Pick a Boney

Rather than giving thanks for Mr Churchill, the beastly French have had the gall to commemorate the anniversary of Napoleon's death, even though his memory remains rather more controversial than that of sundry Anglophone slave-owners. Some see the Emperor as a military genius and founder of a reasonably enlightened and durable political system; others regard him as a despot whose greed and egomania spread death and suffering all over Europe. In their postmodern Gallic way, of course, both sides are correct. Napoleon was an enlightened despot: England would almost certainly be less stupid and better run today if he had managed to conquer it. But he also re-introduced slavery, which had been abolished by the beastly revolutionaries; and he tried to conquer Russia, the hardships of whose people are sometimes acknowledged because on that occasion they perished for tsars and not for commissars. With characteristic duplicity, the French president acknowledged both sides of the Emperor during the commemorations; which is certainly not the sort of thing any British patriot would do with Mr Churchill.