1953: Winston Churchill's secret stroke
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In 1953, while attending a dinner in honour of Italian Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi, Winston Churchill suffered a stroke. The story of that night is revealed here in two interviews for PM, one with Sir John 'Jock' Colville, Churchill's private secretary at the time, and another with Sir Anthony Nutting, who was then the youngest member of Churchill's cabinet. However, as reporter Denis Frost discovers, the "conspiracy of silence" that kept Churchill's illness quiet came at the instruction of the prime minister himself.
Anthony Nutting effectively sacrificed his political career on ethical grounds in 1956 because he opposed the way Anthony Eden handled the Suez Crisis. He resigned from his seat in the House of Commons but refrained from making the customary resignation speech, as to do so would have revealed the government's duplicity at a moment of acute national crisis.