The British Imperial Establishment, Post Imperial Era, and the ‘Churchillian’ World View, 1945-2016. (Adjustments & Challenges in Contemporary British Diplomatic Strategy)

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who
recruited him to work in the Conservative Research Department as his
principal lieutenant in drafting the
Conservative election manifesto of 1951.
When Churchill formed his government in October, 1951, both Eden and
Butler
asked for Lloyd’s services at the Foreign Office and the Treasury respectively.

Lloyd
came to the Foreign Office in December, 1955 as the first of a new
generation to make its impact on British
foreign policy. Unlike his immediate
predecessors, he had entered politics after the War, was a comparatively
junior
figure in the party’s hierarchy, and was little known to the general public.
However, he had
quite definite Ideas on most aspects of British foreign and
imperial policies, ideas derived from his close
co-operation with Eden. Except
perhaps in disarmament, his role as No. 2. had necessarily been more that of
an
executant than an originator, but there is no reason to doubt that he shared the
general view of his
two predecessors, and also the majority of the Cabinet that he
was serving with. Meaning that they were less
extreme and right-wing than those
within the Conservative Parliamentary Party, who had opposed the
British
withdrawal from the Suez Canal base – the so-called “Suez Group”. Lloyd,
together with
Macmillan, succeeded in restoring both the British position in the
Middle East and the “special
relationships” with the USA, after the Suez Canal
Crisis.

One
should say of Selwyn Lloyd that he had, to a marked degree, the
quality of dogged persistence, of keeping on
in the face of arduous and
discouraging experiences which would have deterred post others. It was a
quality
which sometimes enabled him to salvage something from an apparently hopeless
situation. This is
always an admirable quality, and one the British people
generally admire, partly indeed, though one hopes not
mainly, because it is
thought to be particularly British. Future historians will probably consider that
he
was a dedicated, capable and efficient Foreign Secretary, if not a great one, and

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