Unknown Prime Minister

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In his preface Robert Blake writes, 'The title of this book is taken from a remark attributed to Asquith after he had attended Bonar Law's funeral in Westminster Abbey. ''It is fitting,'' he is reputed to have said, ''that we should have buried the Unknown Prime Minister by the side of the Unknown Soldier.'' I have used this phrase, not because I consider that Asquith's remark was either just or true, but because, however unfairly, it has come to be the verdict of most people today. Even in his own lifetime Bonar Law's origins, career, character, and the reasons for his success acquired something of an aura of mystery which the passage of time has done nothing to remove. It is my hope that this book may dispel that erroneous impression.' It does. Neither flamboyant nor possessed of the statesmanship of Lloyd George or Winston Churchill, Bonar Law nevertheless was a remarkably successful politician, especially a party politician. Before his brief Premiership in 1922-23, he had been the Leader of the Conservative Party for eleven years from 1911 and in that time had played a vital part in almost every political issue. During the 1914-18 war his role was crucial. It was his decision w

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