In this initial contribution to the Celtic Radicals series, Emyr Price makes no secret of his desire to revise the general impression of David Lloyd George's early radicalism and Welsh nationalism established by John Grigg, Kenneth O. Morgan, B. B. Gilbert, W. R. P. George, and others. That view is characterized as dismissing the nationalism of his early career (1882–99) as posturing, opportunism, rhetoric, playacting, and a mere preliminary to the Westminster stage. Rather than a pragmatic politician, Price attempts to elevate Lloyd George as Wales's first modern national champion, the “first architect of Welsh devolution,” arguing that in the 1880s he held a “visionary view of a self governing Wales … a vibrant, more progressive and a more equal society than a country governed centrally from Westminster” (x–xi).

Rejecting the description of the George family as outsiders, Price argues that a youthful Lloyd George was instilled with “Liberal anti-Tory landowning politics” and soon conceived the goal of expelling British-centric, laissez-faire, Anglican antiradicalism, while transforming the Liberal party in Wales into a radical nationalist movement (7). The young Lloyd George supposedly embraced trade union reform, Sunday closing, franchise extension, disestablishment, and land, health, and housing reform. More significantly, it was necessary that he embrace the “national awakening … including measures to give status to the Welsh language” (15). Price seems to overplay the significance that can be extracted from Lloyd George's early activities.

Price suggests that Lloyd George was attracted to Merioneth for his law practice as it could be exploited by a radical and nationalist campaign and that by 1885–86 he sought to overtake the “fragile Liberal hierarchy” and challenge the “Anglicized … middle class coterie of tepid Liberals” (18). Clearly, his advocacy on behalf of local workers contributed to developing name recognition, as did his intraparty challenge of the official Liberal candidate in the 1885 election, which brought him the odium of the Liberal establishment. Notwithstanding the lack of political success in 1885–86, Price argues that Lloyd George nevertheless embraced Welsh national aspirations and sought to present himself as the champion of Welsh home rule. He attempted to exploit the antitithe agitation in order to raise Welsh national consciousness. In 1888 Lloyd George established a weekly newspaper, the Trumpet of Freedom, which Price believes was to promote his “new style radicalism and nationalism” rather than to serve his political ambitions (45). While the newspaper published radical antilandlord, antitithe, and temperance articles, it also elevated Lloyd George's public prominence, which in 1889 he translated into the nomination as the Liberal candidate for Caernarfon Boroughs.

As a parliamentary candidate, a county councillor, and a lawyer, Lloyd George could now advance the nationalist cause. He conceived the transformation of the newly created county councils to a “people's parliament” with which to push a radical and nationalist agenda. Price suggests that Lloyd George pushed a revolutionary issue by advocating that the county councils establish a Welsh national council, an “evolutionary step towards … a Welsh parliament, with powers to control the Welsh economy and to promote social welfare and education.” However, this interpretation of a new Welsh nationalist politician conflicts with John Grigg, who describes the county council activities as “child's play” or “parish politics,” and with Morgan's assessment that Lloyd George had no serious interest in local politics or affairs, other than self-promotion (71).

Lloyd George promptly dropped his nationalist rhetoric when the sudden death of the sitting member of Parliament precipitated a by-election in March 1890. While initially suggesting that the radical and nationalist agenda was to provide an advantage with Welsh voters, Price concedes it “could well rebound against him” (93). Ironically, Lloyd George did not need to abandon his program as circumstances bent in his direction: the Tories were unprepared and disorganized, Lloyd George had been in campaign mode for nearly a year, the general direction had turned in the Liberals’ favor, and he benefited by the assistance from nationalist sympathizers. Price considers Lloyd George's watered-down 1890 election manifesto as an appeal to a divided Liberal party and swing voters, while recognizing it was also a submission to the pressure from “Liberal big-wigs.” However, Price maintains that Lloyd George was “hiding his true [nationalist] convictions” (95). Regardless, Lloyd George was elected to Parliament, a seat he held until 1945, by an eighteen-vote majority. Was it a triumph for Welsh nationalism or Gladstonian moderation?

Price argues that Lloyd George wholeheartedly embraced a radical and nationalist agenda and by 1892 was prepared to use his Westminster seat in a renewed call for Welsh national aspirations, specifically home rule. His initial target was disestablishment, a path to devolution and sequentially a Welsh parliament. His efforts climaxed with the formation of the Young Wales League in 1894, which Price suggests had revolutionary objectives: disestablishment, land reform, local option, universal education and suffrage, employment and labor reform, status for the Welsh language, and Welsh home rule. However, Griggs, Morgan, and B. B. Gilbert dismiss the significance of his nationalist campaign. Was the league a loosely organized pressure group or the core of a Welsh national party? While Price believed Lloyd George struggled to transform the Young Wales League into a true national party, by 1896 the league and the movement in general were in disarray, in effect dissolving, and by 1899 Lloyd George abandoned any nationalist program, realizing it was not the course to broad social reform. Price explains that the movement failed in the 1890s because of a complex set of geographical, social, economic, and political divisions in Wales, the opposition of Welsh and British Liberals, ineffective organization and leadership, the absence of an effective and sympathetic bilingual press, hostility from the mainstream press, the absence of important Liberal personalities, and even minimal support from Welsh members of Parliament.

Price suggests that now is an appropriate occasion to reassess Lloyd George's early career, particularly his relationship to Welsh nationalism. Unfortunately, the author's campaign to directly counter the conclusions of respected biographers, a campaign that is vigorously waged throughout the book, takes its toll and perhaps weakens his own interpretations. His conclusions seem to be overemphasized and overplayed. While Price “seeks to present a quite different interpretation of the Young Lloyd George” (x), the import of his work is really the detail and focus he has given to much of the future prime minister's early career, an examination that is keenly interesting but subject to different interpretations.