ABSTRACT
AFTER the 1922 election, the fate of Lloyd George, and of both wings of the Liberal Party, was wholly obscure. The logic of the National Liberals’ position seemed to be to support the Conservatives, and in fact they continued to co-operate with Bonar Law’s government throughout the 1923 session. Some prominent Coalition Liberals, like Churchill, Hamar Greenwood and Guest, seemed well on the way to union with their former Conservative colleagues, to form a united front against the menace of Labour. But the prospects of the Conservatives again accepting Lloyd George to their bosom was highly remote. When Baldwin unexpectedly succeeded Bonar Law as Prime Minister in May 1923, this prospect became unthinkable: Baldwin, otherwise an amiable figure, was ‘obsessed’ (in Thomas Jones’s word) by loathing of Lloyd George and haunted by memories of his amoral Coalition. Instead, the National Liberals and Independent Liberals made several indirect approaches towards possible reunion during the 1923 session, headed by intermediaries like Mond and Hogge on each side. But little headway was made, with the glittering millions of the ‘Lloyd George Fund’ as a supreme obstacle. The 1923 session ended with agreement between the rival Liberal factions at Westminster no nearer, whatever the moves towards reconciliation at the constituency level.
