David Lloyd George

""Not badly, considering I was seated between Jesus Christ and Napoleon". David Lloyd George on how he did at the Versailles Peace Conference where he was seated between President Woodrow Wilson and French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau"

David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM PC was the only Welsh Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and also the only one to have English as a second language (Welsh being his first language). He was also the last Liberal Prime Minister.

He was a key player in introducing the groundwork for the Welfare State. He was Prime Minister throughout the latter half of World War I and the first four years of the subsequent peace. In 1918 he was universally popular and promised to make a land "fit for heroes to live in". However his coalition government was roundly unpopular with his own party (who where just under a third of it and by the time it was over the party had wrecked itself as a political force, fading into obscurity and being replaced by Labour).

Lloyd George was also a key player in The Irish Question. His time in power saw revolution in Ireland and the eventual negotiations that led to the establishment of the Irish Free State and creating the UK as it is known today. Opinion is divided on how well he dealt with the crisis, but for many years afterwards he was hailed (in Britain) as having solved the question for good. Later historians have tended towards a more critical view.

He was also infamous as a womaniser, leading to the a famous music hall song called Lloyd George Knew My Father, the joke being that Lloyd George was the singer's father. Two of his actual children followed him into politics, but moved to different parties after his death: his son Gwilym became a Conservative MP, eventually rising to become Home Secretary in Anthony Eden's government, while his daughter Megan became a Labour MP.

There was also a scandal about selling peerages during this period.