Retired politicians have cornered the market in biographies of great leaders. These books annoy historians because they pinch their research and sell more copies. They tend to be uncritically admiring too, claiming that a lifetime’s political experience qualifies them to hand out praise of the great man. Roy Hattersley’s new life of David Lloyd George is different. It begins conventionally enough but, as it goes on, Hattersley becomes increasingly critical of his subject, making this a more interesting book.

Literary Review

Sep 2010

Categories

Jane Ridley

Prime Minister’s Pet

Full of Heirs and Graces

Going Jungly

Wanderlust

Rex Whistler Painted Her Hall

Hythe Society

Grand Dame of Downing Street

Treachery at the Palace

From the Sewers

Knole Me Tangere

Passage from India

Building Jerusalem in the Home Countries

Where’s Wallis?

Woman in Black

Winds of Change

Unhappy Valley

Eminence Rose

Alpha Female

Day of the Spinster

Our Woman in Number 10

The Righteous Reformer

Chilblains and Petticoats

The Goat and the Pussycat

Dancing on a Volcano