The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs Disraeli

by Richard Aldous

concurring who had not been reckoned on.’ This new party was at first sight a curious alliance. On the one hand there were the parliamentary Radicals. For much of the century they had led the charge against the outdated pre-industrial system, particularly ‘land monopoly’ – the special legal, financial and political privileges given to landowners – and the Church of England. Although they were a small cabal within the Commons, and even within this new political union, the Radicals provided much of the flavour and individuality of the Liberal message. Most of their leading figures, such as Bright and Richard Cobden, were rich businessmen who wanted to modernise the nation’s political practices in line with its economic and trading base. They masked this capitalist purpose behind the egalitarian language of ‘progress’ and of promoting the interests of ‘the people’ against ‘monopoly’ and ‘privilege’. Yet at heart, their politics came down to redefining the place of wealth-generating industrialists in a modern political society. ‘They cannot endure,’ summed up the constitutionalist Walter Bagehot, ‘they ought not to endure, that a rich, able manufacturer should be a less man than a stupid small squire.’