Boris was waxing lyrical about Winston Churchill during his weekly LBC phone-in earlier when it all went a little wrong. Discussing the ‘many different phases Churchill’ went through ‘in his life’, Boris recalled that ‘in 1908 I think you’ll remember, he was in favour of cutting defence spending when he was going around with Lloyd George campaigning on social affairs.’ So far, so good.
However, he then said this:
‘So indeed, in 1922 when he was, sorry, 1920, in the twenties when he was Chancellor, he was accused later on by his enemies of having been a great cutter of defence expenditure and there was a certain amount of truth in that.’
Churchill actually became Chancellor in 1924. The sort of information you might have expected a recent biographer of the great man to have at his fingertips…
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