131. Sea change

Disraeli’s second government was an administration of progressive conservatism, a strange moment in a general history of the Conservative Party as essentially, well, conservative. Partly that was politically expedient, looking for support among the working class, but partly it was sincere, based on a deep revulsion at the conditions in which most of it lived. Much of the reforming legislation was piloted by Richard Cross, Disraeli’s imaginative, and bold, choice as Home Secretary. It included the conclusion of the long campaign led by many but above all by Lord Shaftesbury, to limit the hours worked by women and children. It also abolished the use of ‘climbing boys’, the use of kids as chimney sweeps. It, astonishingly for a Conservative government, extended union rights, including decriminalising the right to picket. And it even included the introduction of the Plimsoll line on ships, to prevent overloading and the many sailors’ deaths to which it led. On all these reforms, resistance was loud and strong from business interests. And, the final surprise of this time, they were being faced down by a Conservative government. Illustration: Samuel Plimsoll, Lithograph by by Richard Childs, 1874 National Portrait Gallery D42829 Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

12 Mars 202314min

We've reached the point where the political pendulum has at last swung the Conservative way, giving it a working parliamentary majority for the first time in three decades. Despite all his efforts to get that majority in 1874, Disraeli seems to have been surprised by the extent of his success. He took power without a properly worked-out set of policies to apply. In particular, since he was more interested in foreign affairs, he had little in place in the way of a domestic programme. For that he would depend on his ministers, so getting their selection right was a major task. One of the most difficult nuts to crack would be getting Salisbury into his government, if only to stop him sniping from outside. This he pulled off in part thanks to the intervention of the Countess of Derby, though her relationships with Salisbury and other leading figures in the story is worthy of a soap opera. The absence of a good domestic programme left a space open into which the Archbishop of Canterbury was able to insert a nasty piece of Church legislation, in the course of the last ever parliamentary session that would be overwhelmingly devoted to a religious matter. That was in strange contrast with the instincts of Disraeli’s government which, despite being Conservative, were strangely progressive socially. Illustration: the lady with a background worthy of a soap opera, Mary Catherine (née Sackville-West), Marchioness of Salisbury (later Countess of Derby), by Camille Silvy. National Portrait Gallery Ax53033. Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

5 Mars 202314min

“My mission is to pacify Ireland,” Gladstone had declared when he took office as Prime Minister. This episode looks briefly at Disraeli’s behaviour as he left power, including the peerage he sought for his wife (rather than for himself). Then we move on to Gladstone’s attempts to secure peace in Ireland, first through disestablishment of the Church of Ireland, then through new legislation concerning Irish land ownership. They involved serious and exhausting battles, though they achieved very little in the way of pacifying Ireland... As the exhaustion of these struggles began to affect the government, and indeed Gladstone, Disraeli found new form and came back to the attack. Notably with one of his best known denunciations of ministers, as a series of dormant volcanoes. The pendulum was swinging back his way. Illustration: William Ewart Gladstone by Sir John Everett Millais, 1879. National Portrait Gallery 3637 Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

19 Feb 202314min

The Liberals are back, and they're being liberal. Gladstone followed Disraeli into Downing Street, and led a reforming government. So Disraeli with the Conservatives managed to reach the top of the greasy pole first, but he got only ten months before being kicked out unceremoniously by Gladstone and the Liberal Party. Oddly, though, Gladstone didn't too well personally, losing his parliamentary seat - as he had at the previous election too. He only managed to cling on in parliament by being nominated for another seat at the same time, and winning that one. His government brought in a slew of reforms followed in the military, in education, in trade union law and, as another key step on the road to democracy, in legislation to introduce secret ballots in national and local elections. This was also the time when Germany emerged as a nation, proclaimed as the Second Reich in, of all places, the Hall of Mirrors of Versailles, in defeated and humiliated France. German victory was a warning to the other powers, one that Britain failed to take seriously enough. Meanwhile, trouble was continuing in Ireland. But since pacifying that country was Gladstone’s self-declared mission, we’ve left that to our next episode. Illustration: Anton von Werner, The proclamation of the German Empire in the Hall of Mirrors of Versailles. Painted in 1885, it shows the subjects, including King William I, about to be made emperor, at their 1885 ages rather than as they were when the event took place in 1871. Public Domain. Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

12 Feb 202314min

We're reaching the moment when Disraeli, fresh from outwitting Gladstone over electoral reform, climbed, in his own words, to the top of the greasy pole. Indeed, becoming Prime Minister after Derby resigned, was the first major milestone in a political career that Disraeli had hit before his rival. And it was the big one. Meanwhile, Gladstone had followed John Russell into the leadership of the Liberals. So the two great adversaries were facing each other in the top jobs of the two sides of parliament, Prime Minister and leader of the Opposition. And Gladstone was ready to hit back at Dizzy. The opportunity was provided by that long-running, ever-recurring sore in the history Britain, its misrule in Ireland. And this time it was Disraeli’s turn to be outmanoeuvred. Illustration: Contemporary cartoon of Disraeli, riding the horse Reform Bill, outpacing Gladstone (left) at the Derby, though warning that the result might ultimately depend on the weigh-in at the end (the next election) Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

5 Feb 202314min

It’s time for a master class in opposition by the man who said that the role of the Opposition is to oppose. Disraeli and Gladstone, both now leaders in the House of Commons of the Liberal and Conservative parties respectively, faced off over electoral reform. And Disraeli displayed real genius in outflanking Gladstone, first to defeat him by opposing reform when the Liberals proposed it while they were in government, and then by backing it when the Conservatives took over and proposed their own legislation. So a glorious example of opportunism pursued with dazzling skill in the pursuit of power. Illustration: Dishing the Whigs, from the magazine Fun Lord Derby (left) andn Disraeli (right) have dished their Whig (Liberal) opponents by introducing a reform measure more liberal than they had. The two Conservative leaders now present the heads of the Liberal leaders to Queen Victoria. Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

29 Jan 202314min

The American Civil War, like the war led by Prussia against Denmark, showed that Britain was no longer the superpower that had emerged from the Napoleonic wars. In both those conflicts, Britain had views – rather changeable ones, switching from one side to the other, in the American case – but couldn’t influence the outcome. Instead, Palmerston’s government could do little more than watch events take their course. What the American war also demonstrated, however, was how British workers, in particular the workers put through great hardship by the Lancashire Cotton Famine the war had precipitated, could put principle above personal interest. Despite the pain they were suffering, they had called on President Lincoln to go right on prosecuting the war until the defeat of the South and the emancipation of the slaves. Now, that didn’t loosen any purse strings. For some more decades, relief for people who needed help would continue to mean the Poor Laws with the workhouse in the background, and whatever voluntary help people felt they could spare. However, at a time when the question of extending the right to vote was re-emerging, the principled behaviour of the Lancashire workers encouraged those backing such a move, by revealing that artisans too could reach mature, even admirable, political judgements. But the atmosphere wasn’t right in parliament yet. Besides, Palmerston was still opposed to electoral reform at least in the short term. However, when he died, and he was the last British Prime Minister to die in office, he opened the door to that debate again. Which will be the subject of our next episode. Illustration: Prince Albert and Queen Victoria in 1859, by George Milner Gibson Jerrard, after Frances Sally Day. National Portrait Gallery x197484 Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

22 Jan 202314min