Winston Churchill

Maiden speech, February 18, 1901 A 26-year-old Conservative, fresh from reporting the war in South Africa, rose straight after David Lloyd George's attack on the Boer War. Churchill called the amendment mild and moderate and said the bitterness of Lloyd George's speech was all his own, then startled his own benches by saying that if he were a Boer he hoped he would be fighting in the field, while urging that it be made easy and honorable for the Boers to surrender. The independence from party that would take him across the floor in 1904 is already audible.