Why Lloyd George could reform the Admiralty

The scenario needs a cabinet minister able to challenge the Admiralty without adopting its views automatically. Churchill is excluded at this starting point because he is outside the cabinet, while David Lloyd George holds the Board of Trade. Lloyd George preferred peace and lower defence expenditure, and was lukewarm about empire, but wanted to reform the institutions available to him. He would demand explanations of naval policy and spending. His later insistence as prime minister on weekly naval papers supplies the historical example: recent operations and plans for the next week had to connect to an explicit strategy.