Amery, from Chamberlain's own city and tribe, reaches for Cromwell's words to the Long Parliament — in the name of God, go — and within three days the government of Britain, and the direction of the war, had changed.

7 May 1940, the most consequential parliamentary debate of the twentieth century. The Norwegian campaign had collapsed within a month of the German landings; the Commons met nominally on the adjournment, actually in judgment on eight months of phoney war. Amery spoke late to a thinning House that filled as word spread — an imperialist die-hard, Birmingham neighbour of the Chamberlain dynasty, unimpeachably of the Government's own tribe, which is precisely why the blow landed as no Opposition attack could. He had hesitated over the Cromwell quotation, he later wrote, knowing it was 'strong meat', deciding only at the last moment as he sensed the House's temper; delivered, it detonated. The next day Labour forced a division; the Government's majority fell from over 200 to 81, with 41 of its own supporters — Keyes in full admiral's uniform among the rebels this speech emboldened — voting against and dozens abstaining. Within forty-eight hours Hitler struck France, Chamberlain resigned, and the First Lord whose double duties Amery had questioned formed the true National Government this speech demanded — with Amery himself at the India Office. Churchill, whose life the moment transformed, gave the verdict history has kept: words like these, from such a friend, were 'the deadliest' of all. No backbench speech before or since has so directly changed the government of Britain — and arguably, in May 1940, the fate of rather more than Britain.

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