19 - Indian Summer or Conservative Winter?

Summary

This chapter is concerned with the last period of Churchill’s premiership and leadership of the Conservative Party. It focusses not just on the last part of his ‘Indian summer’ when back in office but also on the tempestuous moves and motives of the Conservatives to compel his retirement in an age before party leadership elections. It also examines Churchill’s manoeuvres to frustrate these ambitions and continue in power. While many studies have examined how British politicians gain the leadership of political parties, there has been less analysis of their inevitable fall. The chapter is written primarily from the Conservative perspective since, until the 1965 Douglas-Home Rules which established leadership elections and procedures, so-called customary processes existed to enable, largely without public knowledge (and even beyond the engagement of many Conservative politicians themselves), the emergence, and removal, of leaders ‘for the good of the party’.