Winston churchill

Thursday

Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson: Why we sent the jihadi Beatles for trial in America

Surely there is a bit of humbug in this outrage about the two remaining jihadi Beatles, Kotey and Elsheikh, and Sajid Javid’s difficult but correct decision to send them for trial in America. Suppose the grisly pair had been located a couple of years ago in Raqqa. And let’s suppose there was a Reaper drone overhead, and that British intelligence could help send a missile neatly through their windscreen. Would we provide the details — knowing that they would be killed without a chance for their lawyers to offer pleas in mitigation on account of their tough childhoods in west London? Would the British state, in these circumstances, have connived

Thursday

Andrew Roberts

Andrew Roberts’s guide to Churchill on screen

Gary Oldman has joined a long list of actors who have portrayed Winston Churchill — no fewer than 35 of them in movies and 28 on television. He is one of the best three. ‘I knew I didn’t look like him,’ Oldman has said. ‘I thought that with some work I could approximate the voice. The challenge in part was the physicality, because you’re playing someone whose silhouette is so iconic.’ We all have our own mind’s-eye view of what Churchill should look and sound like, and his personality was so strong and sui generis that it is almost impossible for an actor to impose himself on the role. He