Sir Winston Churchill..... the greatest Englisman?

[palo5]

Originally Posted by knobby109

The Navy could have forced the Dardanelles as the Turks were out of shells but we didn't know that at the time.

This is a myth - they weren't out of shells at all, as Turkish records show. In fact they had enough ammunition for two more attacks like March 18. Would they have run out of shells before you ran out of ships? ... we'll never know

But it's interesting how the myth appears in so many books. The obvious guess is that the first writers did not check their source, later writers copied the first writers, and so on. It sure looks that way

Could one of the original writers have been Churchill? If so, where did Churchill get his information - Keyes, perhaps? Maybe we'll never know that either

But what if they had forced the Dardanelles? What if they went to Constantinople, told the Turks to surrender.... and the Turks said NO ? Ships can't take cities, and there were no troops with them, so was there a Plan B?

[knobby109]

Originally Posted by scoundrel

In fairness, the Labour Party actually turned the NHS from a vision into a real working service, and in less than four years from a standing start and against deeply entrenched opposition from the BMA. It was a remarkable achievement. But it is true that the principle had been endorsed by all the major parties, Liberals too, and there would certainly have been an NHS if Churchill had won the 1945 election. The trouble is, the Tories had no one with the energy and the relevant experience of Nye Bevan, who was the actual creator of the service we see now, and who had knowledge gained from working with the self-help medical associations in the Welsh mining communities. He had chaired the Tredegar Cottage Hospital management committee for a number of years just after the General Strike and he knew how hospital systems worked. In some areas Churchill's grasp of details was really impressive, but I am quite sure he would have had find someone to deal with creating an NHS for him, just as Attlee did, and who was there on the Tory side with similar credentials to Nye Bevan?

We would have had an NHS whoever had won the 1945 election but the shape it would have taken is another matter.
Of course, after nearly 6 years of war in which government affected individuals more than ever before and did the job of running the country pretty well (look at child nutrition, heart disease rates atc) the public was prepared for a centralised health service. The feeling was that once health care became free, people would use it, become healthier and then the demands on the NHS would shrink. (This mentality still persists in those who think that preventative medicine would ease the pressures on the NHS)
But Labour was initially very reluctant indeed even to take the idea on board.That it did a decent job of it was remarkable.But the money for it came from US aid which was intended to rebuild British industry.

[Rogerbh]

https://www.yahoo.com/movies/winston...170411602.html This should be interesting.