Page "David Lloyd George" Paragraph 51

However it was not until 19 October 1922 that the coalition was dealt its final blow.

After criticism of Lloyd George over the Chanak crisis mounted, Conservative leader Austen Chamberlain summoned a meeting of Conservative Members of Parliament at the Carlton Club to discuss their attitude to the Coalition in the forthcoming election.

They sealed Lloyd George's fate with a vote of 187 to 87 in favour of abandoning the coalition.

Chamberlain and other Conservatives such as the Earl of Balfour argued for supporting Lloyd George, while former party leader Andrew Bonar Law argued the other way, claiming that breaking up the coalition " wouldn't break Lloyd George's heart ".

The main attack came from Stanley Baldwin, then President of the Board of Trade, who spoke of Lloyd George as a " dynamic force " who would break the Conservative Party.

Baldwin and many of the more progressive members of the Conservative Party fundamentally opposed Lloyd George and those who supported him on moral grounds.

A motion was passed that the Conservative Party should fight the next election on its own for the first time since the start of World War I.