ABSTRACT
The coalition that came into being on 10 May 1940 might easily have been undone within months, had it not been for the events, which succeeded it – the defeat in France, the threat of invasion, the Battle of Britain, the Blitz. Right-wing, patrician political figures such as Winston Churchill had virtually nothing in common with working-class champions such as Ernest Bevin, except a shared belief that Chamberlain’s appeasement had left Britain perilously exposed. If, as might easily have happened, the tide in France had been stemmed and the Western Front had settled into a technologically updated version of 1914–1918, one can imagine political infighting developing along even more ferocious lines than those of the Great War. Churchill was mistrusted by many Conservatives, as well as the Opposition, as being a turncoat, an extremist, as a politician more fond of rhetoric and dreams than practicalities. Few would have shared the new Prime Minister’s confidence as he walked with destiny in May. As it was, in the early months of the new government as Churchill sought to establish his position, there were only two Labour ministers in a War Cabinet which in effect continued to be dominated by the two most experienced members, Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax. Not until Chamberlain’s illness and retirement in October was Churchill able to secure his own position by becoming Leader of the Conservative Party. Halifax was then levered out of the Cabinet and into the Washington Embassy in December.
