With the previous statues I have tried to give at least a summary of the career of the person being depicted. In this case, however, I barely know where to begin, much less what to put in and leave out. Lloyd George was born in Manchester in 1863. His mother was widowed the following year, and took him to Wales which, from his name, was obviously his ancestral homeland. During his young years, Lloyd George acquired a liberal brand of politics.

In 1890 at the age of 27 he won a by-election to become an MP and held the seat for over half a century. He became Chancellor of the Exchequer (Treasurer) after Herbert Asquith of the Liberal party became Prime Minister in 1908. Asquith was forced to resign in 1916 because of a lack of confidence in his handling of the First World War, and Lloyd George took over as Prime Minister. He would continue in that role until 1922.

On the plus side, he implemented a lot of social reforms. One of his budgets also triggered the Parliament Act of 1911 which reduced the power of the House of Lords over the elected government. On the minus side he was a prime mover in the idiocy that was the Versailles Treaty which many people even at the time could see was nothing more than a trigger for a second war. He also played an integral part in splitting his party (although Asquith was just as guilty) and driving many of the workers who had previously supported the Liberals into the arms of Labour. I found another interesting comment in one source; that he has been criticised for distrusting his own commanders during the war. Sun Tzu did state that a commander must be given a free hand without political interference (within reason) if a military strategy is to succeed. However I believe that he was predicating that on the assumption that the generals were not inbred morons. I think it is fair to say that a lot of the British general staff still fell into that bucket during the First World War. (Not all of them, obviously. But a fair chunk of them.) I therefore tend to side with Lloyd George on that one. There is also criticism of how he handled the creation of the Irish Free State, but frankly I'd have to sit down and read an encyclopaedia to know the ins and outs of that one. And, of course, there is the fact that he was advocating the appeasement of Germany in 1940 when it should have been blatantly clear to everyone that Herr Hitler's word was not worth the breath it was spoken with.

Interestingly, given his integral part in reducing the power of the House of Lords, he was made a Lord himself on 1 January 1945. He didn't have much time to enjoy it, however, since he died less than 3 months later on 26 March 1945 at the age of 82.

On balance, despite his failings, I think he earned the statue with the flying cape. He may not have been a superhero but his social security reforms in particular changed Britain in a profound way. The statue is 2.4 metres (8 foot) tall and was created by Glynn Williams. It was unveiled in 2007 and its location is, at the time of writing, incorrectly marked on Google Maps.

On this occasion, I did actually take the time to consider the framing of the shot and intentionally positioned him between the trees and the building. I didn't want his hand actually connected to the building because that would have looked odd, but I wanted it in the vicinity.