Wake Up Winstons!

Judge - Today we have amongst us, the Most Notorious of all the so-called 'Great Men'

of our history. The 'dyed in the wool' prejudiced Prime Minister who for 40 years,

brazenly misused the stately positions, he was entrusted with by His then Majesty, King

George The V. Accusations of deliberate mismanagement, clockwork genocides,

oppression for preservation of the status-quo, flirtation with Nazism, disingenuous posh

lifestyle, debauchery and conceited sense of self-portrayal. You have chosen to

represent yourself before the International Court of Justice, Sir Winston Leonard

Spencer Churchill. Step forward and present your hopeless case before the jury.

Winston Churchill - /snoring/

Judge - Sir Churchill! Sir Churchill!

/The hammering sound of the gavel wakes him up/

Winston Churchill - Oh. Apologies. Your Honour. Your words were too ostentatious to

solicit my attention. But surely they did succeed in flagellating the genitals of these 21st

century men. Kids, rather that you have elected to the jury.

/Winston Churchill gets up, lights his cigar and strolls his way to the jury/

Winston Churchill - No negros in your jury, your Honour. Probably too busy vandalising

my statues. What do you call them, mobile phones? Yes. Sparking rebellions on mobile

phones. When it was my time for rebellion, God forbid, no generation suffers from that

fate again, I walked out on bloodied tracts of Europe with these two, able God-given

hands and two, able God-given feet and lived to tell my tale of victory. Britain's tale of

victory. You drag a man's reputation into a conversation and label his lifestyle as

disingenuous, as debauchery. You have the privilege of picking words in your court

proceedings, your Honour and I had the privileges of picking my own life. Can't spit out

a silver spoon served with affection. Can you? That's what your heroes do in myths and

legends. That's not me. But, whenever I had the telephone on my desk ringing and it

was my Dear old Blighty lamenting on the line about her plight, I was the first man

banging on the gates of Westminster and I did it without fail, every day, every week and

every month for sixty five years. You said, forty, your Honour. Maybe it was a mistake or

maybe you only are a fan of my glory days. 'History's Great Men'. There's toil before

glory. Your ascendency to this post must have taught you so.

And my posh family you talk about, the descendants of the Duchess of Marlborough,

Sarah Churchill. Every man, woman, servant and child of my family spent their bones

and breaths serving Britain. So when you choose your words make sure you weigh

them well beforehand. The kids frantically tapping their fingers on tin cans, this advice is

for you as well.

Can somebody on God's green Earth get me a glass of water.

Judge - You need my permission before you make a request?

Churchill - Never been that person. If I kept strolling around longing for Hitler's

permission for peace, you wouldn't even be sitting inside this building let alone on this

chair. Now get me my glass.

Judge - /reluctantly/ Get Sir Churchill a glass of water.

Churchill - A chalice rather. Feels more posh.

/An attendant gets Winston Churchill a glass of water as he puts out his cigar/

Churchill - 'A slave bundles a cigar and a bureaucrat smokes it'. Diabolical!

Disingenuous. How about 'A labour man bundles a cigar and a working man smokes it

with a smirk'. Hmm. Sounds so much refined now. At last. A communist Utopia.

/Winston Churchill lights another cigar before heading, once again, towards the jury/

Churchill - I'm not a man who hones sentiments. I'm not a man who nurtures love. I'm

not. I only empathise with people. This is what my life and experience has made me.

Sentiments and passion, they don't suit a man of responsibility. What suits him is

pragmatism and Niccolò Machiavelli is my lawyer. I confess I did revert the resources

from reaching Bengal and rerouted them to the Allied forces who were fighting in Asia

and Europe. But I did it with foresight. For every mother and child I smothered in

Bengal, I saved a hundred more. You can call it immoral if you like, your Honour /bangs

the desk with his fist/ I call that pragmatism and this is what real heroes do. They take

real decisions because at the end of the day, sentiments stay behind in institutions.

Morals remain inside books. What stays before you is the sight of a man with broken

arms dragging his dead comrade to safety and the fate of the generations. Yet to

breathe, yet to live and yet to come. /looking at the jury/ Yet to come. From where do

you get this sense of sanctimoniousness, I marvel.

/Walks back to sit in his chair/

Churchill - What earned you lot a place in this jury?! Too many retweets /sits in his

chair/ I sense it's a modern sport. Bringing people down. You do it to your family, you do

it to your neighbour, you do it to your friend. And now you're trying to do it to me. It takes

experience to question a man, not knowledge. Walk a couple feet in my shoes and you'll

be held accountable for eating too much at supper. 'How can Mr Churchill eat an entire

plate of caviar when his nation is starving?' Mr Churchill is too fat to skip a meal, lads.

Cut the old man some slack. Just too many detractors. Too many Mr Jones.

/Puts out his cigar. Gets up to deliver his final statement/

Churchill - Flirtation with Nazism. I did flirt with Nazism but my relationship was rather

platonic. Man is a curious animal. I thought Nazism could be an eternal cure for a

divided and fraying Britain. I watered the idea, I agree but uprooted it when it turned into

a nefarious affair /looking down to his pocket watch, introspective/ God made me a

prejudiced man and I did my bit, the best I could.

I'm by no means /looks up/ trying to falsify your accusations or to prove how I'm a great

man or your History's Great Man because I'm not. I'm culpable and I'm not a hero.

History doesn't make heroes. People do. And they burden their heroes with an unfound

sense of idealism. I'm not Winston Churchill because I was the ideal British Prime

Minister. I'm Winston Churchill because I was the nebulous man who stepped forth

when no one else was willing to. You write and talk about me, not because I freed

slaves but because I slew the beast. Measure a man as a human being and you'll find

frailties. Measure him as a hero and you'll start questioning those frailties. So, judge me

as a human being right now and tell me, Would the world have been better off with

Winston Churchill or without him? That's all I have to say.