India

The speeches originate from an episode in the author's early political career when, in January 1931, Churchill resigned from the Conservative Shadow Cabinet because Baldwin supported the decision of the Labour government to grant Dominion status to India. Churchill believed that enhanced home rule status would hasten calls for full independence, which it did, course. He was particularly opposed to Mohandas Gandhi, whom he considered 'a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a faki'. His views enraged Labour and Liberal opinion although he was supported by many grass root Conservatives.