The papers are putting as good a face as possible upon the withdrawal from Somaliland, which is nevertheless a serious defeat, the first loss of British territory for centuries. . . . It’s a pity that the papers (at any rate the News-Chronicle, the only one I have seen today) are so resolute in treating the news as good. This might have been made the start of another agitation which would have got some more of the duds out of the government.
Complaints among the Home Guards, now that air raids are getting commoner, because sentries have no tin hats. Explanation from General Macnamara, who tells us that the regular army is still short of 300,000 tin hats – this after nearly a year of war.
Orwell Diaries 1938-1942 
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All this bad news.
What this country needs is the leader to “rally the troops”, to give us a lift, to encourage us and give us hope? Where are you, Mr Churchill in our time of need? Where is your great leadership? What do you have to say for yourself?
I’ll give you ’til 16:00 hours tonight to do something, or we going to go and get ourselves a new leader.
“the first loss of British territory for centuries”
An interestingly imperialist-sounding sentiment. Also, had he forgotten about the Channel Islands a couple of months earlier…?
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He had also forgotten about the American War of Independence, the beginning of a very unspecial relationship.
George~~
Sometimes I wonder if you’re not, at times, being hyper-objective or something in your point of view [not that there’s anything wrong with that]; your inner ideological struggles seem to be driving you to extremes of thought–from one apex to another like that infamous pendulum.
Rumor has it that they’re coming for those eggs you’re hoarding, George.
The next day, 21 August, was a Wednesday so The Right Honorable Sir Howard Kingsley Wood, Chancellor of the Exchequer, sent a Top-Secret Memo to the War Cabinet. This is the first sentence:
I am seriously perturbed by the rate at which our gold and exchange
resources are now disappearing.
Meanwhile, Trotsky gets a delivery from Moskva, special delivery.