Well mostly it is positive I think, or at least was for those who remembers or are of older age. Maybe the information now being debated gives the man a more complete and dual nature.
The negative was mostly the failed and flawed help when the brits and french came to help in 40 while we were still fighting the Nazis. He was then a navy minister and had partly resposibility for that badly planned failure where the soldiers lacked equipment to fight efficiently. But almost 1869 british soldiers gave their lives on land and almost 2500 on sea helping us.
But during ww2 and after, he was immensly popular here. You must remember, we were occupied for 5 years, and our king and family fled to England to avoid being killed, also norwegian volunteers was trained by SOE and dropped by planes to help the resistance, and amongst other things sabotaged the heavy water factory in Rjukan. Churchill was the leader under a good cooperation between our nations. Also we were not allowed to listen to radio without repercussions, but many hid them away in concealed compartments and attics and listened to them when no germans could find out, so the speeches Churchill gave inspired many. He became a symbol of liberty from nazi rule and a hero in post-war peace time. Not so much known to the younger generations maybe, except the general knowledge of his position and famous speeches, but the older generation would propably think highly of him.
His words about other nations people and inactions reg. the food crisis in India were never anything people knew about. His actions during ww2, speeches and close cooperation / help was what drove his reputation here. And maybe, without him, we would all live under Nazi rule in Europe. So even with his faults that are being discussed still, he did actually fight and help defeat the nazis who, if they had succeded, would have eradicated and/or enslaved all other than the so-called "aryan" race. I guess that legacy should mean something myself. I think there should be better targets for this discussion and tearing down of statues, I have to say. And I think we should not go back too long in history looking for problems. There is enough living racists and problem elements that should be fought. Churchill, in the end, at least accomplished to help save the world from a foe unlike no other in history. We would not be having this duscussion under Hitlers rule and hence, he made us all be in a position to actually be able to discuss problems such as these, no less fight them.
I, myself, think that if one takes a close look at many, many people, they are a product of their environment and time. To fix our problems, we need to look at the present and future and change the culture we have ourselves to the better, bit by bit until equality and justice is real for all in our societys. I think that going at the "heroes" of the past hurts and divides more than it helps. Discussions and debates, news articles and encyclopedia should of course highlight these problematic sides of known historical persons. And pure evil persons like Hitler should not have statues. But the english should be allowed to have their hero and prime minister from ww2 in the form of a statue and the statue is a piece of history from a time past. Taking offence of that is a bit strange to me. And in Churchills case, he is not black and white, he is controversial but he was the leader of a nation that fought the nazis and I think he deserves credit for that at least. And in the extreme form of historical fingerpointing, we would have to tear down shitloads of statues in all the world. Should it be for racism only, or should we tear down statues of famous people that did wrong to others in a specter of ways? And how far back? For us in Norway, should we tear down Viking monuments? I mean, they pllaged and raped all over the world. What does a statue mean, does it have to be a statue that gives a jesus feeling for everyone to exist? People can take offence over many things today.
These are my thoughts. And I am not saying Churchill did not have flaws. But I think many of us, whatever race we are, as keyboard warriors or realtime humans, have flaws and that we all should focus on fixing ourselves first, then of course affect positive change in society. I do not think the Churchill statue should be the discussion, but rather how to change the systematic racism inside police and other state establishments asides peoples prejudices in general. I think we live in a world where keeping sane and calm is a problem for many due to the interconnected way we live and get information and misinformation. The problems are deep and our world is in real danger in the near and forseeable future. I think we need a lot of time to fix all problems but it is Utopia to think we can erase the past and be better from it. Better to remember and do better ourselves. I would have understood a Churchill statue being torn apart in another nation. But in England and Norway, I would not, not really.