Andrew Roberts to Newsmax TV: Churchill Would've 'Loved' Boris Johnson

Historian Andrew Roberts told Newsmax TV on Tuesday that late Prime Minister Winston Churchill would have "loved" current Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Roberts, who is a visiting professor at King's College London's Department of War Studies, spent four years writing his book, which he said 30 newspapers have described as the best single-volume on Churchill available, and was granted access by Queen Elizabeth II to her father's diaries. 

"The king met Churchill every Tuesday during the second world war, and Churchill trusted the king with great secrets and the king wrote everything down," he told "John Tabacco's Liquid Lunch" on Tuesday afternoon.

When asked why Churchill still draws attention decades after his death, Roberts said, "I think he exemplified all the great attributes of leadership; he was somebody who learnt from his mistakes.

"He had tremendous foresight, he was able to foresee the first world war, the second world war, and the cold war."

Roberts went on to say Churchill would have "loved" Boris Johnson, who he said is a "Churchillian figure in many ways," having "learned audacity" from studying him.

Roberts noted one anecdote where Churchill "was in the House of Commons and someone shouts, 'rot,' at him, and he immediately replied, 'I thank the honorable man for telling us what's in his mind.'"

He added, Churchill "was extremely good at putting down hecklers.

"There are about 200 Churchill jokes in this book," he said. "There"s one moment where his private secretary came to him and said that his cook had been made pregnant as the result of a nocturnal assignation with a man in the street in Verona, and Winston Churchill replied, 'obviously not one of the two gentlemen.'"

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