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In the first two days of July, Churchill faced a debate on the censure motion tabled against him in the Commons. Sir John Wardlaw-Milne destroyed his own case in the first minutes of his speech by proposing that the Duke of Gloucester, the king’s notoriously thick-headed brother, should become Britain’s military supremo. The House burst into mocking laughter, and Churchill’s face lit up. He knew, in that moment, that he could put his critics to flight. But he was nonetheless obliged to endure a barrage of criticism. Aneurin Bevan spoke with vicious wit: “The prime minister wins debate after debate and loses battle after battle. The country is beginning to say that he fights debates like a war and the war like a debate.” Bevan also asserted that arms factories were producing the wrong weapons; that the army was “riddled by class prejudice,” and poorly commanded.

Then he delivered the sort of peroration which disgusted Churchill, but struck a powerful echo with the public: “For heaven’s sake do not let us make the mistake of betraying those lion-hearted Russians. Speeches have been made, the Russians believe them and have broken the champagne bottles on them. They believe this country will act this year on what they call the second front … they expect it and the British nation expects it. I say it is right, it is the correct thing to do … Do not in these high matters speak with a twisted tongue.” In the course of the vote of confidence debate, MPs voiced valid criticisms of the army’s poor tanks and leadership. Much was said about the RAF’s lack of dive-bombers, to which the British accorded exaggerated credit for German successes. Unsurprisingly, no one hinted that the British soldier was not the equal of his German counterpart, but there were fierce denunciations of the high command and class culture of the army, some of it from MPs less jaundiced than Bevan.

Americans were impressed that such strictures could be expressed. “Polyzoides” wrote in the Los Angeles Times: “The fact that, during one of the most critical periods617 in the history of the British Empire, there is still freedom of speech and criticism testifies to the greatness of the nation.” Such high-minded sentiments provided, however, small comfort to the prime minister. Leo Amery wrote: “Winston is I think far too inclined618 to attribute to sheer personal malice the anxiety of various people to know what is really happening and makes no allowance either for the value in a democracy of telling our people the whole truth however unpalatable.” A housewife diarist, Mrs. Clara Millburn, though a warm admirer of Churchill, was nonetheless impressed by the report of Wardlaw-Milne’s performance in the Commons: “His speech sounds very good to us619 at first hearing.” By contrast, she thought little of Oliver Lyttelton’s opening speech for the government: “Everyone seems to want C as PM, but they do not think he has chosen wisely for his Cabinet.” When the House divided, Churchill won by 475 votes to 25. “He is a giant among pygmies620 when it comes to a debate of this kind, and I think that everybody realizes it,” wrote Tory MP Cuthbert Headlam, often a sceptic. But he added that, if the censure motion had been directed against the Ministry of Supply, he himself would not have voted against it. The next day, Mrs. Millburn wrote: “It is to be hoped that the PM takes some notice621 of the criticisms, for one feels some changes are necessary.”

Churchill’s Commons success did nothing to stifle wide-ranging and bitter criticism of the government’s conduct of the war. The Times, in an editorial on July 10, though asserting that “no responsible body of opinion dreams of changing the national leadership,” repeated its oft-made demand for a separation of the roles of prime minister and minister of defence. The paper returned to the charge on July 20, observing: “A British victory is urgently needed;” and again on the twenty-second: “All the evidence goes to show that the war machine is both cumbrous and unmethodical.” In the Times