With Lord Lothian dead and Churchill’s relationship with Roosevelt at a delicate moment, choosing a new ambassador to Washington became politically important. Churchill first tried to send David Lloyd George, partly because removing potential rivals suited his governing style, but Lloyd George declined on health grounds. Churchill then turned to Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax, whom he also wanted out of London because Halifax remained a plausible replacement if Churchill’s government weakened.

Churchill used Lord Beaverbrook to make the approach, knowing Beaverbrook relished political maneuvering. Halifax immediately suspected intrigue and did not want the post, worrying that sending a foreign secretary as ambassador might look like British desperation. Beaverbrook falsely reported that Halifax had accepted gladly, and although Halifax tried in later meetings with Churchill to avoid the transfer, he overestimated his success.

At the same time, winter intensified the threat to British morale. The raids on Coventry, Southampton, and Birmingham suggested that cities outside London might be less able to absorb repeated devastation, while cold weather, damaged homes, shortages, and the blackout made ordinary life harsher. The blackout disrupted work and travel, caused accidents and deaths, and became one of the public’s most hated burdens, though people also used humor to cope.

Clementine Churchill, alarmed by complaints about public shelters, inspected them herself, often with John Colville. In Bermondsey and elsewhere she found overcrowding, cold, wet, filth, foul air, inadequate lighting, and severe sanitation failures. She condemned the three-tier bunks as cramped and unhealthy, warned that lice and disease could spread rapidly, described latrines placed beside sleepers, and argued that divided authority kept the worst shelters from improving.

Clementine urged practical fixes, including fewer stacked bunks, more and better-placed latrines, improved drainage, lighting, and the means to make tea. Her reports moved Churchill to order a radical improvement in shelter conditions before the next winter, because he assumed bombing would continue through 1941. Meanwhile, after Lord Lothian’s memorial service, Halifax and his wife Dorothy protested the transfer to Churchill, but by December 23 the decision was final: Halifax would go to Washington, Anthony Eden would replace him, and Halifax recognized Beaverbrook as the chief engineer of his removal.