DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Decline and Fall of Lloyd George" by Max Aitken. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

The history of the Conservative party has, extraordinarily, rarely been written in a single volume for the general reader. There are academic multi-volume accounts and a multitude of smaller books with limited historical scope. But now, Robin Harris, Margaret Thatcher's speechwriter and party insider, has produced this authoritative but lively history book which tells the whole story and fills a gaping hole in Britain's historiographical record. Taking as his starting point the larger than life personalities of the Conservative Party's leaders and prime ministers since its inception, Robin Harris's book also analyses the interconnected themes and issues which have dominated Conservative politics over the years. The careers of Peel, Disraeli, Salisbury, Baldwin, Chamberlain, Churchill, Eden, Macmillan, Heath, Thatcher, Major, Hague and Cameron together amount to an alternative history of Britain since the early nineteenth century. This landmark book is essential reading for anyone with an interest in history or politics, or anyone who has ever wondered how Britain came to be the nation it is today.

"This book analyses one of the most dramatic episodes in the transformation of British politics immediately after the First World War. Before 1914 Liberals and Conservatives had vied for power, whereas after the 'red letter' election of 1924 the polarisation was effectively between Labour and the Conservatives. In the intervening decade the balance of probability favoured the emergence of a three-party system, but this system failed to develop primarily because of serious tactical mistakes during 1922 by the chief Conservative supporters of Lloyd George's coalition, and also because of mistakes by the Liberal leaders over a longer period. Michael Kinner has investigated political activity in virtually every constituency during the early 1920s, and he demonstrates that although the Conservatives distrusted Llyod George because of their dissatisfaction with the weak and evasive leadership of their party by Austen Chamberlain. The author shows that Chamberlain wobbled several times during 1922 over the future of the coalition, and that it was Chamberlain, rather than Sir George Younger, who was behind dissent over the abortive election of January 1922. This study indicates that even after they had toppled Llyod George ant the Carlton Club Meeting of 19 October 1922 most Conservative M.P.s favoured an alliance with his Liberal followers. They did not finally discard such an alliance until after their narrow victory in the 1922 election. Two appendixes examine the position at the Carlton Club Meeting of each Conservative M.P.; and the nationwide pattern of alliance and conflict between Conservative and Liberals in the confused election of 1922."-Publisher.

David Lloyd George left a profound political legacy, despite being described by the wife of his successor, Herbert Asquith, as a 'gambler without foresight'. He is, of course, best known as the Prime Minister who led Britain to victory in World War I, but his contribution to domestic politics was similarly impressive. As Chancellor of the Exchequer he introduced pensions and national insurance against sickness and unemployment, while as Prime Minister he extended democracy by giving votes to women. Yet Lloyd George was compromised by his flaws as a human being. Vain, cruel, capricious and dishonest, at times his notoriously corrupt nature threatened to damage the British political system. Providing a unique new perspective on one of the most phenomenally-talented - but also one of the most phenomenally-flawed - of British Prime Ministers, this book will be essential reading for anyone interested in modern British politics and history.

Between 1918 and 1939, 448 men who performed uniformed service in the First World War became Conservative MPs. This relatively high-profile cohort have been under-explored as a distinct body, yet a study of their experiences of the war and the ways in which they - and the Conservative Party - represented those experiences to the voting public reveals much about the political culture of Interwar Britain and the use of the Great War as political capital. Radicalised ex-servicemen have, thus far, been considered a rather continental phenomenon historiographically. And whilst attitudes to Hitler and Mussolini form part of this analysis, the study also explores why there were fewer such types in Britain. The Conservative Party, it will be shown, played a crucial part in such a process - with British politics serving as a contested space for survivors' interpretations of what the war should mean.

This collection of the diary letters of Austen Chamberlain provides a detailed record of Conservative and national politics in the inter-war period.

First Published in 1999. Includes six maps.