David and Winston: How a Friendship Changed History

quite simply a better book than richard toye wrote on the same subject. new pictures seldom seen

Revolution they were not afraid of (13/13 people found this helpful)

Robert Lloyd George has produced a compelling account of the friendship and political co-operation of two unlikely comrades-in-arms - his great-grandfather David Lloyd George and LG's protege Winston Churchill. Both became 'the man who won the war', Lloyd George leading his country to victory in 1918 and Churchill following in his footsteps in 1945. Both of them assumed the premiership in the middle of a war that was at first going badly, and provided the political leadership necessary for ultimate military success.

Before 1917, the two were the terrible twins of radical reforming politics. As New Liberals, they held key positions in the reforming governments of Campbell-Bannerman and Asquith, and were the prime movers in an impressive record of social reform, from Old Age Pensions and National Insurance to Labour Exchanges and Trade Union rights. Together they championed the 1909 People's Budget with its progressive land taxation against the reactionary opposition of the hereditary House of Lords. Lloyd George's outspoken attack on the Tory dukes at Limehouse and Churchill's speeches published as 'Liberalism and the Social Problem' confirmed their reputations as the leaders of advanced radicalism. They were also great friends and remained so to the last, despite being increasingly divided politically after 1923.

On the face of it, their friendship was incongruous. LG the pro-Boer nonconformist from a humble home in far North Wales and Churchill the ex-Sandhurst imperialist adventurer, grandson of a Duke and born at Blenheim Palace. But both had a touch of genius about them and no doubt recognised in eachother a mutual contempt for conventional ways of doing things. The title of the book carries a hint of another great friendship - that of David and Jonathan.

Robert Lloyd George draws on the published accounts of contemporaries such as Charles Masterman, A.J. Sylvester, Max Beaverbrook and Violet Bonham-Carter to paint a familiar picture of these two 'dynamic forces' of early 20th century British politics. The author is able to include some photographs from the Lloyd George family album including one of a very pleased WSC sauntering across Horseguards on the day of his appointment as First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911, with silk hat and cane - for all the world like The Man who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo. There is also a charming letter from Frances Stevenson's 11 year-old Jennifer in 1940: 'Dear Taid, Why won't you join the Cabinet, many people all around the country are disappointed that you won't join'.

The pre-1914 radicalism is well described and it is good at comparing the two men as war leaders. Clearly, WSC in 1940 was very conscious of following in LG's footsteps. No doubt Churchill suffered electorally in 1945 from the legacy of the Coupon Election of 1918 and the failure of the Lloyd George coalition to deliver 'homes fit for heroes'. In 1945, the Man who Won the War was not seen as the man to win the peace.

After the fall of LG's coalition in 1922, David and Winston were more often than not sharply divided - over economics, the General Strike, Spain and Appeasement - but they remained friends nonetheless. It seems that Churchill got 'Bolshevism on the brain' after 1917, whereas Lloyd George was famously determined to 'die on the left'. 'Revolution I am not afraid of', Lloyd George's boast in 1918, could have been said of both of them before the War, but of only one of them after it.

Academic historians will note the amateur's lack of familiarity with some Westminster terminology. It is surprising to find C.F.G. Masterman and Edwin Montagu described as civil servants because they held position as Parliamentary Private Secretaries. Similarly, the account of the Maurice Debate in May 1918 is full of errors. General Maurice, who challenged the Government's statements about troop numbers on the Western Front at the time of the German counter-offensive in March, had not 'retired as Master of the Ordnance to the British Army in France at the end of 1917'. He had been serving as Director of Military Operations at the War Office since 1915 and had only very recently been replaced. He was in a position to know the truth. Nor is it correct to say that 'General Maurice managed to convince Asquith to propose a vote of no confidence in Lloyd George's administration.' LG made it a vote of confidence, but Asquith was very careful to confine his attack to a call for a Select Committee to investigate the General's charges, which were contained in a letter to the press calling for such an inquiry. Maurice never saw Asquith, still less did he attempt to convince him. He did not even attend Westminster for the debate. Asquith's failure to go for the jugular was as much responsible for denying Maurice a fair hearing before a parliamentary inquiry as was Lloyd George's brilliant but misleading defence of a very weak position.

Despite these lapses, Robert Lloyd George's book is an attractive and readable account of the interwoven carrers of these two giants of British politics - and a reminder of how the progressive left in Britain was derailed by the rise of revolutionary socialism. In the end it was reaction that won.

David and Winston: How a Friendship Changed History

Robert Lloyd George

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a great work on those two collegues (0/0 people found this helpful)

Revolution they were not afraid of (13/13 people found this helpful)

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