Chapter 2

'The Era of the Goat' 1914-31

The Cabinet was meeting in 10 Downing Street on 22 May 1916 - almost two years into the 'Great War'. Two of its most senior members, War Minister Lord Kitchener and the Munitions Minister, Lloyd George, were soon due to sail on a secret mission to Russia. They would visit the Tsar and his government to try to keep a financially and militarily stretched ally in the war.

Sitting at the Cabinet table, Lloyd George was passed a folded note, which he opened and quickly read. It was written in the unmistakeable scrawl of the Prime Minister, Asquith. Headed 'Secret', it continued: 'My dear Lloyd George, I hope you may see your way to take up Ireland: at any rate for a short time. It is a unique opportunity and there is no one else who could do as much to bring about a permanent solution. Yours very sincerely, H. H. Asquith'.

This request, a few weeks after the Easter Rising, was to have momentous consequences. It would alter the course of British politics and shatter the Liberal Party. As a result of it, Lloyd George scrapped his plans to join the Russian visit. In consequence, he did not lose his life with Kitchener, when the vessel on which Kitchener was travelling, HMS Hampshire, sank with the loss of almost all 749 men on board.

Within six months, Lloyd George went on to mount a coup, replacing Asquith as Prime Minister. This fatally divided the Liberal Party, and by 1918, the Labour Party had replaced them as the main alternative to the Unionists. The Liberals would never again govern alone.

But we must first retrace our steps and consider the background to the great Asquith-Lloyd George split. When war broke out in Europe in early August 1914 and spread rapidly across the globe, problems over Ireland's future were dominating British politics. Initially, Asquith hoped that the UK could stand apart. But Germany's decision to violate the neutrality of Belgium brought Britain into the war on a wave of patriotic fervour. Ramsay MacDonald resigned his post as chair of the Parliamentary Labour Party, in opposition to his party's support for war.

Stalemate rapidly set in on the 'Western Front', and by May 1915, Asquith was facing criticism in Parliament and the press. Military operations in the Dardanelles had been a disaster and there was increasing focus on the government's apparent inability to provide the shells, equipment and manpower needed. Asquith's response was to establish a coalition government, on 25 May 1915. The new Cabinet included nine Unionists and one Labour member - Arthur Henderson. The Liberals maintained a grip on all the key posts.

A coalition might have seemed a natural response to a world war, but it split Labour and angered many Liberals. At a meeting of Liberal MPs, a motion was passed unanimously condemning the arrangement. Asquith was summoned and he explained that 'certain things had happened; certain things had been divulged; and certain things had emerged as probable'. Somehow reassured by this obscure revelation, the hostile motion was withdrawn.

By late 1916, and without recourse to a general election, there was pressure for a change in leadership. Asquith's laid-back style, more chairman than leader, which had been such a strength during the years of peace, seemed inappropriate for a time that required both dynamism and the appearance of dynamism. The offensive on the Somme petered out with Allied casualties of over 400,000. And there were difficult debates in the Liberal Party over the case for conscription - leading to the resignation of the Liberal Home Secretary, Sir John Simon.

In the last decade, Asquith had promoted Lloyd George to Chancellor, shielded him when the Marconi share scandal had threatened his career and then appointed him to replace Kitchener as Secretary of State for War. But politics can be a brutal business, and the energetic Lloyd George was not about to allow political debts to get in the way of his ambition. As long ago as August 1910, he had schemed behind his leader's back and pushed for a Liberal-Unionist coalition to grapple with the seemingly intractable issues of Lords reform and Ireland. His desire to work beyond the constraints of party politics dated back further to 1895 - 'he had been impatient with the petty orthodoxies of party controversy'.1

In August 1910, Lloyd George's secret coalition plan covered an extraordinary range of policies - from housing to drink, social insurance, unemployment, trade, the 'Irish Question' and foreign policy. It did not look like a scheme for a short-lived political truce to resolve one or two major constitutional issues. It was a clear signal that Lloyd George was more motivated by policies, projects and personal position than by party loyalties. He seems initially to have discussed his proposal with Churchill. Next, he met the Unionist leader, Balfour. Only after delicate and indiscreet talks, most with opposition leaders, did he deign to discuss the matter with Asquith, in mid-October. It was a breathtaking bit of freelancing and Asquith must have been surprised and concerned. Lloyd George generously made clear that he envisaged Asquith remaining as PM. What he did not dare tell his boss was that his plan would involve him being shunted off to the House of Lords.2 On 29 October, he produced a second memorandum which covered Irish matters and even suggested an inquiry into the fiscal system, designed to open the door to reduced duties on trade with the 'colonies'. It was an attempt to sketch out a common programme for a national or coalition government.

Ultimately, Balfour sunk the plan. His concern was that both parties were being asked to accept the policies they most disagreed with - Home Rule and social reform for the Unionists, some form of imperial preference and conscription for the Liberals. In 1928, he would observe of Lloyd George: 'Principles mean nothing to him - never have. His mind doesn't work that way. It's both his strength and his weakness.'

So, in 1910, Lloyd George had made a first, unsuccessful, attempt to single-handedly redraw the party system. Now, in 1916, he would try again. He wanted a more aggressive prosecution of the war, and he believed he had the focus that Asquith seemed to lack (the fact the 64-year-old PM wrote some 560 letters over a three-year period to a 28-year-old lady who he was infatuated with, often giving away key war secrets, while chairing meetings of the Cabinet, did not help).

In late autumn 1916, Lloyd George seized his opportunity and secured the support of the Unionists for his plan. In theory, he was only asking of Asquith to appoint him to chair a small War Committee that would exclude the PM and turbo-charge the war effort. But Asquith was immediately suspicious, writing to the new Conservative leader, Andrew Bonar Law, on 26 November to note of Lloyd George:

He has many qualities . but he lacks the one thing needful - he does not inspire trust . there is one construction and one construction only, that could be put on the new [proposed] arrangements - that it has been engineered by him with the purpose, not perhaps at the moment but as soon as fitting pretext can be found, of displacing me.3

He was right. And Asquith was unwilling to be reduced to a figurehead in his own government.

Unfortunately for Asquith, the Unionists backed Lloyd George over him, and he was forced to quit. Displacing a wartime leader was not something that many Liberals could forgive. Asquith himself, addressing his MPs and peers on the day after Lloyd George became Prime Minister, told them that he had fallen victim to 'a well-organised conspiracy'. Worse still, it was a conspiracy in which his Liberal assassin had made common cause with their political enemies. In politics, that's as bad as it gets.

Asquith did not believe that the new government could last. He remained Liberal leader and waited to return. The party was now deeply split. There were two Liberal groupings and two sets of whips. One grouping followed Lloyd George and remained on the government benches, the other backed Asquith and was seated on the opposition side of the Commons.

For the first year of the coalition, a low-key Liberal truce was maintained. But Asquith rejected Lloyd George's attempts to get him back in the government.4 Lloyd George now began to contemplate a major recasting of politics. He imagined a future in which there might be a left-wing Labour Party confronting a new alignment of more moderate Liberals and Unionists, no doubt led by someone charismatic, Welsh and with the skills he uniquely (in his own mind) possessed. If this was how he saw the future, he was hardly going to invest huge efforts in bringing the Liberal Party back together. Churchill was another key supporter of this centre party concept.

By April 1918, Lloyd George was describing himself to Lord Riddell as 'nationalist-socialist'. No wonder he would later indulge in a brief and embarrassing flirtation with Adolf Hitler. He was 'a strong believer in nationality . in the...