The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs Disraeli

by Richard Aldous

Part of the problem was Disraeli’s innovation. Rank-and-file Tories in the mid-century did more than most to justify the Conservatives’ earlier reputation as the ‘stupid party’. What they failed to grasp, or least appreciate, was Disraeli’s original approach to opposition. He was perhaps the first political leader to demand that the foremost role of the opposition was to oppose. This may seem obvious now, but it was a novel approach in Victorian Britain. Even his most recent predecessors, Lord John Russell and Sir Robert Peel, had maintained a gentlemanly and statesmanlike detachment in the House, challenging legislation only if they really thought ill of it. Disraeli’s view was that there would always be something to criticise. His job was to exploit any weakness, to make the life of the government as difficult as possible, to wear them down and win back power. This was highly unpopular with his own MPs, not least because it demanded that they attend the House more regularly. Foremost among the advice the whips had passed to Disraeli was the warning that ‘however it may be adverse to his own inclinations to sit inactive on the front opposition bench, he has really not any choice left, but must if he cares for his own authority, and our continued existence, bide his time’.