10. David Lloyd George, one of the greatest British political figures, ended up on the Nazi side of history.
David Lloyd George was undoubtedly one of the greatest British political figures of the 20th century. However, while many of his peers bowed out at the top, his career ended with a whimper. Indeed, Lloyd George largely faded away from the frontline, becoming increasingly marginalized and irrelevant. By the end, he didn’t even have the support or the trust of his own party.
Born in 1863, Lloyd George joined the Liberal Party as a young man and, by 1890, had been elected a Member of Parliament. His rise was meteoric by the standard of those days and, in 1908, he was appointed to Chancellor of the Exchequer, the second most powerful position in the land. In office for seven years, he laid the foundations for the modern welfare state. Then, in 1916, he took charge of the Wartime Coalition Government, leading the country through the First World War. Lloyd George was a national hero. But, soon he was out of the frontline, never to return.
Throughout the 1920s, Lloyd George tried to return to government but never succeeded. Notably, from 1923 onwards, he was vocal in his support of Germany. Indeed, he stated that Hitler was “the George Washington of Germany” and ridiculed fears that the Nazi regime posed a threat to Britain. He lived long enough to see the folly of his views, dying in March 1945 at the age of 82. Despite this fall from favor in later years, he is still regarded as a political great and is routinely named as the second-greatest modern British politician, behind only Winston Churchill.