Leader of The Opposition
Although Churchill's role in the Second World War had generated much support for him amongst the British population, he was defeated in the 1945 election. Many reasons for this have been given, key among them being that a desire for post-war reform was widespread amongst the population and that the man who had led Britain in war was not seen as the man to lead the nation in peace. It was anticipated that Churchill would step down and hand over the leadership to Anthony Eden, who became his deputy after the election defeat, but Churchill (despite now being in his seventies) was determined to fight on as leader and Eden was too loyal to challenge his leadership. It would be another decade before Churchill finally did hand over the reins to Eden.
For six years he was to serve as the Leader of the Opposition. During these years Churchill continued to have an impact on world affairs. During his 1946 trip to the United States, Churchill famously lost a lot of money in a poker game with Harry Truman and his advisors. (He also liked to play Bezique, which he learned while serving in the Boer War.)
During this trip he gave his Iron Curtain speech about the USSR and the creation of the Eastern Bloc. Speaking on 5 March 1946 at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, he declared:
From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere.
Churchill also argued strongly for British independence from the European Coal and Steel Community, which he saw as a Franco-German project. He saw Britain's place as separate from the continent, much more in-line with the countries of the Commonwealth and the Empire, and with the United States, the so-called Anglosphere.
Churchill held the office of Deputy Lieutenant (DL) of Kent in 1949.
Read more about this topic: Winston Churchill
Famous quotes containing the words leader and/or opposition:
“People ask the difference between a leader and a boss.... The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.”
—Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919)
“The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)