Welsh Journals

ience was to last for no more than five short weeks for the government's decision to appeal to the country in October saw Gwilym's immediate resignation from office and his decision to join the tiny Lloyd George family group of four independent Liberal MPs on the opposition benches. In this guise he secured re-election in Pembrokeshire in 1931 and again in 1935. Although he accompanied his father on his famous visit to Hitler at Berchtesgaden in the summer of 1936, and became known locally as 'Ask my Dad' following a succession of embarrassingly evasive replies to searching questions at political meetings, it was already clear that the close rapport between the two men was gradually disintegrating. Gwilym's distinct right-wing leanings, which grew ever more apparent as the 1930s ran their course, led to intense speculation that he was likely to be elected Speaker of the House of Commons, and in due course at the outbreak of war to his return to his former position at the Board of Trade. Political commentators did not fail to note that he was the only 'Liberal' MP to join the Chamberlain administration. Under Churchill he was moved to the Ministry of Food in August 1941, and ten months later Gwilym was sworn in as Minister of Fuel and Power, a completely novel position created by the exigencies of war. His new responsibilities in- cluded control of the coal mines, and he was soon compelled sharply to increase coal production and to introduce fuel rationing as an essential contribution to the allied war effort. Gwilym was also to play a promi- nent part in devising and implementing the 'Bevin Boy' scheme to augment the labour force in the mines. Gwilym Lloyd-George remained in the same position at the conclusion of hostilities in the early summer of 1945, and conspicuously stayed within the government (the only 'Liberal' MP to do so) as a general election was at long last in prospect. His stand in Pembrokeshire as a 'National Liberal and Conservative' ensured local Tory support, and he faced a sole Labour opponent in the person of Major Wilfrid Fienburgh whom he eventually defeated by the wafer-thin majority of 168 votes. Rumours circulated both in the constituency and at Westminster that Conservative Central Office, fully aware that a three-horse race would have led to a certain Labour victory, had sanctioned a free run for Lloyd- George. His father's death in the previous March appeared to give Gwilym carte blanche to carve his own future political course, unrestrained by parental influence.