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Dear (British) politicians and writers: you are no Churchill
From Churchill, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, to Liz Truss, queen of self-publishing, the trajectory of former British prime ministers is becoming increasingly downward. When politics gives way to the pen, literature does not always benefit
Winston Churchill – photo via Getty Images
One of the main advantages of being in politics is no longer having to be in politics and being able to retire to write in peace. This is why people commonly make the mistake of believing that in 1953 Winston Churchill won the Nobel Peace Prize, when in fact it was for Literature; proof that one may be the greatest politician in the world, but writing is still more rewarding. Perhaps because Churchill made his mark as an author with a six-volume history of the Second World War, former British prime ministers have since embarked on second careers as writers: the following year – whether by chance or not – Clement Attlee published his memoirs, followed by Anthony Eden, and so on right up to Margaret Thatcher and beyond.
In the most civilised country in Europe – and the most politically modern for the past eight hundred years – it is significant how the desire to write has influenced such diverse figures: from Boris Johnson, a classicist whose "The Dream of Rome" was also translated by Garzanti, to Harold Wilson, who expressed a certain scepticism towards Latin – a stance that caused a minor scandal in the 1960s. None more so than Tony Blair, who, thanks to his memoir in which he delved into the intricacies of his private life, won the Bad Sex Award – usually reserved for the worst sex scenes in novels.
Unfortunately, even Liz Truss, who held office for a couple of weeks in 2022, has brought out not her first but her second book – an output that is certainly disproportionate to her brief tenure; Whilst the previous volume was published by Regnery, a right-wing publishing house of limited prestige, for this second literary endeavour (?) she turned to self-publishing, releasing a book that experts claim is as slapdash as it gets. From the Nobel Prize in Literature to home-made self-publishing: this is the sad trajectory of politics across the Channel – let alone elsewhere, where we are more uncivilised and less familiar with those odd paper rectangles. Once upon a time, the politician embodied the best a nation had to offer; today, he strives to assure the nation that he, too, is capable of bringing out the worst in it.