VII. Lloyd George's Premiership: A Study in ‘Prime Ministerial Government’

1970 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 130-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth O. Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
British Politics ◽  
Prime Ministers ◽  
Consistent Principle

‘The Power of the Man in the Saddle’: this was the burden of the Liberal chief whip's advice to David Lloyd George in April 1918. But the Prime Minister hardly needed any instruction in this theme: the uses and the limitations of power formed his absorbing passion. Even at the time many felt that his period as prime minister had marked a totally new departure in British politics. Some later commentators (most recently Mr Humphry Berkeley) have even claimed to detect the dawn of a new political era between 1916 and 1922, one in which ‘prime ministerial government’ gradually took the place of conventional cabinet government. But, despite their certainty, the precise character of Lloyd's George premiership, like the man himself, is still shrouded in mystery. Was it rule by a dictator or by a democrat? Did any consistent principle animate the ‘man in the saddle’ or was it all opportunism gone berserk ? Was Wales's Great Commoner really ‘rooted in nothing’, as Keynes was to allege? Not even Lloyd George's closest associates, Kerr and Riddell, felt able to say with any assurance. They were as baffled as the rest. Lloyd George was suddenly thrust from office in October 1922 with the issue still inconclusive. Ever since then the debate about his premiership has been passionate and unremitting. Each observer seems to have seen a different prime minister, one created in his own image. Fifty biographies on, the essential Lloyd George remains as elusive as ever. He remains the most controversial and contradictory of political animals, ‘the Big Beast’, the rogue elephant of twentieth-century prime ministers.

scholarly journals WILLIAM GLADSTONE AND THE THEATRE

2011 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-103
Author(s):  
Anselm Heinrich
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
World View ◽  
Early Years ◽  
British Politics ◽  
Prime Ministers ◽  
William Gladstone ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Religious Zeal ◽  
Victorian Age

William Ewart Gladstone, four times prime minister (1868–74, 1880–5, 1886, and 1892–94), the “greatest colossus of the Victorian Age,” the most influential prime minister of the nineteenth century, and the Grand Old Man (G.O.M.) of British politics and statesmanship, seems an unlikely advocate for the theatre. Deeply religious, conservative, and serious, Gladstone is not easily imagined as an avid theatregoer. It is difficult to imagine him supporting the ephemeral, often subversive, and suggestive character of the theatre. And indeed, in his early years Gladstone despised the theatre and called it an “encouragement of sin.” As prime minister, he was almost obsessed by a religious zeal; Richard Foulkes has noted that “Few, if any, prime ministers have carried out their role in making senior Church appointments as assiduously as Gladstone did.” For members of Victorian Britain's Christian majority, the theatre was anathema and regarded as morally suspect. They were intensely suspicious and saw playgoing as a distraction from religion and as a promoter of frivolity, vanity, and female forwardness. They linked theatres to “prostitution, juvenile delinquency, idleness, drunkenness and frivolity.” In fact, theatres were the “antithesis of the Victorian world view which prized respectability, gentility, decency, education and uplift.” Until at least the later decades of the nineteenth century, theatre “was widely regarded as the lowliest of the arts, if one at all.”

Margaret Thatcher's Place in History: Two Views

2002 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 357-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Previous Record ◽  
Prime Ministers ◽  
Margaret Thatcher ◽  
British Prime Minister

It is not every literary novice, blushing diffidently over her first manuscript, who easily finds a publisher, still less one prepared to pay an advance of several million pounds. But not every first author has such a story to tell as Margaret Thatcher, the longest-serving British prime minister of the twentieth century. It was the previous record holder, Asquith, who first established the notion that retired prime ministers write their memoirs, and he did so under a twin motivation which was not peculiar to himself. He sought vindication and he was after the money.

Prime Ministers and the Public

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Weller
Keyword(s):  
Prime Minister ◽  
Significant Part ◽  
Media Management ◽  
Prime Ministers ◽  
The Public ◽  
Electoral Campaigns ◽  
Technological Capacity ◽  
The Media

Prime ministers are the key campaigners for their governments, not just in electoral campaigns, but every day and in every place. Media management has become a continuing and significant part of the prime ministers’ activities; it is a daily, indeed an hourly, pressure. Speeches have to be planned. The pressure has changed the tone and priorities of governing. It has dangers as well as benefits. Media demands have become more immediate, more continuous, and more intrusive. Prime ministers must respond. The same technical changes allow prime ministers to interact with their voters in a way that bypasses journalists and other intermediaries. They are writ large in campaigns. They are never out of mind or out of sight. Re-election is always a consideration for tactics and strategy. The public leader, the ‘rhetorical prime minister’, is shaped by the demands of the media and organized by the technological capacity.

Political Autobiography and the Art of the Plausible: R. A. Butler at the Foreign Office, 1938–1939

1985 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 901-922 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Stafford
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Educational System ◽  
Spanish Civil War ◽  
British Politics ◽  
Suez Crisis ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Times ◽  
The Right ◽  
Enoch Powell

R. A. Butler has been one of the outstanding figures in twentieth-century British politics. After his death The Times described him as ‘the creator of the modern educational system, the key-figure in the revival of post-war Conservatism, arguably the most successful chancellor since the war and un-questionably a Home Secretary of reforming zeal’. His record of achievement was unequalled by his rivals in the contests for the party leadership in 1957 and in 1963, but on both occasions the leadership eluded him. How and why this happened was understandably of the greatest interest to those who reviewed Rab's memoirs, The art of the possible, which were published in 1971. These memoirs won unanimous praise for their literary excellence, but otherwise met with a rather mixed reception. Enoch Powell, one of Rab's supporters in 1963, described them as ‘a work of astonishing self-revelation [belonging] with the classic Confessions. Augustine and Rousseau were not more unsparing of themselves than Rab…’ The ‘large episodes’ of Rab's career, Powell went on, ‘are treated with a generous vision (including, it need not be added, a generosity to Rab) which leaves the reader with improved understanding and perspective’. Powell's comments were echoed by others on the Right, but the Left was more critical. Anthony Howard noted that ‘what tend…to get wholly left out are the mistakes and blunders’ – the now infamous Villacoublay meeting during the Suez crisis; and Rab's astonishing admission to the journalist George Gale during the 1964 campaign that the election was slipping Labour's way. Harold Wilson, who had offered Rab the mastership of Trinity, was perhaps the least charitable of all. He found The art of the possible disappointing because, he claimed, Rab underwrote the great occasions. Rab's reticence about Suez, however, upset Wilson less than the description of his tribulations at the hands of Labour MPs as government spokesman for the policy of non-intervention during the Spanish Civil War. Here was an issue which could excite the older soldiers of the British Left, and if Wilson was alone among Rab's reviewers in making more than passing reference to Rab's association with appeasement this was why.

Kuinka pääministeriä puhutellaan?

Virittäjä ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 125 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ildikó Vecsernyés
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Theoretical Background ◽  
The Other ◽  
Prime Ministers ◽  
Important Resource ◽  
Address Forms ◽  
The Social ◽  
Online Conversations ◽  
The One

Tässä artikkelissa tarkastellaan, kuinka Suomen ja Unkarin pääministereitä puhutellaan Facebookissa. Tutkimuksen kohteena on se, mitä puhuttelukeinoja kommentoijat käyttävät kahdessa eri tarkoituksessa: toisaalta sympatian tai samaa mieltä olemisen, toisaalta erimielisyyden tai kritiikin ilmaisemisessa. Kahden sukukielen, suomen ja unkarin, puhuttelukeinot ovat samankaltaisia, mutta niiden käytössä on huomattavia eroja esimerkiksi sinuttelun ja teitittelyn yleisyydessä. Aineistona on viiteen Suomen pääministeri Juha Sipilän ja yhdeksään Unkarin pääministeri Viktor Orbánin vuosina 2015–2017 kirjoittamaan Facebook-päivitykseen tulleita kommentteja. Tarkastelun kohteena on 189 suomenkielistä ja 191 unkarinkielistä puhuttelumuotoa sisältävää kommenttia. Kommentit on jaettu myötäileviin ja vastustaviin ja näitä kahta kommenttityyppiä tarkastellaan kvantitatiivisesti ja kvalitatiivisesti pyrkimyksenä selvittää, mitä eroja puhuttelumuodon valinnassa ilmenee. Tutkimuksen teoreettis-metodisena taustana on aiempi sosiopragmaattinen puhuttelututkimus. Tutkimus osoittaa, että suomessa sinuttelu on hyvin yleistä riippumatta kommentin laadusta, mutta unkarissa sinuttelu on tavallisesti erimielisyyden osoittamisen keino. Tyypillinen kannustavan kommentin kirjoittaja käyttää suomessa sinuttelua ja pääministerin etunimeä, unkarissa teitittelyä, ön-teitittelypronominia ja pääministerin titteliä. Unkarin kielessä puhuteltavan yhteiskunnallinen asema vaikuttaakin puhuttelumuodon valintaan vahvemmin kuin suomessa. Toissijaisena strategiana unkarissa esiintyy jonkin verran myös uudenlaista kunnioittavaa sinuttelua yhdistettynä pääministerin etunimen käyttöön. Suomenkielisen aineiston vastustavissa kommenteissa esiintyy vielä todennäköisemmin sinuttelua kuin myötäilevissä kommenteissa sekä sinä-pronominia ja pääministerin sukunimeä, unkarinkielisessä aineistossa puolestaan sinuttelua, te ’sinä’ -pronominia ja pääministerin etu- tai sukunimeä tai nimenmuunnoksia. Toissijaisena strategiana joissain unkarin vastustavissa kommenteissa hyödynnetään ylikohteliaisuutta ja intentionaalista inkoherenssia. Aineiston perusteella näyttää siltä, että Facebook-kommenteissa käytetään suomessa etupäässä sinuttelua samoin kuin muissakin internetkeskusteluissa; kommentoijien mielipiteen ilmaisemisessa nominaalisilla puhuttelumuodoilla on tärkeä rooli. Unkarissa taas internetin yleisestä sinuttelupainotteisuudesta huolimatta tärkeimpänä keinona on sinuttelun ja teitittelyn vastakkainasettelu.   How to address a Prime Minister? Forms of address in comments to posts from the Prime Ministers of Finland and Hungary This article examines how the Prime Ministers of Finland and Hungary are addressed on Facebook. The aim of the study is to investigate which forms of address are used by commentators expressing, on the one hand, sympathy or consent, and on the other, disagreement or criticism. The repertoires of address forms of these two related languages, Finnish and Hungarian, bear many similarities, but the frequency and status of these forms are different. The data consists of comments on five posts written by Prime Minister of Finland Juha Sipilä and on nine posts written by Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orbán between 2015–2017, comprising a total of 189 comments in Finnish and 191 comments in Hungarian, all containing forms of address. The comments have been divided into two types: comments showing sympathy and comments showing disagreement or criticism. These two comment types have been analysed quantitatively and qualitatively aiming to determine how the address practices employed differ from each other. The theoretical background of this study is based upon previously conducted socio­pragmatic address research. The article shows that the use of T forms  is very common in Finnish, regardless of the type of comment, but that in Hungarian, T forms are typically used as a linguistic tool to express disagreement. In Finnish, a typical commentator showing sympathy will use T forms and address the Prime Minister by his first name, whereas in Hungarian V forms, the V form pronoun ön, and the title ‘Prime Minister’ are favoured. The social status of the addressee has a stronger effect on the choice of address forms in Hungarian than it does in Finnish. However, some Hungarian comments include a new, respectful type of T form used with the first name of the Prime Minister. In comments expressing disagreement in the Finnish data, writers favour T forms, especially T form pronouns, and the use of the Prime Minister’s surname, whereas in the Hungarian data T forms, the T form pronoun te ‘you’ and the use of the Prime Minister’s first name, surname or nicknames are the most typical address practices. In conclusion, commentators in the Finnish data seem to use mostly T forms on Facebook, thus imitating address practices common in other online conversations. Instead of the T/V opposition, nominal forms of address play an important role in expressing the commentators’ attitude. In the Hungarian data, despite the prevalence of the T forms in online chats, the most important resource in expressing relation to the Prime Minister seems to be the contrast between the T and V forms, reflecting their significant status in Hungarian.

Before Midnight

2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rahul Sagar
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Foreign Relations ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Jawaharlal Nehru

This chapter examines ideas about war, peace, and international relations over the century preceding independence, of which there were many more and in greater depth than widely supposed. It outlines how and why Indians first began to articulate views on the subject, and subsequently analyses these ideas. It proposes that, contrary to the opinion of some scholars, Indians thought carefully about the nature of international relations. Most importantly, it emphasizes the plurality of views on the subject, and explains how and why proponents of pragmatism in foreign relations came to be sidelined in the period immediately preceding independence. Several of the personalities developing notions of what a foreign policy for India should involve as of the early twentieth century, including India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, became important actors in formulating and implementing foreign policy post-independence.

British Foreign Secretaries and Japan, 1850-1990

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Japanese Market ◽  
Prime Ministers ◽  
Margaret Thatcher ◽  
Japanese Investment ◽  
Main Emphasis ◽  
History Of

This book reviews the role of British Foreign Secretaries in the formulation of British policy towards Japan from the re-opening of Japan in the middle of the nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth century. It also takes a critical look at the history of British relations with Japan over these years. Beginning with Lord John Russell (Foreign Secretary 1859-1865) and concluding with Geoffrey Howe (Secretary of State for Foreign & Commonwealth Affairs, 1983-1989), the volume also examines the critical roles of two British Prime Ministers in the latter part of the twentieth century, Edward Heath and Margaret Thatcher, who ensured that Britain recognized both the reality and the opportunities for Britain resulting from the Japanese economic and industrial phenomenon. Heath’s main emphasis was on opening the Japanese market to British exports. Thatcher’s was on Japanese investment. This volume is a valuable addition to the Japan Society’s series devoted to aspects of Anglo-Japanese relations which includes ten volumes of Britain & Japan: Biographical Portraits as well as British Envoys in Japan.

Gambling with the electorate

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-33
Author(s):  
Nicholas Allen
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Conservative Party ◽  
The European Union ◽  
David Cameron ◽  
Prime Ministers ◽  
Eu Membership ◽  
Theresa May

This chapter charts the story of the Conservatives in government between 2015 and 2017. It examines why David Cameron called a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union, why Theresa May succeeded him as prime minister, and why May decided to call a snap election in the spring of 2017. It locates these decisions against deep and bitter divisions within the Conservative party over the issue of EU membership, and further examines the broader record of the Conservatives in government. Above all, it seeks to explain how both prime ministers both came to gamble their fortunes on the electorate – and lose.

A dog’s breakfast Brexit, 2016-18

2019 ◽  
pp. 201-224
Author(s):  
Sally Tomlinson
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
European Union ◽  
Education System ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
British Politics ◽  
Positive Interventions ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Minority Writers

The final chapter covers a turbulent period in British politics as Parties and politicians fought to present their version of a Brexit to the British public, which remained divided by nation, class, race, age, gender and geography. Civil servants joked about the creation of an Empire 2.00, and in July 2018 Prime Minister May produced a ‘Chequers Plan’ for a ‘soft Brexit’ which caused the resignation of several ministers, who were determined on a ‘hard Brexit’ which would decisively cut the country off from a European Union. Black and other minorities had made advances in plural coexistence in a reluctant society and many younger people were learning to live together. But there were few signs that the those in charge of education were willing or able to think what a system for a more equal, globally oriented, socially and racially just education system and curriculum would look like. There is little evidence that schools or higher education have come to terms with a post-imperial role and Britain’s changed position in the world, despite positive interventions by black and minority writers, academics and students. The consequences of xenophobic and racist understandings of past decades will not be changed by teaching questionable ‘British Values’ and continuing to blame migrants and minorities for the consequences of austerity programmes. Ignorance of the past and presentation of a future where Britain is ‘Great’ again is more likely to lead to hostile nationalist sentiments and continued blaming of migrants and minorities as the country comes to terms with its waning influence on world affairs.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document