post in the Cabinet reshuffle of May 1915. An attempt by Bonar Law to secure the Order of St Michael and St George for Aitken was also blocked by Asquith. After the failure of the Dardanelles campaign, Winston Churchill was sacked as the First Lord of the Admiralty, and Aitken went to see him to offer him his sympathy. Aitken wrote about Churchill: "The charm, the imaginative sympathy of his hours of defeat, the self-confidence, the arrogance of his hours of power and prosperity". Later, when Churchill went to the Western Front, Aitken allowed him to stay as his guest at his house in Saint-Omer. Ascherson wrote: "A momentous friendship began. In return for contacts and inside information, Aitken would give Churchill hope and energy, and Churchill – in spite of some volcanic quarrels over the next half-century – came to rely on him not only as a political and journalistic ally but as an unfailing source of optimism, gossip, reassurance and sheer fun." Aitken was happy to play a small part, which he greatly exaggerated, as a go-between when Asquith was forced from office and replaced by David Lloyd George in December 1916. The man Aikten wanted to see replace Asquith was Bonar Law, not Lloyd George. Lloyd George offered to appoint Aitken as President of the Board of Trade. At that time, an MP taking a cabinet post for the first time had to resign and stand for re-election in a by-election. Aitken made arrangements for this, but then Lloyd George decided to appoint Albert Stanley instead. Aitken was a friend of Stanley and agreed to continue with the resignation, so that Stanley could take Aitken's seat in Parliament and be eligible for ministerial office. In return, Aitken received a peerage on 23 January 1917 as the 1st Baron Beaverbrook, the name "Beaverbrook" being adopted from a small community near his boyhood home. He had initially considered "Lord Miramichi", but rejected it on the advice of Louise Manny as too difficult to pronounce. The name "Beaverbrook" also had the advantage of conveying a distinctive Canadian ring to the title. Beaverbrook's controlling stake in the Daily Express became public knowledge later in 1917, and he was criticised by parts of the Conservative Party for financing a publication they regarded as irresponsible and often unhelpful to the party. In February 1918, Beaverbrook became the first minister in the newly formed