At first glance, his electoral record was decidedly mixed: on his watch, the Tories lost six general elections. Prophet, high priest, philosopherĭisraeli led the Conservative party in the House of Commons for nearly three decades. A towering figure of 19th century British politics, his parliamentary jousting with William Ewart Gladstone, the Liberal leader and his arch-rival for the premiership, dominated the history of this period. In that desire, there can be little doubt that Disraeli, who entered Downing Street for the first time 150 years ago this week, more than amply succeeded. Perhaps, though, Disraeli’s “romance” simply reflected his abiding reverence for England’s long history - a subject which almost always featured in his speeches - and his desire to etch himself a place in it.
There is an element of truth in such criticisms. To others, it encapsulated his deeply conservative, almost reactionary, yearning to cling to a past – rural, aristocratic and hierarchical – that was fast slipping away in the wake of the Industrial Revolution and the rise of a powerful working class. It is not hard to imagine the sneers with which his many contemporary critics might have greeted Disraeli’s creation.įor some, it would have symbolized Disraeli’s parvenu slippery phoniness the desperation of this grandson of Italian immigrants to falsely present himself as part of the landed classes which still governed Britain and with whom he wished to inveigle himself. The works, he wrote a friend, were a “romance he had been many years realizing.” The manor’s terraces were ones “in which cavaliers might roam.”Īll of this, however, conveniently ignored the fact that Hughenden had originally been constructed in the mid-18th century – almost a century after the monarchist cavaliers and parliamentarian roundheads fought the English civil war.
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