The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs Disraeli

by Richard Aldous

Although in many ways a canny, even devious, political operator, he was above all a gut-instinct politician. There had been his resignations, and many more threats of resignation, from governments on points of principle. Add to this the honourable loyalty first to Peel, and then to Aberdeen, that had kept him out of successive Conservative administrations, the last of which had been Gladstonian in mentality. Even his forays into scholarship – State and Church and Homer – had been published in the face of advice that his political reputation would be damaged. Gladstone was a man unable to act without self-justification accompanied by credible public rationalisation. In short, if he was going to abandon the Conservative party for the Liberals on a permanent basis, he needed in his own mind and on the national stage a cast-iron explanation for his actions.