Editing H. H. Asquith (section)

==Decline and eclipse: 1918–1926==

===Coupon election===
Even before the Armistice, Lloyd George had been considering the political landscape and, on 2 November 1918, wrote to Law proposing an immediate election with a formal endorsement—for which Asquith coined the name "[[Coalition Coupon|Coupon]]", with overtones of wartime food rationing—for Coalition candidates.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=475}} News of his plans soon reached Asquith, causing considerable concern. On 6 November he wrote to Hilda Henderson, "I suppose that tomorrow we shall be told the final decision about this accursed election."{{sfn|Asquith 1933|p=81}} A Liberal delegation met Lloyd George in the week of 6 November to propose Liberal reunification but was swiftly rebuffed.{{sfn|Jenkins|pp=475–476}}{{sfn|Asquith 1933|p=81}}

Asquith joined in the celebrations of the Armistice, speaking in the Commons, attending the service of thanksgiving at [[St Margaret's, Westminster]] and afterwards lunching with King George.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=476}} Asquith had a friendly meeting with Lloyd George a few days after the Armistice (the exact date is unclear), which Lloyd George began by saying "I understand you don't wish to join the government."{{sfn|Koss|p=236}} Asquith was instead keen to go to [[Paris Peace Conference, 1919|the Peace Conference]], where he considered his expertise at finance and international law would have been an asset.{{sfn|Ramsden|p=139}} As he refused to accept public subordination, Lloyd George, despite lobbying from the King and Churchill, refused to invite him.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=477}}{{sfn|Koss|p=236}}

Asquith led the Liberal Party into the election, but with a singular lack of enthusiasm, writing on 25 November: "I doubt whether there is much interest. The whole thing is a wicked fraud."{{sfn|Jenkins|p=477}} The Liberal leaders expected to lose the [[1918 United Kingdom general election|1918 election]] badly, as they had lost the "Khaki Election" in 1900, but did not foresee the sheer scale of the defeat.{{sfn|Koss|pp=236–239}} Asquith hoped for 100 Liberal MPs to be returned.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=478}} He began by attacking the Conservatives, but was eventually driven to attack the "blank cheque" which the government was demanding.{{sfn|Koss|pp=236–239}}

Asquith was one of five people given a free pass by the Coalition but the East Fife Unionist Association defied national instructions and put up a candidate, [[Alexander Sprot]], against him.{{sfn|Koss|pp=236–239}} Sprot was refused a Coalition "coupon".{{sfn|Jenkins|p=479}} Asquith assumed his own seat would be safe and spent only two and half days there, speaking only to closed meetings; in one speech there on 11 December he conceded that he did not want to "displace" the current government. He scoffed at press rumours that he was being barracked by a gang of discharged soldiers.{{sfn|Koss|pp=236–239}} Postwar reconstruction, the desire for harsh peace terms, and Asquith's desire to attend the peace talks, were campaign issues, with posters asking: "Asquith nearly lost you the War. Are you going to let him spoil the Peace?"{{sfn|Koss|p=240}} James Scott, his chairman at East Fife, wrote of "a swarm of women going from door to door indulging in a slander for which they had not a shadow of proof. This was used for such a purpose as to influence the female vote very much against you."{{efn|The exact nature of the slander is not specified. The Asquiths had been the subject of rumour about their supposed pro-German sympathies, and [[Noel Pemberton Billing]] had put it about that they had been amongst public figures seduced by German agents with sexual favours, lesbian ones in Margot's case.}}{{sfn|Jenkins|p=481}}

At the poll on 14 December, Lloyd George's coalition won a landslide, with Asquith and every other former Liberal Cabinet minister losing his seat.{{sfn|Bonham Carter|p=99}} Margot later recorded having telephoned Liberal headquarters for the results: "Give me the East Fife figures: Asquith 6994—Sprott [''sic''] 8996." She said she had exclaimed "Asquith beat? ... Thank God!"{{sfn|Margot Asquith 1962|p=334}} [[Augustine Birrell]] also wrote to him "You are surely better off out of it for the time, than watching Ll.G. lead apes to Hell".{{sfn|Jenkins|p=480}} But for Asquith personally, "the blow was crippling, a personal humiliation which destroyed his hope of exercising any influence on the peace settlement."{{sfn|Jenkins|p=479}}

===1919: out of Parliament===
[[File:Cluysenaar Asquith.jpg|200px|thumb|1919 portrait by [[André Cluysenaar]]]]

Asquith remained leader of the Liberal Party, despite McKenna vainly urging him, almost immediately after the election, to offer his resignation to the National Liberal Federation and help with building an alliance with Labour.{{sfn|Koss|p=240}} At first Asquith was extremely unpopular, and there is no evidence that he was invited to address any Liberal Association anywhere in the country for the first six months of 1919.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=483}} He continued to be calumnied in the press and Parliament over the supposed presence of Germans in Downing Street during the war.{{sfn|Koss|p=243}}

Although accounts differ as to the exact numbers, around 29 uncouponed Liberals had been elected, only three with any junior ministerial experience, not all of them opponents of the coalition. There was widespread discontent at Asquith's leadership, and Sir [[Thomas Bramsdon|T. A. Bramsdon]], who said that he had been elected at Portsmouth only by promising ''not'' to support Asquith, protested openly at his remaining leader from outside the Commons. At first Lloyd George extended the government whip to ''all'' Liberal MPs. On 3 February 23 non-coalition Liberals formed themselves into a "Free Liberal" group (soon known as the "Wee Frees" after a [[Free Church of Scotland (since 1900)|Scottish religious sect of that name]]); they accepted Asquith's appointment of [[Sir Donald Maclean]] as chairman in his absence but insisted that [[George Rennie Thorne|G.R. Thorne]], whom Asquith had appointed Chief Whip, hold that job jointly with [[James Hogge|J.M. Hogge]], of whom Asquith and Maclean had a low opinion. After a brief attempt to set up a joint committee with the Coalition Liberal MPs to explore reunion, the "Wee Frees" resigned the government whip on 4 April, although some Liberal MPs still remained of uncertain allegiance.{{sfn|Koss|pp=241–242}} The Liberals won by-elections in March and April 1919, but thereafter Labour performed better than the Liberals in by-elections.{{sfn|Koss|pp=242–244}}

In April 1919 Asquith gave a weak speech to Liberal candidates, his first public speech since the election. In Newcastle (15 May) he gave a slightly stronger speech, encouraged by his audience to "Hit Out!"{{sfn|Koss|p=244}} Asquith was also disappointed by the "terms and spirit" of the [[Treaty of Versailles]] in May, but did not oppose it very strongly in public.{{sfn|Koss|p=243}} On 31 July 1919, after a lunch in honour of former Supreme Allied Commander [[Ferdinand Foch]], Asquith wrote "he talked a lot of nonsense about Germany sinking never to rise again."{{sfn|Jenkins|p=481}}

In August 1919 Asquith was asked to preside over a Royal Commission into the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, although the report when it came was, in line with Asquith's own academic views, somewhat conservative.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=483}} The commission began hearings in January 1920; many dons would have preferred Haldane as chair.{{sfn|Koss|p=244}} Asquith's public rehabilitation continued with the receipt in late 1919 of the [[1914 Star]], the [[British War Medal]] and the [[Victory Medal (United Kingdom)|Victory Medal]], honours which the War Office, under Churchill, had originally intended only to be awarded to Lloyd George, until the King insisted Asquith receive them also.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=483}}

Maclean and others urged Asquith to stand in the [[1919 Spen Valley by-election|Spen Valley by-election]] in December 1919, but it is unclear whether he ever considered the idea. This was just as well, as it had become clear that Labour were going to fight the seat hard and they defeated Sir John Simon when Lloyd George insisted on splitting the Liberal vote by running a Coalition Liberal candidate.{{sfn|Koss|p=243}}

===Paisley===
{{main|1920 Paisley by-election}}
A Parliamentary seat was essential if Asquith was again to play any serious part in future events.
By the autumn of 1919 J.M. Hogge was openly critical of Asquith's leadership, and by January 1920 it was rumoured that he had given Asquith an ultimatum that unless he returned to Parliament in a by-election the Independent Liberal MPs would repudiate him as their leader (had he lost a by-election, his position would have been untenable anyway, as he well knew).{{sfn|Koss|p=245}}

In January 1920, an opportunity arose at [[Paisley (UK Parliament constituency)|Paisley]], in Scotland like his previous seat, after the death of the Liberal MP.{{sfn|Asquith 1933|p=125}} The Liberals had held the seat by only 106 votes in 1918. Asquith's adoption was not a foregone conclusion: the local Association was split between pro- and anti-coalition factions, and he was selected by a vote of 20:17 by the executive and then 92:75 of the wider members. He was formally adopted on 21 January 1920 and soon united the local Liberal Association behind him.{{sfn|Koss|pp=242–244}}{{sfn|Jenkins|p=485}} Asquith was lukewarm at the thought of returning to Scotland, and regarded his gamble with trepidation, although he grew more confident as the campaign progressed.{{sfn|Koss|pp=246–247}} Travelling with Margot, his daughter Violet and a small staff, Asquith directed most of his campaign not against Labour, who were already in second place, but against the Coalition, calling for a less harsh line on German reparations and the [[Irish War of Independence]].{{sfn|Jenkins|p=486}} Some "thought fit to compare [the campaign] with [[Gladstone's]] [[Midlothian campaign]],{{sfn|Asquith 1933|p=130}} although Asquith himself was more circumspect.{{sfn|Koss|pp=248–249}}

The result was stupendous, with Asquith defeating his Labour opponent by a majority of over 2000 votes, with the Coalition candidate a very poor third.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=487}} Violet was ecstatic: "every star in the political skies favoured Father when we left Paisley, he became there what he has never before been in his life, the 'popular' candidate, the darling of the crowd."{{sfn|Bonham Carter|p=113}} The poll was up by 8,000 from 1918.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=487}} Asquith's surprise victory was helped by the support of the press baron [[Harold Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Rothermere|Lord Rothermere]].{{sfn|Koss|pp=247–248}}

He was seen off by tumultuous crowds at Glasgow, and greeted by further crowds at [[Euston railway station|Euston]] the next morning, and along the road on his first return to Parliament. However, he received only a chilly greeting inside the Chamber, and no personal congratulations from Coalition politicians, except from [[Lord Cave]], who was later to defeat him for the Chancellorship of Oxford University in 1925.{{sfn|Jenkins|pp=487–488}}

===Leader of the Opposition: 1920–1921===
Paisley was a false dawn, for the Liberals and for Asquith personally. Jenkins wrote that "The post-war Liberal day never achieved more than a grey and short-lived light. By 1924, it was dusk again. By 1926, for Asquith, it was political night."{{sfn|Jenkins|p=489}} Maurice Cowling characterised Asquith at this time as "a dignified wreck, neither effective in the House of Commons nor attractive as a public reputation, (who) drank too much and (who) had lost touch with the movement of events and the spirit of the time."{{sfn|Cowling|p=100}}

Money, or its lack, also became an increasing concern. Margot's extravagance was legendary{{sfn|Clifford|p=460}} and Asquith was no longer earning either the legal fees or the prime ministerial salary they had enjoyed in earlier years. Additionally, there were on-going difficulties with Margot's inheritance.{{sfn|Clifford|p=460}} In 1920, as an economy measure, 20 Cavendish Square was sold{{sfn|Herbert Asquith|p=371}} to [[Weetman Pearson, 1st Viscount Cowdray|Viscountess Cowdray]]<ref>{{cite web |url=https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/survey-of-london/2016/04/29/cavendish-square-4-no-20-the-royal-college-of-nursing/ |title=Cavendish Square 4: No. 20 (the Royal College of Nursing) &#124; UCL Survey of London |publisher=Blogs.ucl.ac.uk |date=29 April 2016 |access-date=4 August 2016 |archive-date=23 September 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160923041127/https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/survey-of-london/2016/04/29/cavendish-square-4-no-20-the-royal-college-of-nursing/ |url-status=live }}</ref> and Asquith and Margot moved to 44, [[Bedford Square]].{{sfn|Herbert Asquith|p=371}}

Criticism of Asquith's weak leadership continued. Lloyd George's mistress [[Frances Stevenson]] wrote (18 March) that he was "finished ... no fight left in him"; the press baron Lord Rothermere, who had supported him at Paisley, wrote on 1 April of his "obvious incapacity for the position he is expected to fill".{{sfn|Koss|p=249}} In fact Asquith spoke in the House of Commons far more frequently than he had ever previously done when not a minister. He also spoke frequently around the country, in June 1921 topping the Liberal Chief Whip's list of the most active speakers.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=498}} The issue was the quality of his contributions. Asquith still maintained friendly relations with Lloyd George, although Margot made no secret of her enmity for him.{{sfn|Koss|p=250}}

Until the Paisley by-election Asquith had accepted that the next government must be some kind of Liberal-Labour coalition, but Labour had distanced themselves because of his policies on the mines, the [[Polish–Soviet War|Russo-Polish War]], education, the prewar secret treaties and the suppression of the Easter Rebellion.{{sfn|Koss|p=251}} The success of [[Anti-Waste League]] candidates at by-elections made leading Liberals feel that there was a strong anti-Coalition vote which might be tapped by a wider-based and more credible opposition.{{sfn|Jenkins|pp=490–491}} By late June 1921 Asquith's leadership was still under strong attack from within the Wee Free group, although Frances Stevenson's claim in her diary that most of them now wanted Lloyd George as their leader is not corroborated by the report in ''The Times''.{{sfn|Koss|p=252}} Lord Robert Cecil, a moderate and pro-[[League of Nations]] Conservative, had been having talks with Edward Grey about a possible coalition, and Asquith and leading Liberals Crewe, [[Walter Runciman, 1st Viscount Runciman of Doxford|Runciman]] and Maclean had a meeting with them on 5 July 1921, and two subsequent ones. Cecil wanted a genuine coalition rather than a ''de facto'' Liberal government, with Grey rather than Asquith as prime minister, but the Liberals did not, and little came of the plans.{{sfn|Jenkins|pp=491–492}}{{sfn|Koss|p=251}}

Asquith did fiercely oppose "the hellish policy of reprisals" in Ireland, impressing the young [[Oswald Mosley]].{{sfn|Koss|p=252}} J.M. Hogge even urged Sir Donald Maclean (31 August) to "knock Asquith into the middle of next week" and seize back the chairmanship of the Liberal MPs.{{sfn|Koss|p=250}} Late in 1921 the National Liberal Federation adopted an industrial programme without Asquith's agreement.{{sfn|Koss|p=255}} On 24 October 1921 Asquith commented "if one tries to strike a bold true note half one's friends shiver and cower, and implore one not to get in front of the band".{{sfn|Koss|p=250}}

===Leader of the Opposition: 1922===
In January 1922 [[C.P. Scott]] of the ''[[Manchester Guardian]]'' told Asquith that he supported a centre-left grouping, but only if moderate Labour was included—in reality Labour leaders were unable to deliver the support of their local members for such a realignment.{{sfn|Jenkins|pp=492–493}} Asquith achieved more success with a major speech at [[Westminster Central Hall]] in January 1922, in reply to a speech by Lloyd George a few days earlier. Asquith had with some difficulty been persuaded to make the maximum possible reference to his renewed alliance with Grey, but Haldane had refused to join the platform. Five days later Churchill replied with a pro-Coalition speech in which he accused Asquith and other Liberals of having "stood carefully aside" during the war, causing deep offence.{{sfn|Koss|pp=253–255}}{{efn|Churchill's wife remonstrated with him that Asquith had seen his sons killed and maimed. Churchill replied that Asquith had left him to be a scapegoat over the Dardanelles, had refused to appoint him Commander-in-Chief in East Africa or to give him the brigade command on the Western Front which he had promised him at the end of 1915, or to appoint him to the vacancy for Minister of Munitions in the summer of 1916.{{sfn|Koss|pp=253–255}} Asquith re-established friendly relations with Churchill after they were sat together at the wedding of the [[George VI of the United Kingdom|Duke of York]] and [[Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon]], writing of him as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1925 that he was "a Chimborazo or Everest among the sandhills of the Baldwin Cabinet".{{sfn|Jenkins|p=497}}}}

By the summer of 1922 Asquith's interest in politics was at a very low ebb.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=493}} He was observed to be very heavily drunk and was helped up the stairs by Lloyd George at a party of Sir [[Philip Sassoon]]'s on 16 July 1922. His reputation was further damaged by his portrayal in [[Aldous Huxley]]'s novel ''[[Crome Yellow]]'' and by the publication of the first volume of Margot's memoirs, which sold well in the UK and the United States, but were thought an undignified way for a former prime minister to make money.{{sfn|Koss|pp=255–256}} On 13 September 1922 Sir Donald Maclean told [[Harold Laski]] that Asquith was devoted to bridge and small talk and did not do enough real work.{{sfn|Koss|p=255}} Asquith was increasingly attracted by the thought of making money from writing, with Churchill doing very well from his ''[[The World Crisis]]'' and Lloyd George rumoured to be being paid handsomely for his memoirs (which in the event did not appear until the mid-1930s).{{sfn|Jenkins|p=494}} Asquith's books ''The Genesis of the War'' finally appeared in September 1923 and ''Studies and Sketches'' in 1924.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=495}} His second son Herbert recorded, "A large part of my father's later years was occupied with authorship and it was during this period that he wrote most of his longer books."{{sfn|Herbert Asquith|p=367}}

Asquith played no part in Lloyd George's fall from power in October 1922, which happened because the rank-and-file majority of his Conservative coalition partners, led by [[Stanley Baldwin]] and Lloyd George's former colleague Law, deserted him.{{sfn|Adams|pp=327–328}} Law formed a purely Conservative government, and the following month, at the [[1922 United Kingdom general election|1922 general election]], Asquith ceased to be Leader of the Opposition as more Labour MPs were elected than the two Liberal factions combined. 138 Labour members outnumbered the combined Liberal number of 117, with 60 Asquith supporters and 57 "[[National Liberal Party (UK, 1922)|National Liberals]]" (adherents to Lloyd George).{{sfn|Jenkins|p=496}} Asquith had thought Paisley would be safe but was only narrowly returned with a 316 majority (50.5 per cent of the votes cast in a two-candidate battle with Labour), despite a rise in the Liberal vote. He put this down to the 5,000 unemployed at Paisley after the [[Depression of 1920–21|slump of 1920–1921]]. He wrote that he "gloated" over the senior Coalition Liberals—Churchill, [[Hamar Greenwood]], [[Freddie Guest]] and Edwin Montagu—who lost their seats.{{sfn|Jenkins|pp=495–496}}<ref name="results">{{cite book | last = Craig | first = F.W.S.| year = 1977 | title = British Parliamentary Election Results 1918–1949 | edition = revised  | publisher = The Macmillan Press Ltd|location=London  | oclc = 26407514 |page=605 }}</ref>

===Liberal reunion===
In March 1923 a petition for reunion among Liberal backbenchers received 73 signatures, backed by the Lloyd Georgeite ''[[Daily Chronicle]]'' and the Asquithian ''Liberal Magazine''. But reunion was opposed by senior Asquithian Liberals like Sir John Simon, Viscount Gladstone and [[Charles Masterman]], and as late as 30 June by journalists such as [[H. W. Massingham]] and Gardiner of ''[[The Nation and Athenaeum|The Nation]]''.{{sfn|Koss|pp=259–261}} Viscount Gladstone felt that "it was generally recognised that Asquith was no longer effective as an active leader" but that Lloyd George must not succeed him.{{sfn|Koss|pp=259–261}} By July Asquith was superficially friendly to Lloyd George and consulted him, but he did not include him in the Shadow Cabinet.{{efn|Koss observes that this was not without recent precedent, as Campbell-Bannerman had sometimes excluded Asquith and the other Liberal Imperialists at the time of the Boer War.}}{{sfn|Koss|pp=259–261}} Asquith wanted Lloyd George to make the first move but although the latter put out feelers to senior Asquith supporters he insisted that he was "neither a suppliant nor a penitent".{{sfn|Jenkins|p=498}} M.S.R. Kinnear writes that Asquith felt that with Lloyd George's faction declining in strength he had everything to gain by waiting, while too quick an approach would antagonise the Labour leaders who hated Lloyd George and whose support he might need for a future Lib-Lab coalition. Kinnear also argues that Asquith's "gloating" over the defeat of Coalition Liberals in 1922 is evidence that "the most important factor influencing Asquith against quick reunion was his personal dislike of Lloyd George and his desire for vengeance."<ref>{{cite book|author=M.S.R. Kinnear|title=The Fall of Lloyd George: The Political Crisis of 1922|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6eivCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA213|year=1973|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|page=213|isbn=9781349005208|access-date=5 December 2018|archive-date=23 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210923023123/https://books.google.com/books?id=6eivCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA213|url-status=live}}</ref>

The political situation was transformed when Baldwin, now prime minister, came out in favour of [[Protectionism|Protection]] at Plymouth on 22 October 1923.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=498}} Coming out for Free Trade himself, Lloyd George was obliged, at least formally, to submit to Asquith's leadership.{{sfn|Taylor|p=219}} Parliament was dissolved. Asquith and Lloyd George reached agreement on 13 November, followed by a Free Trade manifesto, followed by a more general one. Lloyd George, accompanied by his daughter [[Megan Lloyd George|Megan]], came to Paisley to speak in Asquith's support on 24 November.{{sfn|Koss|pp=261–263}}

Asquith fought an energetic national campaign on free trade in 1923, with echoes of 1903.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=499}}
He spoke at Nottingham and Manchester, but did not privately expect more than 200 Liberals to be elected—although he hoped to overtake Labour and become Leader of the Opposition once again—and hoped for Baldwin to win by a tiny majority.{{sfn|Koss|pp=261–263}}

The poll at Paisley was split by an independent extreme socialist and a Conservative.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=498}}{{sfn|Koss|pp=261–263}} Asquith won with 33.4 per cent of the vote.<ref name="results"/> Nationally, the outcome of the [[1923 United Kingdom general election|election in December 1923]] was a hung Parliament (258 Conservatives, 191 Labour, 158 Liberals); the Liberals had gained seats but were still in third place.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=498}} A quarter of the seats were held by majority less than 1,000. In general, Asquith Liberals did better than Lloyd George Liberals, which Gladstone and Maclean saw as a reason to prevent close co-operation between the factions.{{sfn|Koss|pp=261–263}}

===Putting Labour in power===
There was no question of the Liberals supporting a continuation of the Conservative government, not least as it was feared that an alliance of the two "bourgeois" parties would antagonise Labour. Asquith commented that "If a Labour Government is ever to be tried in this country, as it will be sooner or later, it could hardly be tried under safer conditions". Asquith's decision to support a minority Labour Government was seconded by Lloyd George and approved by a party meeting on 18 December.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=500}}

Baldwin's view was similar, as he rejected [[Sir Robert Horne]]'s scheme for a Conservative-Liberal pact. [[Roy Douglas (academic)|Roy Douglas]] called the decision to put in Ramsay MacDonald "the most disastrous single action ever performed by a Liberal towards his party." Other historians such as Trevor Wilson and Koss reject this view, arguing that Asquith had little choice.{{sfn|Koss|pp=264–265}}

Asquith was never in doubt as to the correctness of his approach, although a deluge of correspondence urged him to save the country from Socialism.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=501}} He wrote on 28 December "I have been intreated during these weeks, cajoled, wheedled, almost caressed, tortured, threatened, brow-beaten and all but blackmailed to step in as the saviour of society."{{sfn|Middlemas & Barnes|p=253}}{{sfn|Jenkins|p=500}}

The Liberals thus supported Britain's first ever (minority) [[Labour Party (UK)|Labour]] Government under [[Ramsay MacDonald]]. The Liberal Party voted for the Labour amendment to the Address, causing Baldwin to resign (Asquith believed that Baldwin could have ignored the vote and carried on attempting to govern without a majority). He thought the new Labour Government "a beggarly array" although he remarked that the Foreign Office staff were glad to see the back of "the Archduke Curzon".{{sfn|Jenkins|p=501}} Asquith believed that MacDonald would soon be discredited both in the eyes of the country and of his own more extreme supporters, and the Liberal revival would continue.{{sfn|Koss|p=265}}

===Labour government and the Campbell Case===
Asquith's decision only hastened his party's destruction, the Conservative Austen Chamberlain writing to his colleague [[Samuel Hoare, 1st Viscount Templewood|Sir Samuel Hoare]], "We have got (unexpectedly and by our own blunders and Asquith's greater folly) a second chance. Have we got the wit to take it?"{{sfn|Ramsden|p=183}}

Relations with Labour soon became very tense, with Liberal MPs increasingly angered at having to support a Labour Government which treated them with such open hostility. Many Liberals were also angered at MacDonald's pursuit of a trade agreement with the [[Soviet Union]], although Asquith rather less so.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=502}} The intervention of a Labour candidate at a [[1924 Oxford by-election|by-election in Oxford in June]] handed the seat to the Conservatives.{{sfn|Koss|p=266}}

As Asquith brought MacDonald in so, later in the same year, he had significant responsibility for forcing him out over the [[Campbell Case]] and the Russian Treaty.{{sfn|Marquand|p=373}} The Conservatives proposed a vote of censure against the Government for withdrawing their prosecution for sedition against the ''[[Daily Worker (UK)|Daily Worker]]'', and Asquith moved an amendment calling for a select committee (the same tactic he had employed over the [[Marconi scandal]] and the Maurice Debate).{{sfn|Jenkins|p=502}} Asquith's contribution to the debate showed an increasingly rare return to Parliamentary form. "Almost every one of his delightful sentences filled the Chamber with laughter."{{sfn|Marquand|p=376}}
Asquith's motion was passed by 364–198.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=502}} As in the Maurice Debate, his sense of political tactics was, in Jenkins' view, overcome by his sense of Parliamentary propriety. He could not bring himself to withdraw the amendment, but could not support the government either.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=503}}

===1924 election===
Instead of resigning MacDonald requested, and was granted, a General Election.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=502}} The [[1924 United Kingdom general election|1924 election]] was intended by MacDonald to cripple the Liberals, and it did.{{sfn|Koss|p=266}} Lloyd George refused to hand over money from his fund until he had more say over the Liberal whips office, Liberal Party Headquarters at Arlington Street and an election there was a chance of winning.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=503}}{{sfn|Koss|p=266}}

Meetings at Paisley were tumultuous and Asquith was barracked by hecklers singing "[[The Red Flag]]".{{sfn|Jenkins|p=504}} Asquith was widely expected to lose his seat and did so by 2,228.{{sfn|Koss|pp=267–268}} He received 46.5 per cent of the vote in his final parliamentary election, a straight fight against Labour.<ref name = "results" /> Violet wrote, "Father was absolutely controlled. He just said to me, 'I'm out by 2,000'."{{sfn|Bonham Carter|p=164}}

It was a political, as well as a personal, disaster. Baldwin won a landslide victory, with over "400 Conservatives returned and only 40 Liberals",{{sfn|Cowling|p=414}} far behind Labour which entrenched its position as the "chief party of Opposition."{{sfn|Cowling|p=1}} Labour's vote actually increased somewhat (partly as a result of their fielding more candidates than before). The Liberal vote collapsed, much of it coalescing to the Conservatives as a result of the scare around the forged [[Zinoviev Letter]].{{sfn|Jenkins|p=502}}

The Liberal grandees, who hated Lloyd George, did not press Asquith to retire. Sir Robert Hudson and Maclean called on him (31 October) and insisted he firmly keep the chair at the next meeting and nominate the new Chief Whip himself.{{sfn|Koss|pp=267–268}}

===Elevation===
The 1924 election was Asquith's last Parliamentary campaign, and there was no realistic chance of a return to the Commons. He told Charles Masterman "I'd sooner go to hell than to Wales," the only part of the country where Liberal support remained strong. The King offered him a peerage (4 November 1924).{{sfn|Jenkins|p=505}}{{sfn|Koss|p=274}} Asquith felt he was not rich enough to accept, and would have preferred to die a commoner like [[William Pitt the Younger|Pitt]] or Gladstone. He accepted in January 1925 after a holiday in Egypt with his son Arthur. He deliberately chose the title "Earl of Oxford", saying it had a splendid history as the title chosen by [[Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer|Robert Harley]], a Tory statesman of [[Anne, Queen of Great Britain|Queen Anne]]'s reign.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=506}} He was thought by some to have [[delusions of grandeur]], Lady Salisbury writing to him that the title was "like a suburban villa calling itself [[Versailles]]."{{sfn|Bonham Carter|p=167}} Asquith found the controversy amusing but the [[College of Heralds]] insisted that he add [[Earl of Oxford and Asquith|"and Asquith"]] to the final title, after protests from Harley's family. In practice he was known as "Lord Oxford".{{sfn|Jenkins|p=508}} He never enjoyed the House of Lords, and thought the quality of debates there poor.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=509}}

In 1924 the Liberal party had only been able to put up 343 candidates due to lack of money. At one point the Liberal Shadow Cabinet suggested obtaining the opinion of a [[Court of Chancery|Chancery]] Lawyer as to whether the Liberal Party was entitled under [[English trust law|trust law]] to Lloyd George's money, which he had obtained from the sale of honours.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=512}} On 29 January 1925, at a two-day London convention, Asquith launched a Million Fund Appeal in an unsuccessful attempt to raise Liberal Party funds independent of Lloyd George.{{sfn|Koss|p=271}}{{sfn|Jenkins|pp=513–514}}

=== Oxford University chancellor election ===
{{main|1925 University of Oxford Chancellor election}}

{{Quote box|width=30%|bgcolor=#c6dbf7|align=right|quoted=y | quote= I have had a noble offer from Lady Breadalbane who proposes to give me [[Gavin Campbell, 1st Marquess of Breadalbane|her late husband]]'s Garter robes as a present. I shall jump at this, as it will save me a lot of money.|salign = right|source=Asquith on an additional benefit of The Order of the Garter{{sfn|Asquith 1934|p=135}}}}
One more disappointment remained. In 1925 he stood for the [[Chancellorship of Oxford University]], vacant on the death of Lord Curzon. He was eminently suited and was described by [[F. E. Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead|Lord Birkenhead]], one of his many Conservative supporters, as "the greatest living Oxonian."{{sfn|Campbell|p=709}}

Asquith suspected he might lose because of country clergy's hostility to Welsh Disestablishment, blaming "[[Zadok|Zadok the Priest]] and [[Abiathar|Abiathar the Priest]]—with their half-literate followers in the rural parsonages". The election was also seen as a settling of party scores and a mockery of his title. He lost to the Conservative candidate, [[Lord Cave]], by 987 votes to 441 on 20 March. He claimed to be "more disappointed than surprised", but his friend [[Desmond MacCarthy]] wrote that it affected him "more than any disappointment, save one, in his life after he ceased to be Prime Minister."{{sfn|Koss|pp=274–275}}{{sfn|Jenkins|p=511}}

On 17 March 1925 Asquith was appointed to the [[Judicial Committee of the Privy Council]],<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=33031|page=1952|date=20 March 1925}}</ref> and in May 1925 he accepted the [[Order of the Garter]] from Baldwin, who was known to be a personal admirer of his.{{sfn|Koss|p=274}}{{sfn|Jenkins|p=510}}

===Resignation===
Difficulties continued with Lloyd George, who had been chairman of the Liberal MPs since 1924,{{sfn|Scott|p=467}} over the party leadership and over party funds.{{sfn|Herbert Asquith|p=362}} In the autumn of 1925 Hobhouse, Runciman and the industrialist [[Sir Alfred Mond]] protested to Asquith at Lloyd George organising his own campaign for reform of land ownership. Asquith was "not enthusiastic" but Lloyd George ignored him and arranged for Asquith to be sent reports and calculations ("Lord Oxford likes sums" he wrote). At a meeting on 25 November 1925 Grey, Maclean, Simon, Gladstone and Runciman urged Asquith to have a showdown with Lloyd George over money. Asquith wanted to think it over, and at the December 1925 Federation executive he left the meeting before the topic came up. To the horror of his followers Asquith reached an agreement in principle with Lloyd George over land reform on 2 December, then together they presented plans to the National Liberal Federation on 26 February 1926. But, wrote Maclean, "in private Asquith's language about Lloyd George was lurid."{{sfn|Koss|pp=272–274}}{{sfn|Jenkins|pp=513–514}}

In January 1926 Mond withdrew his financial support from the Liberal Party.{{sfn|Koss|pp=272–274}}{{sfn|Jenkins|pp=513–514}} The loss of wealthy donors and the failure of the Million Fund Appeal further weakened Asquith's position, and there is some evidence that his frequent requests for money irritated donors like Sir [[Robert Perks]] who had given a good deal to the Party over the years, and that outside his inner circle of devotees he was bad at keeping on good terms with potential donors.{{sfn|Koss|p=275}}

This was followed by a near final breach with Lloyd George over [[1926 United Kingdom general strike|the General Strike]]. The Liberal Shadow Cabinet unequivocally backed Baldwin's handling of the strike on 3 May. Asquith viewed the strike as "criminal folly"{{sfn|Koss|p=276}} and condemned it in the House of Lords, whilst in the Commons Sir John Simon declared it to be illegal. But whereas Asquith and Grey both contributed to the ''[[British Gazette]]'', Churchill's pro-government newssheet, Lloyd George, who had not previously expressed a contrary opinion at Shadow Cabinet, wrote an article for the American press more sympathetic to the strikers, and did not attend the Shadow Cabinet on 10 May, sending his apologies on "policy grounds". Asquith at first assumed him to be trying to ingratiate himself with the churches and Labour, but then (20 May) sent him a public letter rebuking him for not attending the meeting to discuss his opinions with colleagues in private.{{sfn|Jenkins|pp=514–516}}{{sfn|Koss|pp=276–280}}

In private, both sides were incandescent; one of Asquith's colleagues describing him as "far more indignant at L.G. than I have ever seen",{{sfn|Koss|p=277}} whilst Lloyd George expressed his private feelings in a letter to [[Frances Stevenson]] on 24 May "(Asquith) is a silly old man drunk with hidden conceit. When he listens to those poor creatures he has a weakness for gathering around him he generally makes a fool of himself. They are really 'beat'. Dirty dogs—and bitches."{{sfn|Koss|p=278}}

Lloyd George's letter of 10 May had not been published, making it appear that Asquith had fired the first shot, and Lloyd George sent a moderate public reply, on 25 May. Asquith then wrote another public letter (1 June) stating that he regarded Lloyd George's behaviour as tantamount to resignation, the same as if a Cabinet Minister had refused to abide by the principle of collective responsibility. Twelve leading Liberals (including Grey, [[Lord Buckmaster]], Simon, Maclean and Runciman) wrote in Asquith's support to ''The Times'' (1 June). However, Lloyd George had more support amongst the wider party than amongst the grandees. The executive of the National Liberal Federation, despite backing Asquith by 16:8, had already urged a reconciliation in late May, and the London Liberal Candidates' Association (3 June) and the Liberal MPs (8 June) did the same. Asquith had planned to launch a fightback at the National Liberal Federation in Weston-Super-Mare, due on 17 June, but on the eve of the conference he suffered a stroke (12 June) which put him out of action for three months.{{sfn|Jenkins|pp=514–516}}{{sfn|Koss|pp=276–280}}

Margot is said to have later claimed that her husband regretted the breach and had acted after several rich donors had threatened to quit.{{sfn|Koss|p=281}} Asquith finally resigned the Liberal leadership on 15 October 1926.{{sfn|Jenkins|p=517}}