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Lloyd George, 1931 – 1945

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Lloyd George, 1931 – 1945 THE WONDERFUL WIZARD AS WAS LLOYD GEORGE, 1931 – 1945 David Lloyd George enjoyed an unusually long political afterlife following his ejection from the premiership in October 1922.1 Only 59 years old when he left Downing Street, he remained a member of the House of Commons for twenty-two years before accepting a peerage in the autumn of 1944. In the history of the twentieth- century premiership only Arthur Balfour exceeded Lloyd George’s experience, resigning as Prime Minister in December 1905, but remaining active in politics until shortly before his death in 1930. David Dutton tells the story of Lloyd George’s last years. 54 Journal of Liberal History 77 Winter 2012–13 THE WONDERFUL WIZARD AS WAS LLOYD GEORGE, 1931 – 1945 alfour’s later career arithmetic, despite their relega- a largely helpless observer of the included a ministerial rein- tion to third-party status in 1922. events which led to the formation Bcarnation. Appointed For- Indeed, on two occasions, follow- of the National Government in eign Secretary at the formation of ing the general elections of 1923 August, a government from which Lloyd George’s own government and 1929, the Liberal Party held the it would have been almost impos- in December 1916, he also filled balance of power in the House of sible to exclude him had he been fit. a number of non-departmental Commons. And there was always Had Lloyd George been in a posi- posts in the Conservative govern- the possibility that electoral reform tion to lead the Liberal Party in the ments of the 1920s. By contrast, might further entrench its posi- inter-party negotiations, it seems Lloyd George’s career after leaving tion as a crucial force in national probable that he would have driven Downing Street was spent entirely politics. Some historians have even a harder, and for Liberals more in the ranks of opposition. written the political history of advantageous, bargain than proved In October 1922 few informed these years with Lloyd George at to be the case, including perhaps observers would have foreseen the very centre of the stage, while the introduction of the Alterna- this outcome. While some said other leaders, with larger party tive Vote. It is even possible that he he would be back in office in six forces behind them but lacking the would have shown the flexibility months, others in two years, Welshman’s dynamism and intel- to negotiate a compromise agree- Lloyd George himself suggested lectual energy, worked out how ment with the Conservatives on that the Tories would now be in best to keep him consigned to the tariffs.5 As it was, even the margin- power for twenty years.2 Notwith- political wilderness. According to alised Lloyd George seemed to rank standing two brief interludes of Kenneth Morgan, ‘it is clear that among the political heavyweights. Labour government, it proved to the politics of the 1920s were in MacDonald wrote to express his be a remarkably accurate predic- large measure a reaction against dismay at Lloyd George’s indispo- tion. But if Lloyd George never Lloyd George, a reaction in which sition and came to Churt to seek returned to power, he was at least a the Conservative and Labour par- his endorsement. Herbert Samuel, major player in the political game ties made common cause’.3 the acting Liberal leader, and Lord over the following decade. Unable The situation after 1931, how- Reading, Liberal leader in the to overcome the political handi- ever, was completely different. Lords, also made their way to the cap, which had begun in 1916, of That year witnessed a dramatic Welshman’s country home, ostensi- not having behind him a political change in Lloyd George’s per- bly to ensure that they were in step party – or at least one large enough sonal fortunes. In the spring he with his wishes. Less benignly, the to return him to office by conven- appeared still to be the arbiter of Conservative backbencher, Cuth- tional means – Lloyd George ben- national politics, on the verge of bert Headlam, judged it imperative efitted from the peculiar electoral an astonishing comeback into gov- that the government should go to and parliamentary circumstances ernment. Though the surviving the country under MacDonald’s that characterised the 1920s. For a documentary record is fragmen- leadership. Otherwise it would be brief period of transition Britain tary, it appears that Lloyd George said that the Tories had broken the experienced a genuine three-party was in secret negotiations with National Government, and ‘LG and system, very different from the Ramsay MacDonald’s Labour gov- his friends would once again get duopoly which existed during the ernment, which might have led to away with it – and anything might rest of the century. Such a situation Left: his appointment as Leader of the happen. What an unmitigated curse encouraged calculations of politi- Lloyd George Commons and Foreign Secretary to the country LG is.’6 cal movement and realignment at his farm at or Chancellor in a Lib-Lab coa- The National Government’s which left the Liberals a significant Bron-y-de, Churt, lition.4 But Lloyd George’s sud- decision to follow Headlam’s factor in the country’s electoral during the 1930s den illness in the summer left him wishes and fight an election in Journal of Liberal History 77 Winter 2012–13 55 THE WONDERFUL WIZARD AS WAS: llOYD GEORGE, 1931–1945 October transformed Lloyd He recog- full-time writer. His main task was North Wales than he was to engage George’s position. He recognised to produce his long-anticipated War with the contemporary political that the likely Conservative major- nised that Memoirs, but before that he com- scene. Thomas Jones, accompany- ity would not only lead to the pleted what was originally intended ing him on his notorious trip to introduction of tariffs, but also the likely to be a long memorandum for sub- Germany in 1936, noted him ‘fight- destroy the residual power which mission to the international confer- ing the campaigns of the Great he and the Liberal Party enjoyed in Conserva- ence on reparations at Lausanne. In War all over again with great ani- a hung parliament. He was particu- fact, it developed into a short book, mation’.14 Almost subconsciously, larly opposed to the idea of a deal tive majority The Truth about Reparations and War Lloyd George seemed to be lay- with the Conservatives – ‘he would Debts, which was published at the ing the foundations of a later myth sooner have half the present num- would not end of March 1932. Thereafter his about his own career, that the ber of Liberal MPs than have an only lead to attention turned to his magnum politics of the 1930s were all about arrangement with the Tories’7 – and opus. Progress was rapid. Two vol- those lesser men, scarcely worthy never forgave Samuel and his col- the intro- umes covering Asquith’s wartime of attention, who had excluded leagues for giving in to Conserva- government in just over 1,000 pages him from office but who could not tive pressure. Lloyd George used a duction of were published in September and stand comparison with the figures radio broadcast during the election October 1933. A further two of of an earlier, nobler era when Lloyd campaign to complain that ‘under tariffs, but 1,500 pages, dealing with 1917, fol- George himself had been at the the guise of a patriotic appeal a lowed in September and October peak of his powers. Tory majority is to be engineered. also destroy 1934, with a final two volumes of It was also striking that Lloyd Patriotism is everywhere exploited comparable length detailing the last George began in the 1930s to take for purely party purposes.’8 His the residual year of the war appearing in 1936. It extended holidays in such distant worst forebodings proved justified. was hardly surprising, then, to find locations as Ceylon and Jamaica. The election produced a Conserva- power which Lloyd George in September 1932 Rather like French governments tive majority unmatched in the writing of his wish to be ‘free to get in the dying years of the Third entire twentieth century. Sixty- he and the on with my work’ and not wanting Republic, he developed something eight Liberal MPs were swamped to ‘throw myself into active politics of a reputation for not being in by the massed Tory ranks and in Liberal Party before 1934’.11 place at moments of political crisis. any case teetered on the verge of a Once the War Memoirs were out His absence abroad was not uncon- decisive split between the follow- enjoyed of the way, Lloyd George turned nected with his literary preoccupa- ers of Herbert Samuel and those almost immediately to his account tions. Lloyd George increasingly of John Simon. Meanwhile, Lloyd in a hung of the Paris Peace Conference of found it necessary to remove him- George stood at the head of a tiny parliament. 1919, published in two substantial self physically from the distractions band of just four MPs – himself, volumes in 1938 as The Truth about of British politics in order to give his children, Megan and Gwilym, the Peace Treaties. It amounted in his full attention to his writing. and Gwilym’s brother-in-law, total to an astonishing literary out- Frustration with the domes- Goronwy Owen. He was under- put on the part of a man now in tic political scene also encouraged standably bitter: his eighth decade. Nor was Lloyd a growing interest in agriculture. George’s involvement in the pro- There was a political dimension When I was stricken down … ject purely nominal.
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