Pootler

  The stone figures in Trafalgar Square and down Whitehall are mostly little-known military men and Kings who are probably better forgotten. In contrast, those in Parliament Square are more recent, better known, often more lifelike and fresher in our collective memory. I have to start with.... Churchill (of course)  Winnie was voted  Britain’s greatest man in  a 2002 BBC poll . Hmm. Maybe. But you have to love a bloke who, at the two ends of a long and momentous life, led a cavalry charge and controlled atom bombs.  While people at the time acknowledged his talents as a leader in wartime, they were sceptical about whether his views and character would suit the peace thereafter.  As soon as the war was over he called an election, which he lost in a landslide to Clement Attlee' s progressive and reforming government. In this politically correct world it is inevitable that he scores black marks, He was a reactionary and a racist, but at the time many were. Not modest either; he is w