Brought up in rural North Wales, David Lloyd George attended neither a grand school nor ancient university. He was very much an outsider. And yet he rose through the ranks with charisma, fierce intelligence and fighting spirit to become, as Churchill put it in his tribute, a man who ‘stood, when at his zenith, without a rival’.

But his rise was not without its hardships, and in Rivals in the Storm, experienced MP and author Damian Collins focuses on the impact of Lloyd George’s personality on other leading politicians, in driving progressive reforms through government, changing the course of the First World War to lead the Allies to victory, and cementing Britain’s alliance with America. Covering Lloyd George’s emergence as the dominating political personality in Great Britain to the aftermath of his resignation, this fascinating biography takes you inside the rooms where the important decisions happened, and shows the bitter struggles as well as the triumphs of this great man of his or any other age, who nonetheless fell short of his own high expectations.