The Northcliffe Press (who published both "The Times" and the "Daily Mail") urged rejection of the budget to give tariff reform a chance. There were many public meetings, some of them organised by dukes, which portrayed the budget as the thin end of the socialist wedge. Lloyd George gave a speech at Newcastle upon Tyne in October 1909 in which he said that "a fully-equipped duke costs as much to keep up as two Dreadnoughts; and dukes are just as great a terror and they last longer". The Conservatives wanted to force an election by rejecting the budget.