlee had not granted India its independence, Britain would have faced a bloody, expensive and ultimately humiliating defeat at the hands of a rebellious Indian population.
This might not have been the case if Churchill had not insisted in prosecuting a war which was not in Britain’s interests to fight, but there you go.
He’ll probably skip that office or vote 3rd party, believing that Electoral Votes don’t matter as long as you vote your conscience and principles.
Which war would that be?
Regardless of what Great Britain did in the mid to late 40’s, they at least had the gonads then to fight, resist Hitler’s air force bombing London, and they were our allies. Our common language has kept us close until BHO alienated them plusn every ally,every friend, and; everyone who trusted our word. The Brits and every other foreign country knows Obama is a fake American, as their INTEL services answer to them-not our State Dep.
CONSERVATIVE PARTY: 1945
Mr. Churchill’s Declaration of Policy to the Electors
*excerpt*
NATIONAL INSURANCE
National well-being is founded on good employment, good housing and good health. But there always remain those personal hazards of fortune, such as illness, accident or toss of a job, or industrial injury, which may leave the individual and his family unexpectedly in distress. In addition, old age, death and child-birth throw heavy burdens upon the family income.
One of our most important tasks will be to pass into law and bring into action as soon as we can a nation-wide and compulsory scheme of National Insurance based on the plan announced by the Government of all Parties in 1944.
In return for a single consolidated contribution there will be new and increased benefits, amongst which is to be an old age or retirement pension of 20/- for single people and 35/- for married couples. Family allowances are one part of the great scheme, and the arrangements made will ensure that men and women serving in the Forces and those disabled will benefit equally with other classes in the community.
The new Ministry of National Insurance has been set up to prepare, administer and control the whole of this great legislation. So massive and complex a task can only be discharged by a large and highly-trained staff, which has to be assembled and accommodated. The specialised experience of the Approved Societies will therefore be drawn upon, and their employees, especially those who have served at the front, must have due consideration.
The scheme will not justify itself to the public unless the service given to them in return for their contributions combines human understanding with efficiency. There must be no queuing up for sickness benefits by those who are entitled to them. The same standard of intimacy in personal relationships must be maintained as formerly.
HEALTH
The health services of the country will be made available to all citizens. Everyone will contribute to the cost, and no one will be denied the attention, the treatment or the appliances he requires because he cannot afford them.
We propose to create a comprehensive health service covering the whole range of medical treatment from the general practitioner to the specialist, and from the hospital to convalescence and rehabilitation; and to introduce legislation for this purpose in the new Parliament.
The success of the service will depend on the skill and initiative of doctors, dentists, nurses and other professional people, and in its designing and operation there will be full scope for all the guidance they can give. Wide play must be given to the preferences and enterprise of individuals. Nothing will be done to destroy the close personal relationship between doctor and patient, nor to restrict the patient’s free choice of doctor.
The whole service must be so designed that in each area its growth is helped and guided by the influence of a university. Through such a service the medical and allied professions will be enabled to serve the whole nation more effectively than they have yet been able to do. At the same time Medicine will be left free to develop along its own lines, and to achieve preventive as well as curative triumphs. Liberty is an essential condition of scientific progress.
The voluntary hospitals which have led the way in the development of hospital technique will remain free. They will play their part in the new service in friendly partnership with local authority hospitals.
Motherhood must be our special care. There must be a large increase of maternity beds and convalescent homes, and they must be provided in the right places. Mothers must be relieved of onerous duties which at such times so easily cause lasting injury to their health. The National Insurance Scheme will make financial provision for these needs. All proper arrangements, both voluntary and State-aided, must be made for the care of other young children in the family, in order that the energies of the male breadwinner or the kindness of neighbours and relations, which nevertheless must be the mainspring, should not be unduly burdened. Nursery schools and nurseries such as have grown up during the war should be encouraged. On the birth, the proper feeding and the healthy upbringing of a substantially increased number of children, depends the life of Britain and her enduring glory.
*excerpt*
Not disputing any of that, of course. It’s well known that Churchill’s Conservative Party accepted the Beveridge Report before even the Labour Party did.
However, NHS didn’t come into existence until after Churchill left power. Whether it would have done so had he won the election of 1945 is a topic for conjecture.
Of course. Just introducing the facts of history to the discussion.
While I probably went too far in calling him the “father” of socialized medicine in GB, he certainly dated the old gal.
Which one do you think? It is a known fact that Hitler had no interest whatsoever in going to war against Britain. In fact, he was something of an anglophile who originally hoped to cultivate Britain as an ally against his primary enemy, the Soviet Union.
Personally, I think it would have been better leaving Hitler to get himself bogged down in an unwinnable war in the East whilst Britain sat back and continued to enjoy the relative benefits of peace.
Like I say, in the political atmosphere of the time, he wouldn’t have had any realistic chance other than going with the flow. After all the anger and disappointment of many returning veterans of the last war to a world of poverty and struggle, they were hell-bent on returning to what they considered to be a better world after the war.
‘Churchill was the father of socialized medicine in Great Britain’
That is what you said, that is what I replied to. It is a factually incorrect statement.
I'm quoting an actually result: Churchill's loss was of landslide proportions and Attlee's party was the one which created Britain's National Health Service.
Brits had just defeated the German version of National Socialism an were hellbent on creating their own version. The depredations of war sometimes have a way of doing that to an otherwise stoic and free thinking people.
I would tend to agree with that. After all, like Reagan, Churchill started on the other side.
Also like Reagan, he outgrew it, and the civilized world should be glad that he did.
Hope you’re well, sir.
So you’re pushing some third party candidate? A sure-fire way to get Hussein re-elected. - I get you don’t have any admiration for Churchill. He was admirable in many ways, was in a different time and wrong on socialist schemes, but correct in many instances. - I’M NOT VOTING THIRD PARTY. PERIOD. Been there, done that with PEROT and got eight years of Clinton as President; and now we’re stuck with both Clintons as “elder statesmen” for the foreseeable future. Nasty outcome.
EV is a declared candidate himself.
Perot was a liberal.
Not nearly as liberal as Romney, but liberal nonetheless.
Elections in America are supposed to be about who represents you.
Until folks get back to that, and stop playing political bookie like a bunch of unprincipled GOP hacks, there is no hope for this republic.
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