May 13 The Coalition Government Is Endorsed
By May 13 most of the senior government posts were filled. That day was Whit Monday and therefore normally a Bank Holiday. However, the Bank Holiday was cancelled by the incoming government, Churchill spoke to a specially convened sitting of the House of Commons. Speaking to them for the first time as Prime Minister, he began as follows:
I beg to move, That this House welcomes the formation of a Government representing the united and inflexible resolve of the nation to prosecute the war with Germany to a victorious conclusion.
He went on to make one of his most famous speeches ("I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat") which includes a brief account of how the Cabinet had been formed.
Read more about this topic: Norway Debate
Famous quotes containing the word government:
“There are obvious places in which government can narrow the chasm between haves and have-nots. One is the public schools, which have been seen as the great leveler, the authentic melting pot. That, today, is nonsense. In his scathing study of the nation’s public school system entitled “Savage Inequalities,” Jonathan Kozol made manifest the truth: that we have a system that discriminates against the poor in everything from class size to curriculum.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)