Rick Stein's French Odyssey (BBC2)

After The War: Churchill's Defeat (BBC2)

I FEEL sorry for Chalkie. Chef Rick Stein has left his dog behind at home in Cornwall because he's too old to travel and gone off to enjoy himself in France. A bit of travelling here, a spot of cooking there, and lots of eating everywhere.

A cookery or travel programme works if it makes you want to be there or eat that. Rick Stein's Food Odyssey certainly looks good enough to eat, although we have to take his word about the taste of the crepes, clams, duck and steak tartare. The latter meal of raw steak, he said, is "one of the dishes that separates the men from the boys". More like one that separates the meat-eaters from the vegetarians, if you ask me.

Sixty years ago Winston Churchill was on holiday with his family in France awaiting the results of the post-war general election. There was a three-week gap between voting and the result being declared to allow troops serving overseas to cast their votes.

Some 73 per cent of the electorate voted, which puts to shame today's poor turnouts. Election day was not without incident. In London, a soldier's wife gave birth at a polling station. In Ayr, a 72-year-old widow died as she was recording her vote. The biggest shock was the result which saw Churchill, the man who led the country in the fight against Hitler, and the Conservatives defeated in a Labour landslide.

"We were stunned," recalled his youngest daughter, Mary Soames. His personal secretary, Elizabeth Nel, went further: "I saw it as a betrayal, an extraordinary gesture of betrayal".

Churchill's Defeat, last in a trilogy of Timewatch documentaries, was a history lesson worth listening to. Twenty years later, 300,000 people lined the streets of London to mourn his death. So why, in July 1945, did they deliver a resounding "no" to him continuing as Prime Minister?.

Even Labour leader Clement Attlee, Churchill's deputy in the wartime coalition, couldn't believe it. Tony Benn recalled seeing him at the moment he realised he'd won "and have never seen anyone so surprised in his life".

The reason behind what was described as the greatest electorate upset of the 20th century appears to have been voters' belief that Churchill was a great leader in wartime but didn't have what it takes in peacetime. He admitted as much himself when he told his family that he felt he'd lost his touch and had no message for the country now.

Out of respect - and that's not something you associate with politics these days - Labour didn't field a candidate in Churchill's Woodford constituency. But farmer Alex Hancock did, backed by slogans such as "philosophy must prevail" and "why stick in the slough of cunning and abuse?". Despite that, he took over a quarter of the vote.

It's a sobering thought that Churchill's defeat led to one of the great reforming governments of the 20th century, which introduced the welfare state and the National Health Service. The public wanted this brave new world but weren't confident that Churchill could mould it.

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