Winston wages war in the East End

This is a story replete with murderous anarchists/terrorists on the streets of London, a military-style assault to smoke them out, and a 36-year-old Home Secretary (with a top hat suitable for target practice) deciding to get personally involved in the whole thing - even though he doesn’t need to be there and probably should not be.

Winston Churchill orchestrates an assault by literally calling the troops in. There are already several hundred police. He brings in 74 Scots Guards with Maxim machine guns, 35 members of the Royal Horse Artillery with 13-pounder guns, and 15 Royal Engineers to blow up the house from which gunfire is emanating.

Effectively, he turns a street in the East End of London into a battle scene with a six-hour firefight. When the building the outlaws are holed up in is engulfed in flames, he refuses to allow the fire brigade in to put the fire out.

Churchill loved the romance of war from an early age - and this time he brought it to peacetime.

His colleagues took his presence, especially being photographed, as an example of his rashness and lack of judgment. The Tory opposition leader, Arthur Balfour, said: "I understand what the photographer was doing, but what was the right honourable gentleman doing?"

He knew he had gone too far but, still excited when he arrived back at the Home Office, he lisped at his secretary, who recorded his remark as: "Don't be crosh; it wath such fun."