Paul Spackman

Paul is a graduate of King Alfred's College, Winchester (now University of Winchester). His first book, 'God's Candidate,' is a life of Pope John Paul I (Albino Luciani), a much-expanded edition of which is being published in Italy as 'Il Candidato di Dio.' Living in North Wales for over 30 years, he became inspired to write this present biography of David Lloyd George, the UK's last Liberal and only Welsh Prime Minister to date.

David Lloyd George was, in his lifetime, a controversial figure, and he remains so today. The present author contends that this is largely due to oft-repeated misunderstandings and misconceptions of the true nature of the man and of his policies.

A century after the end of the Great War (1918), the ‘Spanish Flu’ Pandemic (1918-1920) that nearly killed Lloyd George - and which strikes such resonance in the era of the COVID-19 Pandemic -, the signing of the Treaty of Versailles (1919) and the end of Lloyd George’s premiership (1922), it is a good time to reassess the legacy of this Great Statesman in the life of the United Kingdom, indeed of Europe and the wider World.

Paul Spackman has spent seven years researching the extraordinarily broad, original and far-reaching nature of Lloyd George's early ‘labourite’ views and of his social reforms, that laid the bedrock of much of the 1945-51 Attlee Labour Government’s Welfare State legislation; the crucial importance of Lloyd George taking over the helm of government from the foundering Asquith at the height of the Great War; Lloyd George’s approach to the treatment of defeated, devastated Germany at the Versailles negotiations, how his more merciful and tolerant approach, if adopted, might have changed the course of history for the better; his role in Irish affairs between 1916-22, pointing out those actually largely responsible for much of the undoubted tragedy and its long-drawn out aftermath; and showing that the period after his resignation as premier were not, from an ‘ideas’ point of view, the oft-quoted 'wilderness years', but rather a fertile period of creative, practical plans to solve the immense issues of the Twenties and Thirties, unfortunately neglected by the nation.

What emerges is a vibrant but often disregarded story, here retold as a human tale, not just another purely political biography - Paul's researches, combined with a reappraisal of early works and study of recent investigations by others, now enables a ‘truer’, more holistic picture of Lloyd George the man to finally emerge.