Tom Black - Meet The New Boss

The actions taken by David Lloyd George in 1940 divide scholarly opinion worldwide even to this day. At the time, as German shells fell on Londons East End and Churchill lay dead in a destroyed railway carriage, it seemed to the grand old man of British politics that there was no other option. Of course, there was - to fight, fight and fight again. To never surrender to fascism. But this choice was, tragically, not acceptable to the man who, incredibly, was at the time Britains greatest living statesman.

However, even Lloyd Georges harshest critics accept that his actions - the visit to the King, formation of a government and immediate armistice negotiation were all motivated by a determination to spare Britain another destructive war. The Man Who Won The War was committed to ending this one. But, in doing so, the Welsh Wizard became the Welsh Weasel.

The formation of the National Action Party in December 1940 saw Lloyd George, Harold Nicolson, J.F.C. Fuller and others form a cabinet, with Lloyd George moving into Number 10. The legacy of his predecessors was there for him to behold. The Plymouth Room still bore the garish, huge photograph of a triumphant-looking George Lansbury presiding over the sale of much of the British fleet, and the ironically-named London Armaments Treaty of 1938 hung on the opposing wall. Even the official portrait of Anthony Eden, dated January 1939, could not hide the young mans sense of bewilderment. Finally, the half-finished wall in the garden of Downing Street (swiftly demolished by a team from the Reich Engineering Corps) stood as an eerie testament to Britains last democratic Prime Minister.

The period of British history known as the Second Protectorate by supporters and detractors alike began in March 1941. With the King dead by his own hand (despite what conspiracists still say today, this is the truth of the matter) and the princesses on a submarine in the North Atlantic, the United Kingdom de facto became the Commonwealth of Great Britain (Northern Ireland had been incorporated into ODuffys Irish State the month before). Lloyd George (who was at this point not quite the pawn of von Ribbentrop that he would become) was proclaimed Lord Protector by the considerably thinned-out House of Lords.

The Second Protectorate and the horrors that ensued from its rule are well documented elsewhere, so this document will not seek to provide a full picture. But the key events - the appointment of Mosley as Home Secretary in 1942, the Liverpool Rising, the assassination of Seyss-Inquart and resulting annihilation of Godstone - are so etched into any modern Britons mind that it is surely unnecessary to elucidate much further. For Lloyd George, all this passed as a blur. In 1943, he was forever broken by von Ribbentrops decision to overrule the National Action Partys Police Force (Special Services) Act and intern the entirety of Britains constabulary. Mosley proved a greater turncoat even than Lloyd George himself - though his appetite for power shocked the occupiers to the point that they, ironically, blacklisted him from any office higher than the post that was still laughably called Home Secretary.

For the rest of the war, Lloyd George was increasingly used as a figurehead and nothing more. When his health began to seriously wane, he denied even this status. Instead, it would be Harold Nicolson who informed Britons that they had nothing to worry about when Berlin fell in late 1945. The reality of the matter was that, of course, Ribbentrop, Six and other senior officials were frantically loading as much of the Bank of England's gold as they could carry onto ships bound for Argentina.

Lloyd George was barely lucid when London gained the dubious accolade of being the site of the end of the Third Reich. After the formal surrender of London by Generalfeldmarschall Rommel, the last of the eight farcical 'acting Fuhrers', Robert Ley, committed suicide. Rommel immediately asked for passage to Germany in order to establish a transitional government that might restore democracy, but the Red Air Force was, unsurprisingly, unwilling to oblige.

Marshal Slim, commander-in-chief of the British Shock Army for Patriotic Liberation, ordered that the Welsh Weasel be brought to him during the 4th British Rifles takeover of Whitehall. Two privates allegedly entered the Lord Protectors residence in the basement of Downing Street to find David Lloyd George upright at his desk, but quite dead. Suicide was, remarkably, ruled out, though he had only been dead a few hours.

The man who had led Britain through one national crisis and to destruction during another had left the stage. But, even at that very moment, a plane from Moscow was carrying the man who would play the lead in our nations next act.