Churchill the statesman had a lifelong ally in Churchill the writer. The statesman won office and power but a ministerial salary never covered more than a fraction of the costs of a Churchillian lifestyle. It was the huge sums he commanded as a journalist and author that enabled him to enter the House of Commons and support a wife, family and substantial household, not to mention magnums of champagne. But his writings were also an integral part of his politics – advertising his name, vindicating his record, and publicising his ideas. 

In his book In Command of History (2004), David Reynolds revealed the inside story of the writing of Churchill’s war memoirs. The discovery that much of the text was ghost written or economical with the truth had curiously little effect on his reputation: myth-making, perhaps, counted as one of his