Boris being broke is a rerun of Churchill’s money problems

Boris Johnson’s great hero is Winston Churchill. As anyone who has read his paean of praise, The Churchill Factor – How One Man Made History – published in 2014 ahead of the 50th anniversary of Churchill’s death – can testify, Johnson’s adoration is obvious.

I reviewed the book then, and wrote: “At times, it’s as if the author is writing about himself.” Johnson portrays Churchill as, “The great unifier, who appealed to ordinary people as much as he did to the upper classes, to the right and begrudgingly but appealing nonetheless, to the left.”

For Churchill read Johnson, someone who also crosses the class and party divide.

When Johnson talks about Churchill disproving the Tolstoy notion that the story of humanity is not one of individual heroism but of impersonal economic forces, calculated technological advances and massive mundanity, it’s hard not to think of another person for whom rules, structure and process are also there to be broken.

Churchill, as is well-known, was hopeless with money. He regularly spent beyond his means and was frequently having to be rescued. In his selective account, to be fair, Johnson admits he is not a professional historian: “As a student of Churchill I sit at the feet of Martin Gilbert, Andrew Roberts, Max Hastings, Richard Toye and many others.”

Johnson says, “there have been plenty of people who have accused Churchill of being a tool of the great global Jewish conspiracy.”

He goes on: “There are loonies out there who will tell you that Churchill’s mother Jennie Jerome was of Jewish stock (she wasn’t; her father was descended from Huguenots. She may have been partly Native American, but she wasn’t Jewish). A little more plausibly, they will tell you that his views were warped by the very substantial donations he received from Jewish bankers and financiers: Ernest Cassel, Sir Henry Strakosch, Bernard Baruch.”

Johnson continues: “It is perfectly true that Churchill’s personal finances would not today pass the Private Eye test. They would not look good if splashed on the front page of the Guardian. He did indeed take money from these men, sometimes in considerable sums. But those were very different times, when parliamentarians and ministers were paid much less – and expected to have a private income – and it was by no means unusual for politicians to receive financial support from their admirers.”

So far so good. For anyone seeking to draw parallels with today’s storm over who paid for the decorating of the Downing Street flat and the subsequent claims that Johnson sought cover for the costs of a nanny and personal trainer, there aren’t any. He says that was another era.

But then, Johnson writes this: “As it happens, I don’t think these donations made a bean of difference to Churchill’s views about Jewry, nor to his decisions about Palestine. He was basically philo-Semitic, like his father Randolph, and had been all his life. He admired the Jewish characteristics that he shares in such abundance – energy, self-reliance, hard work, family life.”

So, what he is saying is that Churchill took their cash, because he had to, because he was not earning enough. It was alright, though, because it did not influence his thinking on policy, whatever the “loonies” claim.

I don’t want to get into the debate, the existence of which Johnson himself acknowledges, as to whether his assertion that their funding did not actually sway Churchill’s views. The fact is that people thought it did. If Churchill had not received their payments the ambiguity would never even have arisen.

The accusation about Jennie is easily disproved – Johnson is correct. He is also right in that Churchill was a lifelong philo-Semitic. That did derive from his father. As Andrew Roberts says in his recent, towering Churchill biography: “Churchill’s liking of the Jewish race stemmed from his father, who had been friendly with Nathaniel Meyer, 1st Baron Rothschild, Sir Felix Semon and Sir Ernest Cassel.” Roberts adds: “Both father and son were admirers of Disraeli.”

Nevertheless, because Jewish businessmen lined his pockets, many people – “loonies” – thought they were somehow buying Churchill. While Johnson refers to Private Eye and the Guardian he is noticeably not remotely critical of Churchill for putting himself in this position. On the contrary, Johnson is saying Churchill had no alternative because he was earning so little.

The reality, that Churchill enjoyed the lifestyle of a monied aristocrat or successful entrepreneur when he was neither and made little effort to cut his cloth, does not seem to bother Johnson.

In his fascinating, detailed No More Champagne: Churchill and His Money, David Lough relates what happened in March 1938. “Turning aside from preparing a speech to the House of Commons during a debate on British air defences, Churchill asked his solicitors at Nicholl, Manisty to raise an emergency loan of at least £5,000, which he would back by taking out a new life insurance policy. Nicholl, Manisty pointed out that his insurance company borrowings alone would rise to £13,000 costing him £1,650 a year, but Churchill had nowhere else to turn.”

Desperate, Churchill asked his friend Brendan Bracken “to mount a discreet rescue… Bracken went to his co-owner at The Economist, Sir Henry Strakosch… He had no hesitation in agreeing to help out financially.”

With Bracken acting as intermediary, Churchill wrote a letter for him to show to Strakosch: “I was profoundly touched and relieved by what you told me last night of the kindness of our friend. If it were not for public affairs and my evident duty I should be able to manage all right. But it is unsuitable as well as harassing to have to watch an account from day to day when one’s mind ought to be concentrated upon the great world issues now at stake.”

Churchill continued: “I cannot tell you what a relief it would be if I could put it out of my mind; and take the large decisions which perhaps may be required of me without this distraction and anxiety.”

Strakosch duly came to his aid. Writes Lough: “Neither man ever spoke publicly about the rescue. Churchill kept knowledge of it to a very tight circle that did not include his bank or his lawyers.”

History, as ever, as even an amateur historian like Johnson must surely acknowledge, has a funny way of repeating itself.