On 1 May Churchill was given more direction of the Chiefs of Staff Committee and speculation on the future of Neville Chamberlain

On 1 May Churchill was given more direction of the Chiefs of Staff Committee and speculation on the future of Neville Chamberlain's government increased.
On 7 May a Parliamentary debate on the war effort began. Speaker after speaker, on both sides of the House, castigated the Government for its failures and its lack of will.
Despite a three-line Whip the Government received a majority of only 81 out of a possible 213. As his opponents sang Rule Britannia or shouted "Go! Go! " a downtrodden Neville Chamberlain left the House. When Labour refused to serve in a National Coalition headed by Chamberlain the fate of the Government was sealed.
On 10 May, as the German Blitzkrieg was being unleashed against Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg and France, King George VI summoned Churchill to Buckingham Palace to ask him to form a government. To many it was inevitable given the circumstances. Many years before Harold Nicholson had prophesied in Vanity Fair: "He is a man who leads forlorn hopes, and when the hopes of England become forlorn, he will once again be summoned to leadership." Even Stanley Baldwin had remarked in 1935: "if there is going to be a war - and no one can say there is not - we must keep him fresh to be our War Prime Minister." This time Baldwin wrote him: ". . . from the bottom of my heart I wish you all that is good - health and strength of mind and body - for the intolerable burden that now lies on you."

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