Staring at God by Simon Heffer

Author:Simon Heffer [Heffer, Simon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473555969
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2019-09-18T16:00:00+00:00

IV

After lunch that Saturday Asquith left by car for Walmer Castle without having given an indication to colleagues of his next move. ‘It was very typical of him that in the middle of this tremendous crisis he should go away for the weekend!’ Hankey expostulated.74 That day the Morning Post had run a leading article entitled ‘The Need for a New Government’, writing off Asquith but praising Lloyd George; the previous day it had warmed up with a leader entitled ‘The survival of the unfittest’. In its second barrel, the paper lamented that ‘nothing is to be hoped for as long as Mr Asquith remains prime minister.’75 It also promised, or threatened, to publish frequent analyses of why Asquith had failed until, it seemed, he took the hint. Northcliffe, sensing the way the wind was blowing, suddenly turned up at the War Office, ‘grovelling’ according to Miss Stevenson, hoping to be friends with Lloyd George. Hankey believed that morning’s stories had been ‘obviously inspired by Ll George.’76

At Mrs Asquith’s request Hankey saw Law, who told him about the party meeting he had called for the next day. By now, Law’s reservations about Asquith’s being excluded from the proposed war committee appeared to have been overcome by the prime minister’s own acceptance of that condition in Lloyd George’s memorandum. In the light of this development, Law told Hankey that if Asquith rejected the proposal to hand direction of the war over to Lloyd George, Law would resign and take his party with him, ending the coalition. He added that he wished to resign before Lloyd George, so as not to appear to be ‘dragged at the heels’ of the war secretary. Asquith had asked Reading, of whose closeness to Lloyd George he had been well aware since the Marconi scandal, to keep his friend under control; but when Hankey asked him to persuade Lloyd George to hold off resigning, Reading told him he had bought a stay of execution of just twenty-four hours.77 Later on 2 December Asquith heard from Montagu, one of his closest colleagues and now the husband of Venetia Stanley, who told him that Lloyd George was adamant that the prime minister – whoever he might be – could not sit on the proposed war committee, because it would meet so often it would disrupt his other duties.

According to Miss Stevenson – whose chronology is not always accurate – Lloyd George had refused to see Asquith on the Saturday before he left for Kent because he felt he had reached a brick wall, and drafted his letter of resignation that afternoon.78 Hankey realised it was vital to have Asquith on hand in Downing Street, and so sent Bonham Carter to Walmer to bring him back. Hankey and Reading discussed the absurdity of the quarrel: ‘The obvious compromise is for the Prime Minister to retain the Presidency of the War Committee with Lloyd George as Chairman, and to give Lloyd George a fairly free run for his money.’ But

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