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Churchill voted greatest Briton of all

by Victor Jayanetti, our London Correspondent

After months of campaigning and presentations by the BBC to choose the greatest Briton of all, the ballot ended with Winston Churchill being the winner.

The BBC sponsored competition ran for several months on television while many public figures arguing the case for many well-known great Britons both living and dead.

Competitors ranged from former well-known politicians to footballers, engineers, members of the royal family and great writers from the past. After months of debate, 1.2 million phone and internet votes, much controversy and claims of vote-rigging, what many thought was never in doubt happened Sunday night when Winston Churchill was voted the greatest ever Briton.

But, at the start of the Great Britons series on the BBC, surely no one would have predicted who would finish in second place - engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

Or that he would come so close to upstaging Britain's wartime leader.

The final result - Churchill: 447,423 votes, Brunel 391,262 and Princess Diana 222,025.

The builder of the London to Bristol rail link, and numerous bridges and ships, finished ahead of William Shakespeare, Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Elizabeth I.

The top 10 was: Churchill (27.9%), Brunel (24.1%), Diana (14.2%), Darwin (6.9%), Shakespeare (6.9%). Newton (5.2%), Elizabeth (4.5%), John Lennon (4.3%), Horatio Nelson (3.1%), Oliver Cromwell (2.9%).

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