We lost something when politicians stopped taking public transit. Caption here says “At Bristol station, on Saturday, a frantic suffragette attacked Winston Churchill with a dog whip.” See Also:Publicly Whipped CouplePunishing The SuffragistsPublic Spanking of SuffragettesWhipped By The Order Of Queen VictoriaLeon Trotsky Whipping Two Nude Girls

A recently discovered document sheds new light on the wartime leader’s ‘iron curtain’ address

It was a speech that electrified the world, one that coined a phrase that was to characterise the political era that followed the second world war. But its content could have been very different, reveals a document freshly unearthed by a historian researching the life of Winston Churchill.

On 5 March 1946 in Fulton, Missouri, before a huge crowd which included the US president, Harry Truman, Britain’s wartime leader issued a famous description of the political division that was opening across Europe between the Soviet-dominated Communist east and the western democracies. “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic,” Churchill declared, “an iron curtain has descended across the continent.”

At exactly 1500 on 8 May 1945, British PM Winston Churchill announced the end of the war in Europe.

"For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use being anything else."

As his great grandson launches a competition to "inspire like Churchill", we look at the PM's wartime words.

On the evening of May 8, 1945, Winston Churchill could have been forgiven a little merry-making.

Like Johnson, Churchill refined his image, endlessly practising his supposedly spontaneous quips. He, too, had conspicuous flaws, drank too much, told tall tales and played to the gallery.

ROBERT HARDMAN: I have no doubt Sir Winston Churchill (pictured outside Downing Street in April 1945) would be equally moved by the magnificent response to the call to arms by Mail Force.

On the evening of May 8, 1945, Winston Churchill could have been forgiven a little merry-making.