ABSTRACT
We may comment further on the Lloyd-George anecdote, for it tells of a prime minister of the mother of democracies, whom conventional British history treats as a distinguished and victorious war leader, conniving with a leading and most respected newspaper editor, in a country priding itself on its free press. LloydGeorge knew the truth, and had the power to have it conveyed to the public, and thus, in his own estimation, to change history, but he did not. C.P. Scott, along with his fellow editors, had the influence, resources and journalistic duty to get at the truth and print it, and likewise change history, but they did not. Instead, corrupt prime minister and corrupt newspaper editors conspired to tell lies and withhold truth in full knowledge of what they were doing. For them, people were not just cannon fodder, but manipulation fodder; the system was such that 'they don't know and can't know', because political and journalistic elites made the conscious decision to deceive them.
