Remembering the few

Today is the 70th anniversary of Winston Churchill’s ‘Few’ speech. Here’s how the Spectator reviewed it at the time:

Mr Churchill looks ahead, The Spectator, 23 August 1940

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Brendan O’Neill

Why are ‘anti-racists’ silent about Arbel Yehud’s terrible ordeal?

Mr Churchill surpassed even his own masterpieces of lucid and spirited exposition in his speech on Tuesday, in which he surveyed the first year of the war and the last exciting days of victory in the air and looked fearlessly into the future. During the previous fortnight, and especially during the previous week, the nation had become aware of the fact that the intensified air attack was part of that onslaught on Britain whose approach was trumpeted in Germany. It might be no more than a preliminary to bigger attacks to come, but none the less it has been evident that so severe a defeat in an opening engagement, inflicted by the incredible skill and daring of the R.A.F.,