"That “something better” was what Churchill had worked for at Yalta. The alternative was a divided, hostile Europe—in short, Cold War. The government whips had favored an adjournment debate about Yalta, which would allow the Commons to ventilate its feelings without a vote. But Churchill, as always in the war, believed that a full-scale division was the best way to deter critics by making it, in effect, a vote of confidence in his government. Even so, critics put down an amendment regretting “the decision to transfer to another power the territory of an ally.” On March 1 the government had a majority of 396 to 25 on the amendment, but those numbers concealed the depth and significance of the opposition—eleven government ministers abstained and one resigned. The most vocal critics of Yalta had been strong backers of Munich, including Lord Dunglass (Alec Douglas-Home), Chamberlain’s parliamentary private secretary in 1938. After his speech, Churchill chuckled with Harold Nicolson, a fellow anti-appeaser, about the way “the warmongers of the Munich period have now become the appeasers, while the appeasers have become the warmongers.” but he was “overjoyed” by the final vote—in Nicolson’s words “like a schoolboy.”"
Alec Douglas-Home

January 1, 1970