The relationship between Baldwin, Churchill, Chamberlain & Lloyd George

[Sleight of Hand]

This may seem a slightly vague question, but having read and heard bits and pieces over the years about the animosity (at times) between Churchill and Baldwin, and the apparent long-standing feud between (Neville) Chamberlain and Lloyd George, I am curious as to what sparked these particular relationships, and how they developed in the manner they did.

What was Chamberlain's beef with Lloyd George? Apparently they genuinely loathed one another (on a political level, at least) and Lloyd George twice refused to join the National Government because Chamberlain was a member.

I watched The Gathering Storm (1974, although I've also seen the 2002 version) last night and a speech - historical? fiction? - by Lloyd George condemning Chamberlain's leadership of the War was a very interesting scene.

How do Churchill and Baldwin fit into this?

 

[Dewirix]

What was Chamberlain's beef with Lloyd George? Apparently they genuinely loathed one another (on a political level, at least) and Lloyd George twice refused to join the National Government because Chamberlain was a member.

I watched The Gathering Storm (1974, although I've also seen the 2002 version) last night and a speech - historical? fiction? - by Lloyd George condemning Chamberlain's leadership of the War was a very interesting scene.

I'm not sure that this is all there is to it, but Lloyd George consistently criticised Chamberlain's foreign policy in the run up to WWII.

In December 1938 he gave a blistering speech in the Commons in support of an opposition motion "That this House has no confidence in the Foreign Policy of His Majesty's Government", in which he said:

The Prime Minister of England here will tell us what a fine fellow Daladier was and how without his help the thing could not have been done, this tremendous victory could not have been achieved.

The Prime Minister of France, in the Chamber of Deputies, referred to "This magnificent old man." I agree that the Prime Minister has a right to complain, as he did the other day at the Mansion House, at that appellation. There is nothing in his appearance that would justify it, certainly nothing in the agility which he displayed in tossing away one province after another; but, at the same time, there was something in it, and I can understand M. Daladier's point of view. They both ran away as hard as they could from their obligations, but our Prime Minister, in spite of his more advanced years, kept well ahead; and M. Daladier said: "See him, the British Prime Minister, running faster and farther than even I. What a magnificent old sprinter." [Interruption.] I am just telling the House exactly what happened. They both ran away. They were very pleased with themselves and with each other. That is why I feel very troubled about sending a man in that frame of mind to Rome to meet Signor Mussolini.

It is a dangerous state of obsession into which the right hon. Gentleman has got. I warned the House before he began that he is a very obstinate man. He is very stubborn. He himself said to-day that nothing he has done in the last 18 months would he wish to see undone. I wish to God we could all say the same, but who would say that except a very self-complacent man? You cannot send a man with that obsession to Rome to meet Mussolini; and I am not comforted in the least by the fact that Lord Halifax is going with him. He is not an adequate keeper.

I haven't seen The Gathering Storm, but I'd presume that it dramatises Lloyd George's speech on the second day of the Norway Debate, which brought down Chamberlain and led to Churchill becoming PM.