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Article: Inside Winston's lair Ross Clark visits the flat in Westminster where Churchill's transformation from rebel MP to wartime Prime Minister had its beginnings
- Article from:
- The Sunday Telegraph London
- Article date:
- October 3, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2004 The Sunday Telegraph London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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As German troops advanced through Poland on the evening of
September 2, 1939, a mutinous group of MPs gathered beneath the rain-
lashed mansard roof of 11 Morpeth Mansions, near Westminster
Cathedral, to discuss the failure of the Prime Minister, Neville
Chamberlain, to issue an ultimatum to Adolf Hitler.
At his desk, writing a letter to Chamberlain, was Winston
Churchill, then a rebel backbench MP who had spent the past five
years arguing in vain for the Government to take the Nazi threat
seriously. Around him were Anthony Eden, Bob Boothby, Brendan Bracken
and Alfred Duff Cooper, who was later to write: "We were all in a
state of bewildered rage."
They had just learned, as Polish town ...