WHAT IS POLITICAL IDEOLOGY GOVERNMENT FREE

Jenkins says Churchill 'exhibited a romanticised view of the British monarchy', and this was especially so in his warm regard for Elizabeth II. Monarchism ДЄlthough Churchill upset both Edward VII and George V during his political career, he was firmly monarchist. He could not empathise with the poor, so instead he sympathised with them, displaying what Addison calls the attitude of a 'benevolent paternalist'. While Churchill was in some respects a radical and a reformer, it was not from any desire to challenge existing social structure, but to preserve it. Paul Addison asserts, however, that Churchill was paradoxically supportive of trade unionism, which he saw as the 'antithesis of socialism'.

WHAT IS POLITICAL IDEOLOGY GOVERNMENT FREE

Churchill was wary of socialist tendencies toward state planning and bureaucracy, because he consistently believed in both the liberty of the individual and of free markets. Roy Jenkins believed that, whether Churchill was conservative or liberal, he invariably opposed socialism, except that he was completely reliant on the help and support of his Labour Party ministers in the wartime coalition. While Robert Rhodes James wrote that Churchill was 'fundamentally a very conservative man', Martin Gilbert considered him to be always 'liberal in outlook'. Churchill was perceived by some observers to have been largely motivated by personal ambition rather than political principle, and he lacked 'permanent commitment to any party'. Stuart Ball asserts that he was always comfortable with the idea of governing coalitions. He had begun as a Conservative, defected to the Liberals for twenty years and then returned to the Conservatives. The historian Roger Hermiston writes that, when forming his national coalition government in May 1940, it helped Churchill that his own career had 'never been circumscribed by party affiliation'.

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