Selwyn Lloyd
John Selwyn Brooke Selwyn-Lloyd, Baron Selwyn-Lloyd, CH, CBE, TD, PC, QC, DL (28 July 1904 – 17 May 1978)[1][2] was a British politician. Born and raised in Cheshire, he was an active Liberal as a young man in the 1920s. In the following decade, he practised as a barrister and served on Hoylake Urban District Council, by which time he had become a Conservative Party sympathiser. During the Second World War he rose to be Deputy Chief of Staff of Second Army, playing an important role in planning sea transport to the Normandy beachhead and reaching the acting rank of brigadier.
The Lord Selwyn-Lloyd
17 May 1978 (aged 73)
Preston Crowmarsh, Oxfordshire, England
- Liberal (before 1945)
- Conservative (1945–1971)
- None (after 1971)
1
1937–1955
Elected to Parliament in 1945 as a Conservative, he held ministerial office from 1951, eventually rising to be Foreign Secretary under Prime Minister Anthony Eden from April 1955. His tenure coincided with the Suez Crisis, for which he at first attempted to negotiate a peaceful settlement, before reluctantly assisting with Eden's wish to negotiate collusion with France and Israel as a prelude to military action. He continued as Foreign Secretary under the premiership of Harold Macmillan until July 1960, when he was moved to the job of Chancellor of the Exchequer. In this job he set up the NEDC, but became an increasingly unpopular figure because of the contractionary measures which he felt compelled to take, including the "Pay Pause" of July 1961, culminating in the sensational Liberal victory at the Orpington by-election in March 1962. In July 1962 Macmillan sacked him from the Cabinet, making him the highest-profile casualty in the reshuffle known as the "Night of the Long Knives".
He returned to office under Prime Minister Alec Douglas-Home as Leader of the House of Commons (1963–64), and was elected Speaker of the House of Commons from 1971 until his retirement in 1976.
Early life[edit]
Lloyd was born on 28 July 1904 at Red Bank in West Kirby, Cheshire.[3] His father, John Wesley Lloyd (1865–1954), was a dental surgeon and Methodist lay preacher of Welsh descent; his mother, Mary Rachel Warhurst (1872–1959), was distantly related to Field Marshal Sir John French. He had three sisters.[3]
Lloyd was educated at the Leas School and as a boy was particularly interested in military history,[3] to which he later attributed his successful military career.[4] In 1918, aged thirteen, he won a scholarship to Fettes College.[5] As a junior boy there, where he was nicknamed "Jezebel", after his initials JSBL, he became embroiled in a homosexual scandal, but was deemed to be the innocent party, escaping punishment, while three older boys were expelled.[6][7]
Cambridge[edit]
In October 1923, he went up, as a scholar, to Magdalene College, Cambridge, where A. C. Benson was Master. There he was a friend of the future Archbishop Michael Ramsey.[8] Lloyd acquired the nickname "Peter" at this time.[9] Lloyd played rugby and was disappointed not to get a Blue.[10]
In October 1924, his sister Eileen sailed to India to marry and work as a doctor. She died there the following January, aged 25.[11]
Lloyd was an active Liberal as a young man, and in March 1925 he entertained H. H. Asquith at Magdalene after a Liberal Party meeting at the Cambridge Guildhall.[12] He became President of the Cambridge University Liberal Club.[13] Lloyd was also an active debater in the Cambridge Union Society, where his sparring-partners included Rab Butler, Patrick Devlin, Hugh Foot, Alan King-Hamilton and Geoffrey Lloyd.[14] Lloyd lost his scholarship in June 1925, after obtaining a Second in Classics. He then switched to study History, in which he also obtained a Second.[15]
During the General Strike of May 1926, Lloyd, who earlier that year had begun eating dinners at Gray's Inn with a view to qualifying as a barrister, volunteered as a Special Constable. He later became critical of the Conservative Government's clampdown on trade unions, e.g. the Trades Disputes Act of 1927.[16] The university authorities encouraged students who had worked for the government so close to their exams to extend their studies for an extra year, which meant that Lloyd was able to spend a very rare fifth year as an undergraduate.[16] Lloyd George had become Liberal leader and was injecting money and ideas into the Liberal Party, and was keen to attract promising young candidates. Selwyn Lloyd was a frequent speaker for the Liberal Party from 1926 onwards.[17] In 1926 he toyed, not entirely seriously, with the idea of joining the Labour Party.[18]
In Michaelmas Term 1926, Lloyd and Devlin (then President of the Cambridge Union) persuaded Walter Citrine to join Lloyd in opposing the motion that "The power of trade unions has increased, is increasing and ought to be diminished" (an echo of Dunning's famous motion on the power of the Crown in 1780). They had invited the miners' leader A. J. Cook, to the consternation of the town authorities, but in the event he was unable to attend. Lloyd won the debate by 378 votes to 237 and was elected Secretary for Lent Term 1927, putting him on track to be Vice-President for Easter (summer) Term 1927, then President in Michaelmas 1927.[19] He took office as President in June 1927. At his retiring debate in November 1927, Samuel Hoare and Rab Butler (then being selected as Tory candidate for Saffron Walden) spoke.[20]
Lloyd finally graduated with a third-class in Part II of the Law Tripos in June 1928.[10][5]
Early career[edit]
Bar and local government[edit]
Lloyd was a Liberal Parliamentary candidate at Macclesfield in the 1929 general election, coming third. After this he concentrated on his legal career. He was called to the bar in 1930.[21] As a barrister, he was an opponent of capital punishment and was not always deferential to the bench: when a judge suggested holding a special sitting on the morning of Good Friday, he withdrew his suggestion after Lloyd pointed out that the last judge to do so had been Pontius Pilate.[5]
Like many young politicians, in 1930–1931 Lloyd was sympathetic to Oswald Mosley's New Party and was disappointed that it made so little headway.[5] He declined to stand again for Macclesfield as a Liberal in 1931 over tariffs,[18] and thought the rump National Liberal Party not worth joining.[5] Lloyd voted Conservative for the first time at the 1931 election,[22] although in that year he declined an invitation to join the Conservative Party candidates' list.[23]
He joined Hoylake Urban District Council on 19 April 1932, as a councillor for Grange Ward. For three years he was chairman of the Estates Finance Committee, managing a budget in excess of £250,000, equivalent to £21,920,682 in 2023.[23][24] At the age of 32 he became the youngest-ever chairman of the council.[5] As chairman, in 1937, he was in charge of the local Coronation festivities, an event which he used to strengthen his links with the Territorial Army.[25] He continued to serve on the council until 1940.[5] In the early 1960s he was often mocked as "Mr Hoylake UDC", implying him to be a small-town lawyer and local councillor who had been promoted onto the national stage above his abilities.[25]
Lloyd considered himself a Conservative from the mid-1930s, but did not formally join the Conservative Party until he was selected as a Parliamentary candidate in 1945; he later wrote that he would have taken a more active role in Conservative politics had it not been for the war.[5]
Ministerial offices[edit]
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs[edit]
When the Conservatives returned to power under Churchill in 1951, Lloyd served under Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs from 1951 to 1954. Lloyd later claimed (his biographer D.R. Thorpe writes that the story had clearly grown in the telling) that on his appointment he protested: 'But, sir, there must be some mistake. I do not speak any foreign language. Except in war, I have never visited any foreign country. I do not like foreigners. I have never spoken in any foreign-affairs debate in the House. I have never listened to one.' 'Young man, these all seem to me to be positive advantages,' growled Churchill in return.[54] Churchill initially thought Selwyn Lloyd "that most dangerous of men, the clever fool" after he signed an agreement at the UN after misunderstanding his brief, when the order was to be noncommittal. Churchill later revised his opinion upwards.[55]
In June 1952 Lloyd and Field Marshal Lord Alexander (Minister of Defence) visited Korea, first calling on Alexander's old subordinate General Mark Clark, now UN Supreme Commander in the Region, then the South Korean leader Syngman Rhee, then the Korean battlefield. They returned via Ottawa (where Alexander had recently been Governor-General) and Washington, where they visited President Truman.[56]
While attending the United Nations and related international diplomatic gatherings, became closer to India's Krishna Menon, ultimately being accused by Dean Acheson of being a card-carrying member of the "Menon cabal'' alongside Canada's Lester Pearson and Australia's R.C. Casey.
In Egypt, which had been a British client state since 1883, the pro-British King Farouk was overthrown in July 1952. Lloyd helped to negotiate the treaty (12 February 1953) which gave Sudan (in theory jointly administered by Britain and Egypt) self-government for three years as a stepping-stone to a decision on full independence.[49][57] Lloyd visited Cairo in March 1953, where he met the new Egyptian leader General Neguib, and his right-hand man Colonel Nasser.[58] In February 1954 Lloyd met Neguib again in Khartoum.[59] His visit to the Sudan saw riots in Khartoum and worries that he might meet the same fate as General Gordon in 1885. He wrote of the Sudan: "It is futile to try and outstay one's welcome".[49] Later in February 1954 Neguib was ousted by Nasser. The Suez Base Agreement, whereby Britain agreed to withdraw her troops from Egypt by 1956, was on 27 July 1954.[59] Lloyd would have preferred a slower withdrawal.[49][60]
Lloyd attended over a hundred Cabinet meetings, many of them whilst covering for Eden during his serious illness in 1953.[49]
Minister of Supply and Minister of Defence[edit]
Lloyd was promoted to Minister of Supply, responsible for supplying the Armed Forces, in October 1954.[49]
Lloyd entered the Cabinet as Minister of Defence on Eden's accession to the premiership in April 1955.[49] Just after the 1955 election, along with Rab Butler, Lord Salisbury and Harold Macmillan, he was put on the committee to advise Eden about the upcoming summit, the first since the war.[61]
He was Minister of Defence, a very prestigious post in Conservative eyes, for less than a year and the dates of his tenure meant that he was not in office during the annual defence white paper and defence debate; however, he made important innovations in long-term expenditure planning.[49] The Chiefs of Staff of the three services still had direct right of access to the Prime Minister. Lloyd began a gradual process of consolidation of control of the Armed Forces which would finally come to fruition a decade or so later, with the three service ministries consolidated into a single Ministry of Defence and the three service chiefs reporting to a powerful Chief of Defence Staff.[62]
Speaker of the House of Commons[edit]
In 1969 Lloyd was captain of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club in its centenary year.[3]
Lloyd continued to serve on many committees and to campaign for the Conservative Party in North-West England. In the 1970 General Election organisational reforms made in response to Lloyd's report of 1963 bore fruit, especially in the North-West, and specifically the provision of more paid agents. The reforms were thought to have resulted in the gain of 10 seats, contributing to Heath's narrow victory. Lloyd was sounded out for, but declined, the Washington Embassy.[84]
In 1971, after the Conservatives had returned to power, Lloyd became Speaker. He was elected Speaker by 294 votes to 55, the opposition coming from those who thought the election was a stitch-up between the leadership of the two main parties. Mindful that the long hours required as Speaker had broken the health of several of his predecessors, he increased the number of deputy speakers to three to ease the burden. His preference was to let as many members as possible be heard, rather than err on the side of firmness, and he also practised what Thorpe describes as "selective deafness" rather than punish every unparliamentary outburst.[84] During tedious debates he would keep alert by constructing mental anagrams of the names of those speaking.[207]
In the Parliamentary debate on Bloody Sunday, Lloyd refused to allow the MP for Mid-Ulster Bernadette Devlin to give her account or to ask questions of the Secretary of State, despite Devlin having been an eyewitness to events.[208]
While he was Speaker, he became Deputy High Steward of Cambridge University in 1971,[84] and was appointed to be a Deputy Lieutenant of Merseyside in 1974.[209] In a break with convention, both the Labour and Liberal Parties contested his seat in both the February 1974 and October 1974 general elections, but he retained it. He retired as Speaker on 3 February 1976,[84] when he was raised to the peerage and appointed to be the Steward of the Manor of Northstead.[210]
Peerage and later life[edit]
On 8 March 1976 Lloyd was created a life peer as Baron Selwyn-Lloyd, of Wirral in the County of Merseyside, with a corresponding change of his surname to Selwyn-Lloyd.[211] He sat in the House of Lords as a crossbencher.[84]
He became an honorary fellow of his old college, Magdalene. In retirement he lived at Preston Crowmarsh, Oxfordshire. He did a great deal of charity work and was an active patron and generous host to the nearby Oxford University Conservative Association. He died at home of a brain tumour on 17 May 1978. His will was valued at £154,169 for probate (around £750,000 at 2016 prices).[84][24]
Books[edit]
Lloyd remained on very friendly terms with Eden, and the two men cooperated throughout the 1960s and 1970s, over Eden's memoirs and information which they gave, often anonymously, to historians about Suez. In public they maintained the pretence that there had been no collusion with Israel.[212]
Lloyd cooperated in secret with Terence Robinson's 1965 book on Suez and with Hugh Thomas' The Suez Affair (1967).[106] Lloyd insisted to Hugh Thomas (1967) that Britain's priority had always been a peaceful resolution, especially as Britain had only just pulled out of Egypt prior to Suez. Richard Crossman told Hugh Thomas that any attempt to impeach Lloyd would come to nothing because Lloyd was personally popular. Thomas, who was married to Gladwyn Jebb's daughter, began with little sympathy for Eden and Lloyd and came to feel more so, especially as Lloyd told him that Suez was an issue that was simply not black and white.[213]
Nutting (No End of a Lesson: 1967) and Harold Macmillan (whose relevant volume came out in 1971) were also publishing memoirs.[213] Nutting accused Lloyd not of lying but of not telling the whole truth to the House of Commons. Lloyd insisted that this was perfectly legitimate and that this had been the view of Edward Grey and Ernest Bevin. Nutting's book made Lloyd more determined to release his own memoirs in due course.[214]
Lloyd wrote two books, "Mr Speaker, sir" (1976) and "Suez 1956: a Personal View" (1978).[84] Suez 1956 was the first British admission that the Sevres meeting had taken place (it had already been disclosed by Dayan and Pineau). Sir Donald Logan had to help finish the research as Lloyd by then was ill and could not concentrate for longer than ten or fifteen minutes at a time. He insisted that there had been no "collusion" as Britain had acted in good faith, and had not instigated the Israeli attack. Nigel Nicolson thought the book "pathetic".[215]
Lloyd did not live to complete his memoirs, which he had planned to call "A Middle-Class Lawyer from Liverpool" after a famous sneer of Harold Macmillan's at his expense.[84]
Assessment[edit]
Lloyd's obituaries concentrated on his role in Suez. He would have preferred to have been remembered for his minority report on the Beveridge Report on broadcasting, and for setting up the NEDC.[230]
Nigel Nicolson thought him "weak and mendacious" over Suez and recorded that Dag Hammarskjöld regarded him with contempt. However, he acquired a higher reputation as Macmillan's Foreign Secretary. Sir William Hayter, who worked with Lloyd in Ankara during the Baghdad Pact conference in January 1958, commented on how he had a higher regard for Lloyd after the latter had ceased to be Eden's assistant. "I liked him and even respected him and ... he was really a very able Minister". Thorpe argues that he was not quite in the same league as Bevin or Eden but very much in the next rung.[231] He was happy to listen to expert advice in a way that Eden would not have been.[226]
Edmund Dell describes Lloyd as "not up to the job" of chancellor.[232] He was "a man with limited intellectual horizons ... fortunate to occupy two of the highest offices in the state. He was less fortunate in the timing [Foreign Secretary during Suez then Chancellor at a time of relative economic decline] … there is no evidence that he understood economic arguments … he was a man tied to his brief, lacking the conviction or understanding to make an independent contribution".[233]
However, the real problems with the British economy at this time were, in Dell's view, short-termism (longer time was needed to get results) and an overvalued exchange rate.[234] The immediate cause for Lloyd's dismissal was that Macmillan saw the Treasury as obstructive in drawing up a workable incomes policy, but Dell argues that the real problem was lack of political will, by Macmillan and other ministers, to enforce compulsory wage control. Macmillan wanted the "open air cure" (i.e. public moral pressure to discourage inflationary wage rises), so it is hard to see how Lloyd could have urged anything stronger.[186] A National Incomes Commission ("Nicky") was eventually set up 26 July 1962, after Lloyd's dismissal. It was boycotted by the TUC, who claimed to have been inadequately consulted. It had no compulsory powers, but only powers to demand papers and interview people, and make criticisms of wage settlements which were deemed not in the national interest. Only three cases were ever referred to it.[205]
Ferdinand Mount argues that Lloyd's obituary in The Times was wrong to call him unimaginative and that Lloyd was in fact an innovative chancellor. Macmillan, obsessed with economic expansion, constantly belittled Lloyd in his memoirs. In Mount's view, just as Suez was a watershed in foreign policy, so Macmillan's sacking of Lloyd was a watershed in economic policy, opening the way to the inflation of the 1970s.[235]
Lloyd would sometimes later claim that he might have become Prime Minister if he had resigned as Foreign Secretary over Suez or if he had made more fuss over his sacking as Chancellor. His biographer D.R. Thorpe dismisses this as "wishful thinking", arguing that Lloyd was not even in the same league as Joseph Chamberlain or Rab Butler, politicians who were - in different ways - of first-rank importance despite not becoming Prime Minister. Rather, he was "more Exeter rather than Balliol", i.e. a respectable middle-ranking Oxford college, rather than a prestigious one.[236]