A Spectator's Notebook
IR," said Dr. Johnson, "I perceive you are a vile 0 Whig." Mr. Lloyd George is more precise in his epithets. He perceives his fellow-Liberals generally to be flaccid, oleaginous Whigs. The comments from the side- lines with which the former Prime Minister favoured various interviewers on the occasion of his seventieth birth- day are entertaining enough, but I must say I find the pic- ture of Mr. Lloyd George weeping over the grave of the Liberal Party a little much to stomach. The dissolution of the Liberal Party has proceeded in a clear succession of stages, with Mr. Lloyd George pushing it a little further towards the grave each time. The displacement of Mr. Asquith in 1918, the Maurice debate and the Coupon election of 1918, the Coalition Liberal and Independent Liberal fissure, the squalid controversies about the Lloyd George fund—these were the principal nails driven into the Liberal coffin. During the last Labour Govern- ment, it is true, the Liberal leader was a commanding figure in the House of Commons, holding the fate of the Government in his hands ; and he knew how to make his power felt. Since then he has been merely a picturesque figure on the fringe of politics. But he may still find an effective role to play—more or less in alliance with Labour, with whom his popularity is increasing. After all, he is years younger than Gladstone was when he went on the Midlothian campaign.
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