Anecdote for the Day

A further anecdote about Winston Churchill and Clement Atlee, being an exchange between them in the men’s room of the House of Commons.

In 1983 the first volume of William Manchester’s multi-volume biography of Winston Churchill included an instance of the anecdote about Winston Churchill, the story having been told to Manchester by Sir David Pitblado in 1980:

Attlee, arriving first, had stepped up to the urinal trough when Churchill strode in on the same mission, glanced at him, and stood at the trough as far away from him as possible. Attlee said, “Feeling standoffish today, are we, Winston?” Churchill said: “That’s right. Every time you see something big, you want to nationalise it.”