Little Englanders: Britain in the Edwardian Era by Alwyn Turner

Author:Alwyn Turner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Profile Books
Published: 2024-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Many still saw the chancellor as a socialist in liberal clothing, and his party leaders even felt obliged to apologise for him in polite society. ‘Lloyd George is essentially a fighting man,’ wrote Campbell-Bannerman to Edward VII, ‘and has not yet learned that once he gets inside an office his sword and spear should only be used on extreme occasions.’39 The king was unimpressed, later telling Asquith, ‘I shall have no more to do with him than what is absolutely necessary.’40

In some circles, though, there was something close to adulation. Socialists deplored the ‘blind hero worship’ seen in North Wales, and it was a fair description.41 ‘Praise God – and Lloyd George – from whom all blessings flow,’ said a woman in Machynlleth, while a man in Llanbrynmair proclaimed, ‘Lloyd George for ever, next to Jesus Christ.’42 In west London the influential Baptist minister John Clifford dubbed him King Lloyd George the First,43 and at a 1913 baby show in Suffolk, the first prize went to an infant named Lloyd George.44 The alternative view came from an Anglican vicar who characterised him as the Beast of Revelation, whose number is 666.45

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