Youre Fired!:Why Liberals should never run the Government

Ann Coulter

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When no solution could be found, Asquith and his cabinet planned further concessions to the Unionists, but this did not occur as the crisis on the Continent erupted into war. This solution satisfied neither side. Asquith led a deeply divided Liberal Party as Prime Minister, not least on questions of foreign relations and defence spending. Grey, the Foreign Secretary, refused any formal arrangement, but gave it as his personal opinion that in the event of war Britain would aid France. France then asked for military conversations aimed at co-ordination in such an event.

Grey agreed, and these went on in the following years, without cabinet knowledge—Asquith most likely did not know of them until When he learned of them, Asquith was concerned that the French took for granted British aid in the event of war, but Grey persuaded him the talks must continue. More public was the naval arms race between Britain and Germany. The Moroccan crisis had been settled at the Algeciras Conference , and Campbell-Bannerman's cabinet approved reduced naval estimates, including postponing the laying down of a second Dreadnought -class battleship.

Tenser relationships with Germany, and that nation moving ahead with its own dreadnoughts , led Reginald McKenna , when Asquith appointed him First Lord of the Admiralty in , to propose the laying down of eight more British ones in the following three years. This prompted conflict in the Cabinet between those who supported this programme, such as McKenna, and the "economists" who promoted economy in naval estimates, led by Lloyd George and Churchill. Asquith mediated among his colleagues and secured a compromise whereby four ships would be laid down at once, and four more if there proved to be a need.

The Agadir crisis of was again between France and Germany over Moroccan interests, but Asquith's government signalled its friendliness towards France in Lloyd George's Mansion House speech on 21 July. The Cabinet agreed at Asquith's instigation that no talks could be held that committed Britain to war, and required cabinet approval for co-ordinated military actions.

Nevertheless, by , the French had requested additional naval co-ordination and late in the year, the various understandings were committed to writing in an exchange of letters between Grey and French Ambassador Paul Cambon. This quieted Asquith's foreign policy critics until another naval estimates dispute erupted early in The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo on 28 June initiated a month of unsuccessful diplomatic attempts to avoid war.

Grey's initiative was rejected by Germany as "not practicable". He knew of no Minister who would be in favour of it. On 24 July, he wrote to Venetia; "We are within measurable, or imaginable, distance of a real Armageddon. Happily there seems to be no reason why we should be anything more than spectators. During the continuing escalation Asquith "used all his experience and authority to keep his options open" [] and adamantly refused to commit his government; "The worst thing we could do would be to announce to the world at the present moment that in no circumstances would we intervene.

Grey will never consent and I shall not separate myself from him. On Monday 3 August, the Belgian Government rejected the German demand for free passage through its country and in the afternoon, "with gravity and unexpected eloquence", [] Grey spoke in the Commons and called for British action "against the unmeasured aggrandisement of any power". Margot Asquith described the moment of expiry, somewhat inaccurately; " I joined Henry in the Cabinet room.

We were at War. The declaration of war on 4 August saw Asquith as the head of an almost united Liberal Party. The first months of the War saw a revival in Asquith's popularity. Bitterness from earlier struggles temporarily receded and the nation looked to Asquith, "steady, massive, self-reliant and unswerving", [] to lead them to victory. But Asquith's peacetime strengths ill-equipped him for what was to become perhaps the first total war and, before its end, he would be out of office forever and his party would never again form a majority government.

Beyond the replacement of Morley and Burns, [] Asquith made one other significant change to his cabinet. The invasion of Belgium by German forces, the touch paper for British intervention, saw the Kaiser's armies attempt a lightning strike through Belgium against France, while holding Russian forces on the Eastern Front.

The Dardanelles Campaign was an attempt by Churchill and those those favouring an Eastern strategy to end the stalemate on the Western Front. It envisaged an Anglo-French landing on Turkey's Gallipoli Peninsula and a rapid advance to Constantinople which would see the exit of Turkey from the conflict.

The naval attempt was badly defeated. Allied troops established bridgeheads on the Gallipoli Peninsula, but a delay in providing sufficient reinforcements allowed the Turks to regroup, leading to a stalemate Jenkins described "as immobile as that which prevailed on the Western Front". The Allies sent in , men; they suffered , casualties mostly from Australian and New Zealand units in the humiliating defeat. Politically, it ruined Churchill and badly hurt Asquith. The opening of saw growing division between Lloyd George and Kitchener over the supply of munitions for the army.

Lloyd George considered that a munitions department, under his control, was essential to co-ordinate "the nation's entire engineering capacity". As so often, Asquith sought compromise through committee, establishing a group to "consider the much vexed question of putting the contracts for munitions on a proper footing". There is not a word of truth in that statement.

The press response was savage: Thus opened a fully-fledged crisis, the Shell Crisis. The prime minister's wife correctly identified her husband's chief opponent, the Press baron, and owner of The Times , Lord Northcliffe ; "I'm quite sure Northcliffe is at the bottom of all this," [] but failed to recognise the clandestine involvement of Sir John French , who leaked the details of the shells shortage to Repington.

Scott , the editor of The Manchester Guardian writing; "The Government has failed most frightfully and discreditably in the matter of munitions. Failures in both the East and the West began a tide of events that was to overwhelm Asquith's Liberal Government. Asquith's reply was immediate and brief, "As you know well, this breaks my heart. I couldn't bear to come and see you. I can only pray God to bless you—and help me. I know you will not fail. This personal loss was immediately followed, on 15 May, by the resignation of Admiral Fisher after continuing disagreements with Churchill and in frustration at the disappointing developments in Gallipoli.

He has a great deal of trouble with his chief, who is always wanting to do something big and striking. Cassar considers that Lloyd George displayed a distinct lack of loyalty, [] and Koss writes of the contemporary rumours that Churchill had "been up to his old game of intriguing all round" and reports a claim that Churchill "unquestionably inspired" the Repington Letter, in collusion with Sir John French.

The formation of the First Coalition saw Asquith display the political acuteness that seemed to have deserted him. This involved the sacrifice of two old political comrades: Churchill, who was blamed for the Dardanelles fiasco, and Haldane, who was wrongly accused in the press of pro-German sympathies. Asquith handled the allocation of offices more successfully, appointing Bonar Law to the relatively minor post of Colonial Secretary, [] taking responsibility for munitions from Kitchener and giving it, as a new ministry, to Lloyd George and placing Balfour at the Admiralty, in place of Churchill, who was demoted to the sinecure Cabinet post of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster.

Overall the Liberals held 12 Cabinet seats, including most of the important ones, while the Tories held 8. Having reconstructed his government, Asquith attempted a re-configuration of his war-making apparatus. The most important element of this was the establishment of the Ministry of Munitions , [] followed by the re-ordering of the War Council into a Dardanelles Committee, with Maurice Hankey as secretary and with a remit to consider all questions of war strategy.

The Munitions of War Act brought private companies supplying the armed forces under the tight control of the Minister of Munitions , Lloyd George. The policy, according to J. Marriott , was that:. Nevertheless, criticism of Asquith's leadership style continued. The Earl of Crawford , who had joined the Government as Minister of Agriculture, described his first Cabinet meeting; "It was a huge gathering, so big that it is hopeless for more than one or two to express opinions on each detail […] Asquith somnolent—hands shaky and cheeks pendulous.

He exercised little control over debate, seemed rather bored, but good humoured throughout.

The insatiable demand for manpower for the Western Front had been foreseen early on. A volunteer system had been introduced at the outbreak of war, and Asquith was reluctant to change it for political reasons, as many Liberals, and almost all of their Irish Nationalist and Labour allies, were strongly opposed to conscription. Will 'wait and see' win, or can that part of the Cabinet that is in earnest and is honest force that damned old Squiff into action? Describing herself as "passionately against it", [] Margot Asquith engaged in one of her frequent influencing drives, by letters and through conversations, which had little impact other than doing "great harm" to Asquith's reputation and position.

By the end of , it was clear that conscription was essential and Asquith laid the Military Service Act in the House of Commons on 5 January Asquith's main opposition came from within his own party, particularly from Sir John Simon, who resigned. Asquith described Simon's stance in a letter to Sylvia Henley; "I felt really like a man who had been struck publicly in the face by his son. On Easter Monday , a group of Irish Volunteers and members of the Irish Citizen Army seized a number of key buildings and locations in Dublin and elsewhere.

There was heavy fighting over the next week before the Volunteers were forced to surrender. On 11 May Asquith crossed to Dublin and, after a week of investigation, decided that the island's governance system was irredeemably broken, [] He turned to Lloyd George for a solution. With his customary energy, Lloyd George brokered a settlement which would have seen Home Rule introduced at the end of the War, with the exclusion of Ulster. A gets very few cheers nowadays. Continued Allied failure and heavy losses at the Battle of Loos between September and October ended any remaining confidence in the British commander, Sir John French and in the judgement of Lord Kitchener.

It ran 'Sir J. Early saw the start of the German offensive at Verdun , the "greatest battle of attrition in history". Although a strategic success, [] the greater loss of ships on the Allied side brought early dismay. Whilst listening to the list of ships lost, I thought it the worst disaster that we had ever suffered. Asquith first considered taking the vacant War Office himself but then offered it to Bonar Law, who declined it in favour of Lloyd George. Asquith followed this by agreeing to hold Commissions of Inquiry into the conduct of the Dardanelles and of the Mesopotamian campaign , where Allied forces had been forced to surrender at Kut.

For its last five months, the function of the Supreme Command was carried out under the shadow of these inquests. Raymond wrote to his wife in early ; "If Margot talks any more bosh to you about the inhumanity of her stepchildren you can stop her mouth by telling her that during my 10 months exile here the P.

The events that led to the collapse of the First Coalition were exhaustively chronicled by almost all of the major participants, [] although Asquith himself was a notable exception , and have been minutely studied by historians in the years since. Adams wrote; "The Prime Minister depended upon [a] majority [in] Parliament. The faith of that majority in Asquith's leadership had been shaken and the appearance of a logical alternative destroyed him. The touch paper for the final crisis was the unlikely subject of the sale of captured German assets in Nigeria.

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The issue itself was trivial, [] but the fact that Law had been attacked by a leading member of his own party, and was not supported by Lloyd George who absented himself from the House only to dine with Carson later in the evening , was not. Margot Asquith immediately sensed the coming danger; "From that night it was quite clear that Northcliffe, Rothermere, Bonar, Carson, Ll.

G and a man called Max Aitken were going to run the Government. I knew it was the end. The situation was further inflamed by the publication of a memorandum on future prospects in the war by Lord Lansdowne. Asquith's critics immediately assumed that the memorandum represented his own views and that Lansdowne was being used as a stalking horse, [] Lord Crewe going so far as to suggest that the Lansdowne Memorandum was the "veritable causa causans [n] of the final break-up".

Asquith was to be retained as prime minister, and given honorific oversight of the War Council, but day to day operations would be directed by Lloyd George. Until almost the end, both Bonar Law, [] and Lloyd George, [] wished to retain Asquith as premier. But Aitken, [] Carson [] and Lord Northcliffe emphatically did not. Lord Northcliffe's role was critical, as was the use Lloyd George made of him, and of the press in general. Northcliffe's involvement also highlights the limitations of both Aitken's and Lloyd George's accounts of Asquith's fall.

Both minimised Northcliffe's part in the events. In his War Memoirs, Lloyd George stated emphatically "Lord Northcliffe was never, at any stage, brought into our consultations. In their biography of Northcliffe, Pound and Harmsworth record Northcliffe's brother Rothermere writing contemporaneously; "Alfred has been actively at work with Ll. God may forgive him; I never can. In this regard, some senior military officers were extremely active. Robertson, for example, wrote to Northcliffe in October , "The Boche gives me no trouble compared with what I meet in London.

So any help you can give me will be of Imperial value. His reply was an outright rejection; the proposal was impossible "without fatally impairing the confidence of colleagues, and undermining my own authority. All were uncertain of the next steps. All were united in opposition to Lloyd George's War Council plans, Chamberlain writing; " we were unanimously of opinion sic that the plans were open to grave objection and made certain alternative proposals. Lloyd George had also been reflecting on the substance of the scheme and, on Friday 1 December, he met with Asquith to put forward an alternative.

This would see a War Council of three, the two Service ministers and a third without portfolio. One of the three, presumably Lloyd George although this was not explicit, would be chairman. Asquith, as Prime Minister, would retain "supreme control. Asquith's reply the same day did not constitute an outright rejection, but he did demand that he retain the chairmanship of the council.

The life of the country depends on resolute action by you now. In a four-day crisis Asquith was unaware how fast he was losing support. Asquith fell and Lloyd George answered the loud demands for a much more decisive government. He energetically set up a new small war cabinet, a cabinet secretariat under Hankey, a secretariat of private advisors in the 'Garden Suburb' and moved towards prime ministerial control. This document, subsequently the source of much debate, stated that "the Government cannot continue as it is; the Prime Minister should tender the resignation of the Government" and, if Asquith was unwilling to do that, the Conservative members of the Government would "tender their resignations.

Chamberlain felt that it left open the option of either Asquith or Lloyd George as premier, dependent on who could gain greater support. Curzon, in a letter of that day to Lansdowne, stated no one at the Pembroke Lodge meeting felt that the war could be won under Asquith's continued leadership and that the issue for the Liberal politicians to resolve was whether Asquith remained in a Lloyd George administration in a subordinate role, or left the government altogether. As one example, Gilmour, Curzon's biographer, writes that the Unionist ministers; "did not, as Beaverbrook alleged, decide to resign themselves in order to strengthen the Prime Minister's hand against Lloyd George..

Bonar Law then took the resolution to Asquith, who had, unusually, broken his weekend at Walmer Castle to return to Downing Street. Law himself maintained he simply forgot. The outcome of the interview between Law and Asquith was clear, even if Law had not been. Lloyd George would ultimately be achieved, without sacrifice of Asquith's position as chief of the War Committee; a large measure of reconstruction would satisfy the Unionist Ministers.

Despite Lloyd George's denials of collaboration, the diary for 3 December by Northcliffe's factotum Tom Clarke, records that; "The Chief returned to town and at 7. The bulletin was published on the morning of Monday 4 December. It was accompanied by an avalanche of press criticism, all of it intensely hostile to Asquith. More damagingly still, it ridiculed Asquith, claimed he had conspired in his own humiliation and would henceforth be "Prime Minister in name only. But it seems likely that Carson's source was Lloyd George.

The leak prompted an immediate reaction from Asquith; "Unless the impression is at once corrected that I am being relegated to the position of an irresponsible spectator of the War, I cannot possibly go on. I fully accept in letter and in spirit your summary of the suggested arrangement—subject of course to personnel. It is unclear exactly whom Asquith spoke with on 4 December. Beaverbrook and Crewe state he met Chamberlain, Curzon and Cecil. This is the first and only time the three of us met Asquith during those fateful days. Gilmour [] and Adams.

Lloyd George accepted the challenge by return of post, writing; "As all delay is fatal in war, I place my office without further parley at your disposal. Jenkins argues that Asquith should have recognised it as a shift of allegiance. Without their support, "it would be impossible for Asquith to continue.

Asquith's meeting with Chamberlain, Curzon and Cecil at 3. The "Three Cs" stated they would serve under Lloyd George if he could create the stable Government they considered essential for the effective prosecution of the War. The Home Secretary, Herbert Samuel , recorded in a contemporaneous note; "We were all strongly of opinion, from which [Asquith] did not dissent, that there was no alternative [to resignation]. We could not carry on without LlG and the Unionists and ought not to give the appearance of wishing to do so.

Later that evening Bonar Law, who had been to the Palace to receive the King's commission, arrived to enquire whether Asquith would serve under him. Lord Crewe described Asquith's reply as "altogether discouraging, if not definitely in the negative. General Douglas Haig on Asquith's fall 6 December []. Wednesday saw an afternoon conference at Buckingham Palace, hosted by the King and chaired by Balfour. Taylor's life of that politician, which reads: Meeting at BL house with G.

Lloyd George and C. Carson —Decide on Palace Conference. Within two hours of its break-up, Asquith, after consulting his Liberal colleagues, [] except for Lloyd George, declined to serve under Bonar Law, [] who accordingly declined the King's commission. Lloyd George was invited to form a Government. In just over twenty four hours he had done so, forming a small War Cabinet instead of the mooted War Council, and at 7.

But the whole trouble arose from the fact that there was no fierce resolute Asquith to win this war or any other. The Asquiths finally vacated 10 Downing Street on 9 December. Asquith, not normally given to displays of emotion, confided to his wife that he felt he had been stabbed. That Lloyd George a Welshman! Asquith's fall was met with rejoicing in much of the British and Allied press and sterling rallied against the German mark on the New York markets.

Press attacks on Asquith continued and indeed increased after the publication of the Dardanelles Report. Like Sir Robert Peel after , Asquith after still controlled the party machinery and resented those who had ousted him, but showed no real interest in reuniting his party. Asquith did not put any pressure on Liberals to eschew joining the coalition government; in fact, though, few Liberals did join it. Most Liberal parliamentarians remained intensely loyal to him, and felt that he alone should not be left to face the criticism.

There was much hostility to Lloyd George at these gatherings. Within Parliament, Asquith pursued a course of quiet support, retaining a "heavy, continuing responsibility for the decision of August 4, Outside of the Commons, Margot and he returned to 20 Cavendish Square and he divided his life between there, The Wharf and visiting. Money, in the absence of his premier's salary, became more of a concern.

Asquith's daughter-in-law recorded in her diary; "The Old Boy Asquith sent me fifteen pounds and also, in a letter, told me the sad news of poor, dear Oc having been badly wounded again. On 7 May a letter from a serving officer, Major-General Sir Frederick Maurice appeared in four London newspapers, accusing Lloyd George and Bonar Law of having misled the House of Commons in debates the previous month as to the manpower strength of the army in France. Gwynne , the editor of the Morning Post , and previously a fervent opponent.

Bridgeman recorded; "He did not make much of a case, and did not even condemn Maurice's breach of the King's Regulations, for which he got a very heavy blow from L. Asquith was left politically discredited by the Maurice Debate and by the clear turn of the war in the Allies' favour from the summer of However, Lady Ottoline Morrell thought it "a dull address".

I dined with the usual crowd at Mrs.

Malcolm Turnbull says Peter Dutton has given him 'absolute support'

The Duke of Connaught lunches here on Friday: The beginning of the end of the war began where it had begun, with the last German offensive on the Western Front, the Second Battle of the Marne. Even before the Armistice, Lloyd George had been considering the political landscape and, on 2 November , wrote to Bonar Law proposing an immediate election with a formal endorsement — for which Asquith coined the name "Coupon", with overtones of wartime food rationing — for Coalition candidates.

On 6 November he wrote to Hilda Henderson; "I suppose that tomorrow we shall be told the final decision about this accursed election. Asquith joined in the celebrations of the Armistice, speaking in the Commons, attending the service of thanksgiving at St Margaret's, Westminster and afterwards lunching with King George.

Asquith led the Liberal Party into the election, but with a singular lack of enthusiasm, writing on 25 November: The whole thing is a wicked fraud. Asquith was one of five people given a free pass by the Coalition but the East Fife Unionist Association defied national instructions and put up a candidate, Alexander Sprot , against him. He scoffed at press rumours that he was being barracked by a gang of discharged soldiers. Are you going to let him spoil the Peace? This was used for such a purpose as to influence the female vote very much against you. At the poll on 14 December, Lloyd George's coalition won a landslide, with Asquith and every other former Liberal Cabinet minister losing his seat.

Asquith —Sprott sic Asquith remained leader of the Liberal Party, despite McKenna vainly urging him, almost immediately after the election, to offer his resignation to the National Liberal Federation and help with building an alliance with Labour. Although accounts differ as to the exact numbers, around 29 uncouponed Liberals had been elected, only 3 with any junior ministerial experience, not all of them opponents of the coalition.

There was widespread discontent at Asquith's leadership, and Sir T. Bramsdon , who claimed that he had been elected at Portsmouth only by promising not to support Asquith, protested openly at his remaining leader from outside the Commons. On 3 February 23 non-coalition Liberals formed themselves into a "Free Liberal" group soon known as the "Wee Frees" after a Scottish religious sect of that name ; they accepted Asquith's appointment of Sir Donald Maclean as chairman in his absence but insisted that George Rennie Thorne , whom Asquith had appointed Chief Whip, hold that job jointly with James Myles Hogge , of whom Asquith and Maclean had a low opinion.

After a brief attempt to set up a joint committee with the Coalition Liberal MPs to explore reunion, the "Wee Frees" resigned the government whip on 4 April, although some Liberal MPs still remained of uncertain allegiance. In April Asquith gave a weak speech to Liberal candidates, his first public speech since the election.

In Newcastle 15 May he gave a slightly stronger speech, encouraged by his audience to "Hit Out! In August Asquith was asked to preside over a Royal Commission into the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, although the report when it came was, in line with Asquith's own academic views, somewhat conservative. Maclean and others urged Asquith to stand in the Spen Valley by-election in December , but it is unclear whether he ever considered the idea.

This was just as well, as it had become clear that Labour were going to fight the seat hard and they defeated Sir John Simon when Lloyd George insisted on splitting the Liberal vote by running a Coalition Liberal candidate. A Parliamentary seat was essential if Asquith was again to play any serious part in future events. By the autumn of J. Hogge was openly critical of Asquith's leadership, and by January it was rumoured that he had given Asquith an ultimatum that unless he returned to Parliament in a by-election the Independent Liberal MPs would repudiate him as their leader had he lost a by-election, his position would have been untenable anyway, as he well knew.

In January , an opportunity arose at Paisley , in Scotland like his previous seat, after the death of the Liberal MP. Asquith's adoption was not a foregone conclusion: He was formally adopted on 21 January and soon united the local Liberal Association behind him. The result was stupendous, with Asquith defeating his Labour opponent by a majority of over votes, with the Coalition candidate a very poor third. He was seen off by tumultuous crowds at Glasgow, and greeted by further crowds at Euston the next morning, and along the road on his first return to Parliament.

However, he received only a chilly greeting inside the Chamber, and no personal congratulations from Coalition politicians, except, ironically from Lord Cave who was to be his nemesis at Oxford in Paisley was a false dawn, for the Liberals and for Asquith personally. Jenkins wrote that "The post-war Liberal day never achieved more than a grey and short-lived light. By , it was dusk again. By , for Asquith, it was political night. Money, or its lack, also became an increasing concern. Margot's extravagance was legendary [] and Asquith was no longer earning either the legal fees or the prime ministerial salary they had enjoyed in earlier years.

Additionally, there were on-going difficulties with Margot's inheritance. Criticism of Asquith's weak leadership continued. Lloyd George's mistress Frances Stevenson wrote 18 March that he was "finished … no fight left in him"; the press baron Lord Rothermere, who had supported him at Paisley, wrote on 1 April of his "obvious incapacity for the position he is expected to fill".

He also spoke frequently around the country, in June topping the Liberal Chief Whip's list of the most active speakers. Asquith still maintained friendly relations with Lloyd George, although Margot made no secret of her enmity for him. Until the Paisley by-election Asquith had accepted that the next government must be some kind of Liberal-Labour coalition, but Labour had distanced themselves because of his policies on the mines, the Russo-Polish War , education, the prewar secret treaties and the suppression of the Easter Rebellion.

Cecil wanted a genuine coalition rather than a de facto Liberal government, with Grey rather than Asquith as Prime Minister, but the Liberals did not, and little came of the plans. Asquith did fiercely oppose "the hellish policy of reprisals" in Ireland, impressing the young Oswald Mosley. In January C. Scott of the Manchester Guardian told Asquith that he supported a centre-left grouping, but only if moderate Labour was included—in reality Labour leaders were unable to deliver the support of their local members for such a realignment.

Asquith had with some difficulty been persuaded to make the maximum possible reference to his renewed alliance with Grey, but Haldane had refused to join the platform. Five days later Churchill replied with a pro-Coalition speech in which he accused Asquith and other Liberals of having "stood carefully aside" during the war, causing deep offence. By the summer of Asquith's interest in politics was at a very low ebb. Asquith played no part in Lloyd George's fall from power in October , which happened because the rank-and-file majority of his Tory coalition partners, led by Stanley Baldwin and Lloyd George's former colleague Bonar Law, deserted him.

He put this down to the 5, unemployed at Paisley after the slump of — In March a petition for reunion among Liberal backbenchers received 73 signatures, backed by the Lloyd Georgeite Daily Chronicle and the Asquithian Liberal Magazine. Kinnear writes that Asquith felt that with Lloyd George's faction declining in strength he had everything to gain by waiting, while too quick an approach would antagonise the Labour leaders who hated Lloyd George and whose support he might need for a future Lib-Lab coalition.

Kinnear also argues that Asquith's "gloating" over the defeat of Coalition Liberals in is evidence that "the most important factor influencing Asquith against quick reunion was his personal dislike of Lloyd George and his desire for vengeance. The political situation was transformed when Baldwin, now Prime Minister, came out in favour of Protection at Plymouth on 22 October Asquith and Lloyd George reached agreement on 13 November, followed by a Free Trade manifesto, followed by a more general one. Lloyd George, accompanied by his daughter Megan , came to Paisley to speak in Asquith's support on 24 November.

Asquith fought an energetic national campaign on free trade in , with echoes of The poll at Paisley was split by an independent extreme socialist and a Tory. In general, Asquith Liberals did better than Lloyd George Liberals, which Gladstone and Maclean saw as a reason to prevent close co-operation between the factions. There was no question of the Liberals supporting a continuation of the Conservative government, not least as it was feared that an alliance of the two "bourgeois" parties would antagonise Labour.

Asquith commented that "If a Labour Government is ever to be tried in this country, as it will be sooner or later, it could hardly be tried under safer conditions". Asquith's decision to support a minority Labour Government was seconded by Lloyd George and approved by a party meeting on 18 December.

Baldwin's view was similar, as he rejected Sir Robert Horne 's scheme for a Conservative-Liberal pact. Roy Douglas called the decision to put in Ramsay MacDonald "the most disastrous single action ever performed by a Liberal towards his party. Asquith was never in doubt as to the correctness of his approach, although a deluge of correspondence urged him to save the country from Socialism. The Liberal Party voted for the Labour amendment to the Address, causing Baldwin to resign Asquith believed that Baldwin could have ignored the vote and carried on attempting to govern without a majority.

He thought the new Labour Government "a beggarly array" although he remarked that the Foreign Office staff were glad to see the back of "the Archduke Curzon". Asquith's decision only hastened his party's destruction, the Conservative Austen Chamberlain writing to his colleague Sir Samuel Hoare ; "We have got unexpectedly and by our own blunders and Asquith's greater folly a second chance.

Have we got the wit to take it? Relations with Labour soon became very tense, with Liberal MPs increasingly angered at having to support a Labour Government which treated them with such open hostility. As Asquith brought MacDonald in so, later in the same year, he had significant responsibility for forcing him out over the Campbell Case and the Russian Treaty. He could not bring himself to withdraw the amendment, but could not support the government either. Instead of resigning MacDonald requested, and was granted, a General Election.

He just said to me, 'I'm out by 2,'.

Canberra's deranged circus of wreckers are now writing our future

It was a political, as well as a personal, disaster. Baldwin won a landslide victory, with over " Conservatives returned and only 40 Liberals", [] far behind Labour which entrenched its position as the "chief party of Opposition. The Liberal vote collapsed, much of it coalescing to the Conservatives as a result of the scare around the forged Zinoviev Letter. The Liberal grandees, who hated Lloyd George, did not press Asquith to retire. Sir Robert Hudson and Maclean called on him 31 October and insisted he firmly keep the chair at the next meeting and nominate the new Chief Whip himself.

The election was Asquith's last Parliamentary campaign, and there was no realistic chance of a return to the Commons. He told Charles Masterman "I'd sooner go to hell than to Wales," the only part of the country where Liberal support remained strong. The King offered him a peerage 4 November He accepted in January after a holiday in Egypt with his son Oc. He deliberately chose the title "Earl of Oxford", saying it had a splendid history as the title chosen by Robert Harley , a Tory statesman of Queen Anne 's reign.

In practice he was known as "Lord Oxford". In the Liberal party had only been able to put up candidates due to lack of money. At one point the Liberal Shadow Cabinet suggested obtaining the opinion of a Chancery Lawyer as to whether the Liberal Party was entitled under trust law to Lloyd George's money, which he had obtained from the sale of honours. Asquith on an additional benefit of The Order of the Garter [].

One more disappointment remained. He was eminently suited and was described by Lord Birkenhead , one of his many Tory supporters, as "the greatest living Oxonian. Asquith suspected he might lose because of country clergy's hostility to Welsh Disestablishment, blaming " Zadok the Priest and Abiathar the Priest —with their half-literate followers in the rural parsonages". The election was also seen as a settling of party scores and a mockery of his title. He lost to the Tory candidate, Lord Cave , by votes to on 20 March. He claimed to be "more disappointed than surprised", but his friend Desmond MacCarthy wrote that it affected him "more than any disappointment, save one, in his life after he ceased to be Prime Minister.

In May Asquith accepted the Order of the Garter from Baldwin, who was known to be a personal admirer of his. Difficulties continued with Lloyd George, who had been chairman of the Liberal MPs since , [] over the party leadership and over party funds. Asquith was "not enthusiastic" but Lloyd George ignored him and arranged for Asquith to be sent reports and calculations "Lord Oxford likes sums" he wrote. Asquith wanted to think it over, and at the December Federation executive he left the meeting before the topic came up.

To the horror of his followers Asquith reached an agreement in principle with Lloyd George over land reform on 2 December, then together they presented plans to the National Liberal Federation on 26 February But, wrote Maclean, "in private Asquith's language about Lloyd George was lurid. In January Mond withdrew his financial support from the Liberal Party. This was followed by a near final breach with Lloyd George over the General Strike.

Asquith viewed the strike as "criminal folly" [] and condemned it in the House of Lords, whilst in the Commons Sir John Simon declared it to be illegal. But whereas Asquith and Grey both contributed to the British Gazette , Churchill's pro-government newssheet, Lloyd George, who had not previously expressed a contrary opinion at Shadow Cabinet, wrote an article for the American press more sympathetic to the strikers, and did not attend the Shadow Cabinet on 10 May, sending his apologies on "policy grounds".

Asquith at first assumed him to be trying to ingratiate himself with the Churches and Labour, but then 20 May sent him a public letter rebuking him for not attending the meeting to discuss his opinions with colleagues in private. In private, both sides were incandescent; one of Asquith's colleagues describing him as; "far more indignant at L. When he listens to those poor creatures he has a weakness for gathering around him he generally makes a fool of himself.

H. H. Asquith - Wikipedia

They are really 'beat'. Lloyd George's letter of 10 May had not been published, making it appear that Asquith had fired the first shot, and Lloyd George sent a moderate public reply, on 25 May. Asquith then wrote another public letter 1 June stating that he regarded Lloyd George's behaviour as tantamount to resignation, the same as if a Cabinet Minister had refused to abide by the principle of collective responsibility. However, Lloyd George had more support amongst the wider party than amongst the grandees.

The executive of the National Liberal Federation, despite backing Asquith by Asquith had planned to launch a fightback at the National Liberal Federation in Weston-Super-Mare, due on 17 June, but on the eve of the conference he suffered a stroke 12 June which put him out of action for three months.

Margot is said to have later claimed that her husband regretted the breach and had acted after several rich donors had threatened to quit. Asquith filled his retirement with reading, writing, a little golf, [] travelling and meeting with friends. His health remained reasonable, almost to the end, though financial concerns increasingly beset him. How she has dragged his name through the mud! Asquith suffered a second stroke in January , [] disabling his left leg for a while and leaving him a wheelchair-user for the spring and early summer of Asquith died, aged 75, at The Wharf on the morning of 15 February A blue plaque records his long residence at 20 Cavendish Square [] and a memorial tablet was subsequently erected in Westminster Abbey.

I saw the beginning of his Parliamentary life; and to witness the close is the end of a long chapter of my own. Asquith had five children by his first wife, Helen, and two surviving children three others died at birth or in infancy by his second wife, Margot. His eldest son Raymond, after an academic career that outstripped his father's [] was killed at the Somme in His two children by Margot were Elizabeth, later Princess Antoine Bibesco — , a writer, who also struggled with alcohol [] and Anthony Asquith — , [] known as "Puffin", a film-maker, whose life was also severely affected by alcoholism.

Among his living descendants are his great-granddaughter, the actress Helena Bonham Carter b.

According to Matthew, "Asquith's decision for war with Germany was the most important taken by a British prime minister in the twentieth century, and was more important than any prime ministerial decision of the nineteenth century. It not only dictated the involvement of the United Kingdom in war but affected much of the pattern of imperial, foreign, and economic history for the rest of the century.

Asquith's reputation will always be heavily influenced by his downfall at the height of the First World War. In , Basil Liddell Hart summed up opinion as to the reasons for his fall; "Lloyd George came to power as the spokesman for a widespread demand for a more vigorous as well as a more efficient prosecution of the war. A great head of government in peacetime, by the end of he was in a general state of decline, his obvious defects as a war leader exposed. Asquith's fall also saw the end of the "Liberal Party as one of the great parties of state.

Each glimmer of a Liberal revival has enhanced his historical stature, if only as the victim or agent of the Liberal decline. Leonard considers that responsibility for this must also be carried, in part, by Asquith; "this gifted, fastidious, proud yet ultimately indecisive man must bear his share of the blame. Koss concludes that, in a "long, eventful and complex career, that does not admit easily of a summing up, Asquith's failings were no less manifest than his achievements. Yet Asquith's premiership was also marked by many difficulties, leading McKenna to write in his memoirs, "friends began to wonder whether the highest statesmanship consisted of overcoming one crisis by creating another".

Perhaps Asquith's greatest personal attainment was his parliamentary dominance. From his earliest days in the House, "he spoke with the authority of a leader and not as a backbencher. The words, the arguments, the points, follow each other with the steady tramp of regiments across the field; each unit is in its place, the whole marching in rhythmical order; the sunshine glints on the bayonets and ever, and anon, is heard the roll of the drums.

Jenkins considered Asquith as foremost amongst the great social reforming premiers of the twentieth century. His Government's social and political reforms were unprecedented and far-sighted; "paving the way for the welfare state legislation of the Attlee government in — as well as Blair's constitutional reforms after Modern Britain was born in the opening years of the twentieth century.

That work does not pass away. It is not by overt signs that its enduring character is to be judged. It is by the changes made in the spirit of things into which the work has entered. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Too significant a revolt would constitute a loss of confidence in his leadership.

In a bid to quell the unrest, Turnbull announced late last week that he would no longer legislate the emissions reduction target , but would instead implement it via regulation. Abbott and co were unlikely ever to be placated. They said the change would simply allow Labor to increase the target by changing the regulation which does not require a vote in parliament if it took office. That leads us to today. The Coalition held an emergency meeting on energy policy. There were reports that Dutton, the home affairs minister, was approached and urged to run against Turnbull.

On Monday morning, he used a press conference to announce huge changes to the Neg. There would be no inclusion of an emissions reduction target, either through regulation or legislation. The changes to the Neg were made without Labor having formed a position. Shorten told Turnbull he was happy to talk about energy policy. Turnbull says the Neg remains Coalition policy, albeit in its wildly different form.

He wants to give the ACCC greater powers to crack down on the abuse of the market by electricity companies. Divestiture powers would then be used, in rare circumstances, to punish those not meeting expected power prices. The ultimate aim would be to bring down prices for consumers. In reality, the Neg as we knew it is dead. This entire episode has significant ramifications for the prime minister. They have succeeded in forcing Turnbull into a significant backdown. Will they test him on other areas?

H. H. Asquith

Barnaby Joyce was asked what Turnbull stood for on Monday. Why has parliament devolved into a circus? Where are we now?

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