Talk:United Kingdom coalition government (1940–1945)

Party of Gwilym Lloyd George

• G. Lloyd George, in my view, was a Liberal MP until shortly after the 1945 election.

• British Political Facts, in its lists of ministers, characterises him as "Ind L" which in this article had been misinterpreted as Independent Labour before I corrected this.

• Who's Who of British Members of Parliament Vol. IV describes him as "a Liberal until Oct. 1931, as a member of the Independent Liberal Group 1931-35, as a Liberal from 1935 until he joined the Government in Sept. 1939; allied with the Conservatives from 1939."

• The History of the Liberal Party 1895-1970 explains (in relation to the formation of the caretaker government in 1945) that "Gwilym Lloyd George, though still a Liberal, remained in office". After the 1945 election Lloyd George, the only Liberal MP elected with ministerial experience, was offerred the chairmanship of the Liberal Party in Parliament as well as the chairmanship of the Liberal National allies of the Conservatives, both of which he declined. "When the new House met, he was offered a place on the opposition front bench by Winston Churchill. Gwilym Lloyd George replied that he would only sit as a Liberal, Churchill's reply was characteristic: 'And what the hell else should you sit as?' But Liberals soon came to the conclusion that he was effectively supporting the Conservatives."

--Gary J 12:00, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Part of this is complicated by the Liberal Party in those days being a rather looser organisation than a modern political party, with the result that an MP's position in the country could be different from that at Westminster - e.g. they could be elected as the official nominee of the local Liberal Association (affiliated to the relevant Liberal Party bodies) whilst not taking the Liberal whip at Westminster.

Also the idea that a government can't contain individuals from a political party even if the party as a whole is opposed to it is relatively new - the National Government in August-September 1931 contained ministers who were still officially members of Labour (they weren't expelled until the end of the month), the 1924 first Labour government had at least one Conservative in the Cabinet (albeit in a "technical" post), Kitchener was Secretary of State for War in 1914-1915 in an otherwise pure Liberal government and was regarded by the Liberals as a Conservative if not a party one (one of the reasons why not so many of the important offices were given to the party Conservatives when the coalition was formed in 1915) and going back into the 19th century governments often looked outside the pure party men to fill positions.

Another Liberal MP, Robert Bernays, remained sitting on the government benches supporting the National Government when the party as a whole withdrew in 1933 (in part because of constituency considerations), but did not join the Liberal Nationals until 1936. Gwilym being both a Liberal and a member of Chamberlain's wartime government and Churchill's Caretaker one is more surprising in hindsight than at the time. Family tradition seems to have kept him in the Liberals until he was deemed to be a member in name only and thrown out. Timrollpickering (talk) 22:37, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: all moved (sorry about my failure to read the target names properly) Kotniski (talk) 11:11, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

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Coalition Government 1940–1945 → United Kingdom coalition government (1940–1945) — Suggesting move to bring this article in line with United Kingdom coalition government (2010–present). City of Destruction 16:15, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose. See also Coalition Government 1852–1855, Coalition government 1915–1916. , and Coalition Government 1916–1922. By contrast United Kingdom coalition government (2010–present) is a newly created page serving a different purpose (if any), and does not fall into the series of pages listed at List of British Governments, into which this and the others fall. David Biddulph (talk) 17:13, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

• Support The current title is UK-centric, these other articles should all be moved while we are at it. PatGallacher (talk) 18:37, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

• Support, but only if all articles in the same format are moved. john k (talk) 19:02, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

• David Biddulph – I take your point about United Kingdom coalition government (2010–present) being a newly-created article. However, I still think it's worth moving this article; as john k said, the current title is too UK-centric, and in my view not specific enough. john k – I have placed a move request for the three articles that David Biddulph pointed out to me. City of Destruction 22:35, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.