Editing David Lloyd George (section)

==Assessment==
Lloyd George has often been [[Historical rankings of prime ministers of the United Kingdom|ranked highly among modern British prime ministers]], but his legacy remains complicated and controversial. Scholars have praised his welfare reforms and his efforts to mobilise and lead Britain to victory during the First World War, but he has also been criticised for adopting a "[[Presidential system|presidential]]" style of leadership, for distrusting his own commanders during the war, and for his strategic failures and involvement in various scandals. His legacies over Ireland and the [[Treaty of Versailles]] are also controversial; he was an ardent [[Zionist]], who expressed [[antisemitic]] views.<ref>{{cite web |last=Kessler |first=Oren |author-link=Oren Kessler |title='A dangerous people to quarrel with': Lloyd George's Secret Testimony to the Peel Commission Revealed |url=https://fathomjournal.org/mandate100-a-dangerous-people-to-quarrel-with-lloyd-georges-secret-testimony-to-the-peel-commission-revealed/ |url-status=live |work=[[Fathom (journal)|Fathom]] |date=7 July 2020 |access-date=20 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200708040927/https://fathomjournal.org/mandate100-a-dangerous-people-to-quarrel-with-lloyd-georges-secret-testimony-to-the-peel-commission-revealed/ |archive-date=8 July 2020}}</ref> In the post-war period he arguably alienated many of the workers he had earlier championed, helping to swell Labour's popular support at the Liberals' expense (not helped by his conflicts with Asquithian Liberals after 1916).

Historian [[Martin Pugh (author)|Martin Pugh]] in ''The Oxford Companion to British History'' argues that:<blockquote>[Lloyd George] made a greater impact on British public life than any other 20th-cent. statesman. He laid the foundations of what later became the welfare state, and put a progressive income tax system at the centre of government finance. He also left his mark on the system of government by enlarging the scope of the prime minister's role. He was acclaimed, not without reason, as the 'Man Who Won the War'.&nbsp;... he was blamed by many Liberals for destroying their party in 1918, hated in the Labour movement for his handling of industrial issues after 1918, and disparaged by Conservatives for his radicalism.<ref name="Martin Pugh 2002">{{harvnb|Pugh|2009|page=585}}</ref></blockquote>

[[George Riddell, 1st Baron Riddell]], a wealthy newspaper publisher, was a close confidant and financial supporter of Lloyd George from 1908 to 1922.{{sfn|Gilbert|1992|loc=Preface, p. 14}} During Lloyd George's first year as prime minister, in summer 1917, Riddell assessed his personality in his diary:<blockquote>His energy, capacity for work, and power of recuperation are remarkable. He has an extraordinary memory, imagination, and the art of getting at the root of a matter.&nbsp;... He is not afraid of responsibility, and has no respect for tradition or convention. He is always ready to examine, scrap or revise established theories and practices. These qualities give him unlimited confidence in himself.&nbsp;... He is one of the craftiest of men, and his extraordinary charm of manner not only wins him friends, but does much to soften the asperities of his opponents and enemies. He is full of humour and a born actor.&nbsp;... He has an instinctive power of divining the thoughts and intentions of people with whom he is conversing&nbsp;... His chief defects are: (1) Lack of appreciation of existing institutions, organisations, and stolid, dull people&nbsp;... their ways are not his ways and their methods are not his methods. (2) Fondness for a grandiose scheme in preference to an attempt to improve existing machinery. (3) Disregard of difficulties in carrying out big projects&nbsp;... he is not a man of detail.{{sfn|Grigg|2003|loc=ch. "Lloyd George's Boswell", pp. 220–221}}</blockquote>

In 2007, historian John Shepherd wrote in ''[[History Today]]'':<blockquote>
In any poll of modern historians Winston Churchill and David Lloyd George would emerge as the two most renowned prime ministers during the past century.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Shepherd |first=John |title=Book Review: Lloyd George and Churchill: rivals for greatness |journal=[[History Today]] |location=London |volume=57 |issue=6 |pages=65–66 |year=2007 |issn=0018-2753}}</ref>
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