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"Only a matter
of hours before Hitler unleashed his Blitzkrieg on
the West, four men met in the Cabinet room at No 10, Downing
Street, to decide who should be Britain's war leader. Virulent
and mounting personal opposition in the House of Commons had
forced Neville Chamberlain to realize that he could no continue
as prime minister. He and David Margesson, the Government
Chief Whip, had therefore convened a meeting for 4.30pm on
Thursday 9th May 1940 to decide upon a successor.
The two contenders,
Edward, Lord Halifax and Winston Churchill, could not have
been more different. Halifax, the foreign secretary, was a
calm, rational man of immense personal presitige and gravitas,
his career an uninterrupted tale of achievement and promotion.
He had also for some time seemed to be Chamberlain's heir
apparent. Across the Cabinet table sat Churchill, the romantic
and excitable adventurer, whose life was a Boy's Own
story of cavalry charges, prison escapes and the thirst for
action.
Both Chamberlain
and King George VI wanted Halifax. The Government wanted Halifax.
The great majority of National Government MPs wanted Halifax.
The Times, The City, the House of Lords and Whitehallall
wanted Halifax. Opposition leaders had indicated that they
would prefer him and even Churchill himself had told friends
that he too would serve under him.
The Churchill family's
nickname for Halifax played on his fondness for High Church
services and hunting, which making a rather weak pun on his
title. But it became popular in Westminster and Whitehall
because it also pointed to something deeper; that for all
his pious and patrician reputation, Halifax was as wily and
quick-witted as any of his opponents. These were no bad faculties
to possess in facing the dictators of the 1930s and, although
intended pejoratively, Halifax should have rejoiced in his
nickname. This is the story of 'The Holy Fox'."
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