What was the role of Asquith?

Answer 1

The Liberal government had a huge elected majority in the house of commons and wanted to pass a bill which had a lot of radical welfare reforms in it such as introducing pensions for old people, medical insurance for industrial workers, and free meals for poor children. The conservative party were in opposition in the commons and could not vote the bill down but they used their unelected supporters in the house of lords to send the bill back to the commons for changes to be made. The lords were unelected people whose forebearers had been made lords, most were conservatives. So the government said that it was wrong that unelcted people could stop an elected government from carrying out its policies so they said that they woulkd create a whole load of liberal lords to vote the bill through unless some agreement was made. This crisis changed the law and reduced the amount of times the lords could stop a bill which was said to be a financial bill. Asquith was prime minister at the time although the radical ideas mostly came from LLOYD GEORGE. Further information In 1909 the House of Lords rejected the budget. What really upset the Lords was a substantial increase in the top rate of inheritance tax (25% up from 8%) and a tax on increases in land values, where the increase was not the result of improvements by the owner. The budget also included increases on high incomes. It was an unashamedly redistributive budget. This was the first time that the House of Lords had ever concerned itself with taxation, and the Liberals and Irish Nationalists in the House of Commons declared the action of the House of Lords "unconstitutional", as it had previously been thought that only the House of Commons had the right to vote on matters relating to taxation. In the bitter election campaign that followed the Liberals made much of the fact that the House of Lords was (still is) unelected. In Newcatle-upon-Tyne David Lloyd George ended a speech by asking: "By what right do five hundred men - ordinary men, chosen by mere accident of birth from the unemployed - seek to override the decisions of the elected representatives of the working people, whose labour produces the wealth of this country?" There followed several minutes of delirious applause. King Edward VII wasn't at all pleased ... Joncey

Answer 2

Asquith was the (Liberal) Prime Minister of Britain from 1908-16. Although he was Prime Minister at the time when Britain entered WW1 he's seldom mentioned in this connection in many accounts of the outbreak of the First World War. Instead, most accounts focus on the role of Edward Grey, who was Foreign Secretary at the time.