Winston Churchill (1940–2010)

Winston Churchill
Winston Spencer Churchill in 1997
Member of Parliament for Davyhulme
In office 9 June 1983 – 1 May 1997
Preceded by	New constituency
Succeeded by	Constituency abolished
Member of Parliament for Stretford
In office 18 June 1970 – 9 June 1983
Preceded by	Ernest Arthur Davies
Succeeded by	Tony Lloyd
Personal details
Born	Winston Spencer-Churchill (1940-10-10)10 October 1940 Chequers, Bucks, England, UK
Died	2 March 2010(2010-03-02) (aged 69) Belgravia, London, England, UK
Nationality	British
Political party	Conservative
Spouse(s)	Minnie Caroline d'Erlanger (m. 1964–97) Luce Engelen (m. 1999–2010)
Relations	Winston Churchill (grandfather) Randolph Churchill (father) Arabella Churchill (half-sister)
Children	2 sons, 2 daughters
Alma mater	Christ Church, Oxford

Winston Spencer-Churchill (10 October 1940 – 2 March 2010), generally known as Winston Churchill, was a British Conservative Party politician and a grandson of former Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill. During the period of his prominence as a public figure, he was normally referred to as Winston Churchill MP, in order to distinguish him from his grandfather.

Churchill was born at Chequers while his grandfather was Prime Minister and was educated at Eton College and at Christ Church, Oxford.

Before becoming a Member of Parliament, he was a journalist, notably in the Middle East during the Six Day War, during which time he met numerous Israeli politicians, including Moshe Dayan, and published a book recounting the war. In the 1960s he covered conflict in Yemen and Borneo as well as the Vietnam War. In 1968 he visited Czechoslovakia to record the Prague Spring. In the early 1970s at Biafra he witnessed both war and famine. The indiscriminate bombing of civilians was an outrage to him, in trouble spots including Communist China, and the collapse of Antonio Salazar's authoritarian regime. When the Democratic Convention was held in the wake of public assassinations at Chicago in 1968 he was attacked by the police. Like other members of his family he began a lecture tour of the United States.

In 1965 he became a member of the Pennsylvania Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. He was assigned state society number 6860 and national society number 91657.

Winston was not able to take up his grandfather's old seat at Woodford in Essex at the 1964 general election. But he was at the centre of the Conservative campaign being recruited, although still quite inexperienced in politics, as Edward Heath's personal assistant. Heath was already a senior cabinet minister, and the following year was selected leader of the party. Churchill's first attempt to enter Parliament was at the Manchester Gorton by-election in 1967. In spite of the unpopularity of the incumbent Labour Government, he lost, but only by 577 votes. When visiting an engineering firm he was again met by the Rommel gag, highlighting as his father had told him of the comparative disadvantage in his name. Winston was still a journalist with the Daily Telegraph when his father died; the paper's proprietor, Lord Hartwell took the decision to employ Martin Gilbert to continue the work on the former Prime Minister's biography Randolph had started.