Talking with a woman at a campsite, the woman declared in no uncertain terms that a liar, big or small, was lower than anything. “I would not have anything to do with a liar,” she said.
We were sitting in a field in Devon uninterrupted by signs in German declaring the living eternal memory of Hitler. There was no slave labour and indiscriminate, by firing squads or by baseball bat, killings of dissidents or people of foreign extraction.
In fact because of one big porky pie-lie – we were free to talk about the importance of lying. For if Churchill had not lied to the British people about their ability to fight on in 1940 we would probably be all speaking German. Obviously there were other things in play but Churchill’s “We will fight them on the beaches” was a lot of wishful thinking.
It was a lie. Dunkirk and its armada rescuing British troops from the beach was allowed to happen because Hitler allowed the British expeditionary to escape. But instead of showing appreciation by such generosity, Churchill, newly enthroned in power, said “up yours” to Hitler.
Hence Churchill’s inspired lie to the British people that they would never surrender, and fight them to our last drop of blood.
If Churchill wasn’t there to lie and cheat and exaggerate there were buckets full of upper-class members to throw the towel in. Something that Churchill was not prepared to do.