Winston Churchill


The Prime Minister is the political leader of the country and at the apex of Britain’s power pyramid. Whilst in office, they benefit from the perks of the position – accommodation at Number 10 Downing Street and Chequers, a weekly audience with the Queen, chauffeur driven cars and close security protection. But what happens when they are turfed out of power? How are they rewarded for […]

Premier rewards


How did Britain’s elite live in the capital once their great London houses had become either uneconomic to run or had been sold off to pay off debts and estate taxes? They would find comfort and a home away from home in a cluster of distinctly upper crust hotels that catered to their every whim. Put yourselves, just for a whimsical moment, into the shoes of […]

Living in London luxury



Josef Stalin is remembered for many things – establishing a brutal dictatorship over the Soviet Union, his determination to create a buffer zone in Eastern Europe and thus close the iron curtain, the capriciousness and cruelty of the security system he set up and brutalising terror of the gulag system. It is, therefore, not surprising that Stalin’s wit and raw intelligence are rarely focused on. But […]

The wicked wit of Josef Stalin


Few military operations can have been given a more appropriate code name than Operation Unthinkable. As Allied armies laboriously clawed through a shattered Europe, circling and invading Nazi Germany, British military planners were considering a possible next chapter for the European theatre of conflict. Remarkably, the plan envisaged an attack on the Soviet Union – Britain’s wartime partner and, by various measures, the strongest of the […]

Thinking the (Operation) Unthinkable