Starmer is certainly no Churchill but what would Winston have made of Trump? Here’s my take 

Well, who would have guessed that Keir Starmer is no Churchill? The great wartime prime minister "mobilised the English language and sent it into battle" according to that brilliant US journalist Ed Murrow. By contrast, the current incumbent of Downing Street is slow, wooden and laboured in his delivery. In other words, boring.

I won't insult you by listing the other contrasts; the palace (Blenheim), the duke (Marlborough) for a grandfather, against the pebbledash semi and toolmaker dad. So instead, let us consider who might Trump not be. He's certainly no Kennedy, apart maybe for his priapic ways. JFK's inaugural speech "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country" is the opposite of the Trumpian philosophy of "How much can I make from conning all these suckers while I'm the top guy".

So what would Churchill have made of Agent Orange had they been contemporaries during WW2 with Winston at No 10 and Trump in the White House? The year is 1940, France has been overrun by the Nazis and only Britain is holding out against Hitler. It is late in the evening and Churchill has been put through to the Oval Office:

WSC: "Hello Mishter Preshident — Donald — I hope you are well".

DJT: "OK I guess, very tired though, I keep falling asleep in meetings and I don't seem to be able to get in more than a couple of rounds of golf a day.”

WSC: "Donald, I'm calling because we need your help. We need more planes if we are to survive. Can you spare some please? Just give us the tools and we'll finish the job.”

DJT: "Look Winston, that's outta the question. You know we are a neutral country and even if I could make a few million from the deal, I'd never get it by those schmucks in Congress. Even though I could stop this stupid war in a day. Besides I bet you're not even wearing a suit when you're talking to me, just that crazy one-piece thing. Show some respect! Sorry buddy but No".

WSC: "But your mother is Scottish Donald, doesn't that mean anything?"

DJT: "Yeah a bit, but my old man holds the money and his lot are German".

The real conversation was with President Roosevelt but the outcome the same. The US had sworn not to be involved with what was seen as a European war. Until Japan bombed Pearl Harbour that is.

It begs the question, what would Sir Winston really have made of Trump who says Churchill is his idol (aside from himself) and inspiration. The answer must be that he would have thought him ridiculous but had to be endured because of the job he held. Churchill saw WW2 as a moral crusade for the continuation of civilisation. And in his speeches, he really did mobilise the English language to inspire the British people to endure the horrors and privations of a global conflict. He was strategic, forged alliances, had a cross-party cabinet and prepared his next moves meticulously. 

Trump, conversely, thinks that a speech should be long and rambling and should embark on detours of utter nonsense with numerous forays into self-aggrandisement. Justifying that approach with believing that's what the MAGA faithful seem to want. He usually forgets what he came to say.

He appears to make spur-of-the-moment decisions and then justifies those actions with a variety of conflicting reasons. The current war with Iran is the perfect illustration; was it because Israel was going to bomb first or was it for regime change? 

Or was it to ensure that Iran could never develop a nuclear arsenal, a capability which he assured us all he had knocked out last year with the surgical bombing of the mountain lair hiding the nuclear factory? 

The trouble with starting a war is how to finish it before it spreads out of control. This one just has with most of the Middle East trading missiles, bombs and drones. How far will it reach? How many will die? And with Trump fixed on Iran, what is to become of Ukraine?

 Worse, will it embolden Putin to make inroads into other former Soviet countries? When George 'Dubya' — aided and abetted by Tony Blair — invaded Iraq in 2003 it was supposed to be a quick in-and-out but lasted eight years and the death toll has never been properly calculated with surveys varying from 110,000 to more than one million.

But it is known that 4,500 US troops and 180 British soldiers were killed. It did for Bush and for the saintly Blair's legacy because he didn't ask parliament to ratify his decision. In other words, we had taken part illegally, which is exactly why Starmer initially said No to Trump at the weekend. He was right to do so.

Trump can console himself that whenever and however the current horrors end, he can add it to the countless wars the great peacemaker alleges he has brought to a close.

*****

There's nothing like a good war (is there such a thing?) to take the attention away from other headlines that have dominated for most of this year. So Mandelson and plain Andy Windsor must be thankful for small mercies. 

It won't last of course and nor should it. The two men doing the running for the wholesale overhaul and modernisation of the House of Windsor are the two Andrews, Andrew Lownie and Andrew Wilson who writes under his initials of A N. Neither is a republican, far from it, but they are realists and as I have been saying on these pages for quite some time, the Royal Family has to get real. They can no longer rely on the slavish adoration of 'their subjects' because that time has long gone.

What is interesting is that both of the Andrews are from similar Establishment backgrounds. Lownie is the son of a distinguished judge and educated at both Fettes and then Westminster followed by Cambridge. He then studied for the Bar. Wilson's father was managing director of Wedgwood, the great pottery company, who sent him to Rugby. From there he went to Oxford and then to a Church of England seminary to study for ordination. Not exactly breeding grounds for Zack Polanski’s loony left. 

They follow in the footsteps of John Grigg, second Baron Altrincham, who caused uproar in 1957 when he wrote in the English and National Review, which he edited, that Queen Elizabeth's 'court' was far too upper class. For good measure he added that the Queen sounded like a "priggish schoolgirl".

All hell broke loose, with Her Majesty's loyal press leading the criticism. One of the more ardent of the monarchy's supporters, a member of the League of Empire Loyalists, took a swing at him in the street and connected. The Tory party ditched him as a prospective parliamentary candidate and his name was mud.

Like the two Andrews, Grigg was the product of privilege; father a peer who had served in Churchill's wartime government, he was educated at Eton and then served in the Guards before going up to Oxford. True Blue stuff. And what he wrote about the monarchy was exactly what many of us have been urging more recently, that it needs modernising, not abolishing.

He was spot on in calling for the abolition of the daft and elitist system of 'Coming Out' and debs’ balls which were scrapped by Elizabeth in 1958. But he was 70 years ahead of his time in calling for  the monarchy to transcend class and race (it still hasn't).

Grigg died in on the last day of 2001 but happily his legacy lives on.

 

*****

AND FINALLY

I spent three days in Dubai in 2001 (a business trip) and vowed never to return. It was built by Indian and Pakistani near-slave labour and is too hot, too fake and too full of the most ghastly newcomers. Our Emirates flight from London was in first class, the result of millions of air miles, and after an hour we asked to be put in business because the rest of those in first were teenage shell suited princelings who clearly had never come into contact with normal behaviour.

Now that Iranian missiles are hitting Dubai I confess to having a Betjeman friendly bombs moment.   

ALAN FRAME

5 March 2026