ESSEX: Winston Churchill said on Friday [Oct 14] that the last six years rule in Britain had marked the “greatest fall in her rank and stature in the world since the loss of the American colonies nearly 200 years ago”.

“Our Oriental empire has been liquidated, our resources squandered, the pound sterling is only worth three quarters of what it was when Mr Attlee took over from me,” he told his constituents in an election speech here. Britain’s influence among nations now was less than it had ever been in any period since he could remember. Mr Churchill said the time the Prime Minister had chosen for the election had not turned out at all lucky for the Government or country. “Abadan, Sudan and Bevan are a trio of misfortune,” he said.

A report from Coventry says: Mr Anthony Eden, Deputy Conservative leader, replied on Friday [Oct 12] to Foreign Secretary Herbert Morrison’s assertion that opposition declarations that Britain was weak had influenced Egypt’s decision to break the Anglo-Egyptian treaty. “If Mr Morrison really thinks that the Egyptian attitude was due to anything that the opposition said or did, he had better consult European and American opinion,” he said. — News agencies

Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2026