June 24, 2025

A politician was a person with whose politics you did not agree. When you did agree, he was a statesman.

David Lloyd George (1863–1945), British Liberal politician, prime minister, 1916–1922, speech at Central Hall, Westminster, 2 July 1935, Jay p.230

Is this true, or just a clever-sounding, pre-emptive argument in defense of his own reputation long-term, given the legion of those other politicians who thought him a scoundrel and a blackguard?

Witty, yes; but how does one define a genuine statesman. If we agree that a statesman or stateswoman is one who manages a problem, a situation or a set of situations that threaten the body politic, and sees it through to a more or less successful resolution, then Lloyd George would make at least the first cut, along with others—France’s De Gaulle, Franklin Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln in the U.S., Churchill in the U.K., Mackenzie King or Pierre Trudeau in Canada.