Editing Neville Chamberlain (section)

==== "Phoney War" ====
Chamberlain instituted a [[War cabinet#Chamberlain war ministry|War Cabinet]] and invited the Labour and Liberal parties to join his government, but they declined.{{sfn|Self|2006|p=382}} He restored Churchill to the Cabinet as First Lord of the Admiralty, with a seat in the War Cabinet. Chamberlain also gave Eden a government post ([[Secretary of State for the Dominions|dominions secretary]]) but not a seat in the small War Cabinet. The new First Lord deluged the Prime Minister with a sea of lengthy memos. Chamberlain castigated Churchill for sending so many memos, as the two met in War Cabinet every day.{{sfn|Self|2006|pp=386–87}} Chamberlain suspected, correctly as it proved after the war, that "these letters are for the purpose of quotation in the Book that he will write hereafter."{{sfn|Self|2006|pp=387–88}} Chamberlain also deterred some of Churchill's plans, such as [[Operation Catherine]], which would have sent three heavily armoured battleships into the [[Baltic Sea]] with an aircraft carrier and other support vessels as a means of stopping shipments of iron ore to Germany.{{sfn|Smart|2010|p=269}} With the naval war the only significant front involving the British in the early months of the conflict, the First Lord's obvious desire to wage a ruthless, victorious war established him as a leader-in-waiting in the public consciousness and among parliamentary colleagues.{{sfn|Smart|2010|p=265}}

With little land action in the west, the initial months of the war were dubbed the "Bore War", later renamed the "[[Phoney War]]" by journalists.{{sfn|Self|2006|p=383}} Chamberlain, in common with most Allied officials and generals, felt the war could be won relatively quickly by keeping economic pressure on Germany through a blockade while continuing rearmament.{{sfn|Smart|2010|p=268}} The Prime Minister was reluctant to go too far in altering the British economy. The government submitted an emergency war budget about which Chamberlain stated, "the only thing that matters is to win the war, though we may go bankrupt in the process."{{sfn|Self|2006|p=390}} Government expenditures rose by little more than the rate of inflation between September 1939 and March 1940.{{sfn|Self|2006|p=390}} Despite these difficulties, Chamberlain still enjoyed approval ratings as high as 68%{{sfn|Self|2006|p=391}} and almost 60% in April 1940.{{sfn|Dutton|2001|p=61}}