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Howard's Way.... a weekly column from the Rt. Hon. Michael Howard QC. MP. 

14 May 2009

Since I have set out my views on Parliamentary pay and allowances very recently in these columns I shall not repeat them at length this week, despite the current furore.

I believe that everything to do with the remuneration of MPs – pay, pensions, allowances – should be decided independently. MPs should have no say in them. That is what I hope will happen after Sir Christopher Kelly and his independent committee on Standards in Public Life report on these matters in the next few months.

Instead I want to share with you one of the most inspiring hours I have recently spent. It took place last Friday in Cambridge when I had the privilege of being shown round the Churchill Archive at Churchill College.

All the great man’s papers are there including the drafts for all his great speeches. I had a particular interest in one of them.

Hansard, the official report of Parliamentary debates, has just produced a volume of historic and memorable speeches to commemorate the centenary of the first official report in 1909. Each speech is introduced and placed in context – by a contemporary politician. I chose the first speech Winston Churchill made in the House of Commons as Prime Minister. It was made on 13th May 1940 and has gone down in history as the “blood, toil, tears and sweat” speech.

At Cambridge last Friday I was able to see the notes Churchill made for that speech. Unlike the notes for his other speeches which were typed out in full with manuscript corrections in his own hand, the notes for this speech were very brief. Churchill had little time to prepare for it. The notes consist of a couple of sentences in typescript and a few paragraphs in manuscript. The notes did not include the reference to blood, toil, tears and sweat so it looks very much as though the great phrase, which has echoed down the decades, was spontaneous.

To sit and read these great words and the original notes for it, is an inspirational and humbling experience. It certainly puts our current vicissitudes in context.