Lord Bonkers 30 years ago: "Can Lloyd George Do It?"

"You didn't do it last month" said Lord Bonkers. "Do what?" I asked. "You didn't reprint something from my diary of 30 years ago. They'll be letters."

So here is something from the old boy's diary in the September 1992 issue of Liberator.

Wednesday

I must confess that I have not succeeded in following every twist and turn of Liberal economic policy. Once Free Trade was the pith and marrow of our cause, but later the likes of Milton Keynes came to the fore with quite other ideas. (Keynes, I recall was the author of a pamphlet entitled Can Lloyd George Do It? - a singularly redundant question in the eyes of many a Liberal lady.) 

Thus I am confused when I hear my younger colleagues saying that we should seek an accommodation with the Socialists while displaying greater enthusiasm for the free market than do the Tories. As ever we Liberals should seek the mean, and I advice those who are so fond of capitalism to go to live in Russia and see how much they are for it then.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.