Benjamin Disraeli
About the man:
· He was deeply attached to
the following institutions, of the country: Crown, Church and the Constitution. (Read more after Break)
· He was considered to be a Great orator: Disraeli argued to be the voice of the Conservative Party in the Commons. He is the ‘rising hope’ of
the Tories during the 1850s, and won the support of his party. The Tories at the time were perceived as being the ‘stupid party’: full
of country squires unaware of the industrial and social changes taking place in Britain at this time.
· Disraeli was both a writer and a Romantic. A poet and a notorious womaniser.
· Disraeli was often accused of over opportunism: attacked Peel viciously in 1846 over Corn Laws. Yet accepted Free
Trade in 1852. He opposed Gladstone’s Reform Bill in 1865, but when in power he passed a more
radical bill in 1867. Therefore he was a man of contradictions, two-faced, devious and a political strategist; taking a litmus test of the publics' mood and adapting accordingly.
In 1858, the Tory Party forms a
minority government. Disraeli tries to achieve a political coup by getting Gladstone back into the Party.
Gladstone declined the offer because he knew that his chances of becoming leader of the
Liberal Party were better than his chances of succeeding with the Tories.