Gladstone and Disraeli

westminster abbey the final resting place of kings and queens stretching all the way back to edward the confessor and the site of memorials to some of the greatest britons of all time among those honored here are two battling opponents the fiercest political rivals britain has ever seen there's the man who virtually invented the liberal party william gladstone and close by the founder of modern conservatism benjamin disraeli gladstone and israeli both of them outstanding prime ministers both of them eminent chancellors of the exchequer and those facts alone are hugely impressive but the story of these two men is much more than that gladstone and israeli dominated political life in the victorian age and became inseparable in the public mind over a period of 40 years they turned britain upside down they improved the lives of millions of people and permanently changed the way in which the country was ruled israeli and gladstone are the two great figures of the 19th century they are great because they change the weather politics change because of both of them these two men invented modern politics by going head-to-head out on the stump making a pitch for votes and if we think that politics is presidential now the root of presidential politics goes back to gladstone and israeli but this isn't simply a story about two great men it's a story about two great men who loathed each other with a passion they really really detested each other they totally disapproved of each other's way of thinking about politics and they were intense rivals in every way they hated each other it was a brown rare relationship gladstone thought israeli was a charlatan and israeli thought glaston was mad the story of gladstone and israeli's lifelong clash is a fascinating one and to explore it in depth we've been on a journey we've been to some unexpected places and we've discovered some unexpected facts it's been quite an experience at times exhilarating at times poignant but always compelling stand by for the story of the biggest feud in the history of british politics gladstone and israeli ruled britain when britain ruled the world that makes it sound like they had an easy ride but the pomp and pageantry that exemplifies our imperial past shouldn't blind us to the many problems they had to grapple with the british empire may have been huge but it was also highly fragile constant care and attention was needed to keep it from falling apart and britain itself was almost as bad beneath its cloak of global eminence the country was a mess bedevilled by poverty and disease and riddled with discontent spurred on by a potent mix of intense patriotism and bitter rivalry gladstone and israeli labored long and hard to bring these problems under control good morning thank you very much the degree of success they enjoyed is shown by the place of honour they occupy today at downing street when you walk into number 11 downing street the first face you see is that of william gladstone he dominates the hallway and you sense all of the strength and resilience and energy for which he was famous and then just a few feet away you spot the great rival benjamin disraeli and what a contrast he seems pale and fragile almost delicate but don't be fooled because he was every bit as tough and resilient and determined as his great opponent and israeli's early life helps to explain the kind of man he became the israeli was born in 1804 five years earlier than gladstone but any advantage that might have given him was erased by the unfortunate consequences of his ethnic identity he was proud of his jewish antecedents and he never forgot it but in victorian england he actually was subjected to what nowadays would be regarded as a quite impermissible and unforgivable anti-semitism not only was he jewish but his jewishness was assaulted in a way nobody would dream of doing now and were they to do so would said it be prosecuted when he went on one of his election early elections at the hustings they stuck a piece of pork on a stick and pushed it under his nose and said he has a piece of pork for the jew and he was so brave it didn't like didn't turn a hair being born a jew didn't merely exposed israeli to lifelong racial prejudice it also came close to robbing him of his political career but it failed to do so is due to something that happened in 1817 when he was still at school at the time the future prime minister was living here at six bloomsbury square with his parents and four siblings and there's still a plaque on the building but there's no mention of benjamin on it it's a tribute to his father isaac who was a well-known author well in 1817 isaac made a big decision which would totally transform benjamin's prospects he'd fallen out with the rabbis in the local synagogue he decided enough was enough and from now on the israelis would be a christian family now isaac israeli could not have foreseen the full impact of the decision benjamin was still a schoolboy but today it's easy to see how significant that change was what made the decision so momentous from disraeli's point of view was the existence of a law which prohibited practicing jews from standing for parliament becoming a christian removed this obstacle from his path and opened up the possibility of a political career but politics would have to wait the young israeli was head strong and rash and chosen at the root he started off in finance and he made some disastrous choices and saddled himself with a huge quantity of debt which stayed with him into his 60s until after he was prime minister and before he became an mp he was always looking over his shoulder in case he was what he used to call nabbed anxious to be rid of his debts disraeli decided in the 1820s to try his hand at becoming a popular novelist it turned out to be his first sensible move he'd go on writing books for the rest of his life many of them would become best sellers bringing him both fortune and fame but success didn't come his way right from the start his first book vivian gray brought him attention plenty of it but most of it of the wrong kind he started off writing silver fork fiction which was very kind of detailed about the london society aristocratic society of the time which israeli knew absolutely nothing but pretended that he was an insider after this book vivian gray was published he was held up to ridicule because he pretended to be this society young man that he wasn't and it took him a long time to get over that while israeli was struggling to live down the failure of his first novel gladstone was making a name for himself at oxford university in 1828 at the age of 19 he enrolled as an undergraduate at one of oxford's oldest and most magnificent colleges christ church most of christchurch's students at the time were upper class and although he wasn't the son of a duke or an earl unlike many of his contemporaries this description sat pretty easily on gladstone's shoulders too young william had benefited from the best education that england could offer first he went to eaton college and then he came here to christchurch oxford all of it funded by his father's wealth gladstone had been born in liverpool in 1809 his father was a very wealthy businessman who had made some of his money from the slave trade and william turned out to be a very confident but a very very serious young man he was certainly you know extremely convinced of a religion and the anglican church and that kind of thing at eaton he didn't push his religion much towards the other boys but in oxford he did and a lot of people there thought he was an intolerable prick and he got beaten up in his rooms famously on one occasion by a lot of the bloods of oxford for being outrageously pregitian and pious and all the rest of it unpopular as he certainly was in some quarters at least gladstone made quite a splash while he was at oxford and that's mainly due to the many eloquent speeches he made in the grand surroundings of the university's principal debating society the oxford union of all the speeches delivered by gladstone during his time here in oxford one stands out on may the 16th 1831 he mesmerized an audience at the oxford union with a speech on voting reform there were plans to give working-class people the right to vote and the shocking thing for us today is that gladstone was against those plans the man who in later life would be a radical reforming liberal was at that stage of his career a pretty hard-line right-wing tory but by all accounts it was a very convincing performance because by the time he'd sat down all of those people who'd come in favor of reform had changed their minds gladstone had chalked up a notable triumph and one that would have important consequences for his future career one of his friends at oxford was lord lincoln who happened to be the heir to the duke of newcastle and he was so impressed by a speech gladstone made against the reform bill in 1831 that he told his father here's a person you should uh invest in and uh while dancing on the grand tour of 1832 he received a letter from lincoln saying my father has offered to give you his support and influence in the borough of newark in the forthcoming general election of 1832 well of course gladstone's father said you go for it and that's how that's not to parliament basically for a rotten borough largely because of the influence of a local duke catapulted into parliament at the tender age of 22 young gladstone proceeded to enjoy a truly phenomenal rise almost unbelievably from a modern point of view his maiden speech was an impassioned defense of the long discredited slave trade odd as that seems to us the speech went down a storm marking him out as a man to watch disraeli meanwhile was lagging far behind yes his career as a novelist had taken off by this time and he'd also established himself as a witty and agreeable man about town but he decided by now that his main focus ought to be on politics and in that field he was a dead loss he was a larger than life quite extraordinary figure with affected manners long beautiful curls extraordinary dress and a foppish extravagance of style which jarred with the kind of people you need to win over to win a tory seat in metropolitan london which is what he was trying to do used to dress in the most sort of outlandish way bottle green velvet suits with white set in linings and rings and he always had his hair which he was absolutely obsessed by in sort of dark ringlets so it wasn't a very serious looking figure and i think generally the impression was that he wasn't trustworthy and also again there was the jewish factor he did not have the web of connections that all the other politicians had and that of course was a great disadvantage so it was a struggle for him the israeli had a clear problem he just couldn't get a parliamentary seat and he realized finally that to succeed he would need to find a powerful backer and he found one his name was lord lindhurst a prominent member of sir robert peale's conservative government that government by the way also included william gladstone well lindhurst and israeli had something of a special bond because they'd both been having an affair with the same woman and lindis decided to give the israelis political career a bit of a kickstart by holding a grand dinner in his honor on the 17th of january 1835 and it turned out to be quite an event the dinner party was held with the aim of introducing israeli to well-known movers and shakers on the political scene and it performed this function very well it's one of the reasons we remember it today much more important though is the fact that this is the first occasion on which he and gladstone are known to have met and right from the start significantly they did not hit it off it's interesting that this really was an immediate dislike disraeli said after the dinner party that the company there had been dull the best company had in fact been the swan stuffed with truffles gladstone's judgment in many ways was even more damning when he goes home that night he actually writes in his diary that's been to this dinner but israeli actually doesn't even merit and mention the mutual indifference that revealed itself that night would in time mature into hatred but before it did both men reached an important milestone in their personal lives within a few years of each other they both got married each linked up with a woman to whom he'd remain wed until separated by death gladstone's wedding came first and it surprised many of his friends who despaired of him ever finding a partner gladstone famously struggled to get married one of his early attempts was so appalled when she saw him stomping towards the house that she said mamar i simply can't marry a man who carries his bag like that finally he meets a woman called catherine glynn who in many ways is mad as a hatter but who provides the stability gladstone needs she'd failed in her own recent marital arrangements and so she was in danger of being left on the shelf and that was the biggest motive that she had in the end for agreeing to him people at the time said you know it's going to be a interesting relationship but it worked well in the end disraeli's marriage to a wealthy heiress called marianne lewis also aroused doubts among those who knew the bride and groom well but it proved to be a very good match israeli married for money but he very quickly realized that in fact he would have married marianne for love there's one famous occasion when uh disraeli returns late from a a debate in the house of commons to find marianne sitting up waiting for him it's about three o'clock in the morning there she is with a fortnum and mason pork pie and a bottle of champagne and israeli exclaims my dear you're more like a mistress than a wife it was a terrific marriage um they were very very close it was genuinely thought that he was faithful to her and i think he probably was that didn't stop him you know thinking other women were beautiful flirting with them etc but he they were really a partnership for more than 30 years mr and mrs disraeli or lord and lady beaconsfield as they eventually became live together in great happiness in the splendid surroundings of hyundai manor in buckinghamshire the house symbolizes disraeli's desire to be seen as an honorary member of the british aristocracy a group of people whose way of life he admired and whose approval he sought throughout his life when israeli and his wife moved into this magnificent new home in 1848 his career had already taken off he was thought of as a future conservative prime minister and what a difference to his prospects nine years earlier when they got married because at that time his chances of reaching the top were very remote israeli's career in the house of commons got off to a truly terrible start in december 1837 when he made his famously dreadful parliamentary debut his maiden speech was an absolute disaster he didn't catch the mood of the house of commons the tone of it at all he delivered sort of terrifically theatrical oration and people booed and jared most young politicians are arrogant but few could have gone quite so over the top when making the maiden speech he he it was elaborative manner apparently grand eloquent laying about him as if he was an elder statesman on the moment of his arrival and people fell about laughing he wasn't just booed or disagreed with people thought the whole thing was hilarious he realized eventually that this disaster was growing worse and he he wound up with the famous uh phrase i shall sit down now but you will listen to me hereafter this is very much a humiliation a real setback for disraeli but he does learn an important lesson from it his speeches in the house of commons from this period on are much quieter more reserved he also starts to dress in a more sober kind of way he realizes that if he's going to be taken seriously as a politician he needs to look the part the israeli's recovery was incredibly swift within a couple of years he'd established himself as one of the real rising stars of robert peels conservatives and when peele took office for a second time as prime minister in 1841 the israeli just waited for that offer of a government job to come through the offer never came and israeli took it very personally so personally that his mind turned to revenge what israeli decided to do was to place himself at the head of a famous backbench revolt it revolved around sir robert peale's determination to do away with the corn laws the well-established rules which artificially boosted the price of foreign wheat the whole point of the corn laws was to protect the british farmer and landowner many of whom of course were tory mps because by putting a tax on imported wheat or corn this home-grown product became much more competitive and that was the trick but for peel this was frankly a denial of the principles of free trade and he decided that the corn laws would simply have to go peel knew that many of his own backbenchers would bitterly oppose his plan because of course it threatened to reduce their incomes he thought he could push it through anyway because he had the support of most of his government colleagues including gladstone his calculation could have proved correct but it didn't thanks largely to disraeli the fact is that israeli wasn't that exercised about the corn laws he almost certainly thought that getting rid of them was a good idea he was far more exercised about making trouble for peel he wanted to punish him he saw the chance to lead a revolt and that's exactly what he did but he could never have foreseen the results because party politics was thrown into chaos for the next 20 years the sheer ferocity of the israeli's assault on peel took everyone by surprise he subjected the prime minister's policy to a series of brilliantly argued attacks in the commons they had a devastating effect there was not an articulate spokesman in the comments who could take on the great politician of the day the founder of the conservative party in my opinion robert peel apart from israeli who brutally and brilliantly took on the finest politician of his age and completely destroyed him in the end peele did get his way over the corn laws but israelis campaign against him had weakened his authority so much that he resigned as prime minister and as leader of the tory party peel's resignation caused a bit of an earthquake because he didn't just resigned as conservative leader he left the party altogether and he took most of the front bench with him including william gladstone and they formed a new group they were known as the p lights and it all left the tories in a bit of a mess no leader no sense of direction and the big question what would it all mean for benjamin disraeli on the face of it the israelis prospects didn't look that good after all he'd attacked the leader of his own party the prime minister and tories have consistently taken a dim view of that kind of thing let's face it will history regard as a giant test of a politician hesseltine a formidable politician brought her down and the reason michael hesseltine never became prime minister was that the assassin could not take over the crowd the one person they would not vote for even the ones who voted to remove margaret was michael because he played too great a part in her downfall now you can argue about what michael's role really was it margaret's downfall she brought her own downfall about in my opinion uh but what any role he played was minute compared with israeli's public destruction of the political reputation and debating skills of sir robert peel but israeli had an advantage which later tory rebels haven't had his party badly needed a set of skills which only he possessed all of the really good talent including gladstone left with robert peel so the conservative party that's left uh other than israeli is very much the back woodsman they're not particularly bright they're not good orators now this puts the new leader of the conservative party the earl of derby in a very tricky position he doesn't like disraeli finds him something of an upstart but he recognizes that he's the only conservative mp of any merit at all he may have been a complete misfit surrounded by the aristocracy and landed gentry but he was twice as bright as any of them and they all realized he was the only man that could possibly lead their cause toppling peel brought israeli huge rewards he became the conservative leader in the house of commons and he had every reason to be pleased with himself but the events leading up to his great advance had wounded him too they had earned him the lasting hatred of many influential people most notably william gladstone when israelis destroyed peel gladstone was shocked went with peel and became a p light hating the israeli ever thereafter for that alone i think at one point the conservatives tried to have been gladstone back they were always trying to get gladstone to come back and trying to get the bee lights to come back gladstone wouldn't come back because he hated israeli in time gladstone's feelings about israeli would surface explosively but before they'd had a chance to do so the future liberal leader made the first in a long series of withdrawals from frontline politics despite becoming the member of parliament for his beloved city of oxford in 1847 he didn't spend much time over the next few years in the house of commons he remained instead within the walls of hardin castle the country house in flincher which had become his family home after his marriage to catherine glynn unlike hewind and manor disraeli's home this house is still occupied today by descendants of the great man who once owned it and parts of it have hardly changed since gladstone's day a fact i discovered when his great grandson showed me around when he came to live at hardin his bachelor bro her brother-in-law was still in residence was the square of the place and weg and his large family came into residence and he said the one thing i've got to have is my own library so he built the song and of course he lived and worked in here whenever he was out of office for years and years and did he call it his library he called it his temple of peace and it became the temple of peace and that's what it still is today it seems perfectly preserved it it feels very victorian and it smells quite victorian too well it is yes it is a unique political shrine lots look at this lots of interesting things this image yes um well he was a great family man he's there with his seven surviving children and uh they're the wives or husbands of the ones who are married and his grandchildren and he's obviously quite no man there would he was he still prime minister then just about yes judging from the age of my father just about still prime minister in his in his 80s and i think the most shocking thing is that his arch enemy is staring down here now what on earth is israeli doing in here well the most extraordinary thing it's absolutely no explanation of it except perhaps one must know what is going on in the mind of one's opponent constant reminder yes now with lots of desks i mean this desk is yes used for what well the theory is this was used for recreation and that included all his homeric studies and um his theology was was written at this desk and i mean there was a time for instance when he was out of office when he'd be at harden for for many weeks throughout the summer and as one can find from his diary hour after hour day after day was devoted to the study of homer and this year this was his desk for work this is where he wrote uh all his political letters in fact it's a wonderful desk to show children and ask them what now what do you think this could be you see there's the pen wiper over there sealing wax quill pens and so on and i mean in a draw even here we've got his air trunk imagine the uh how fierce it must have been in harden parish church when he was in the front pew listening to every word you speak gosh that is remarkable and um and still looking good and still pretty functional and i love this image yes of a of a very old man actually doesn't he but he's hard at work still yes it shows that even in his upper 80s he was still meticulous in the way he went about his work peering at that the page at this desk actually at that desk gladstone would go on living at hardin castle until the day he died and he always hated having to leave it to go back to westminster but in 1852 he returned there at great speed word had reached him that the tories had sneaked back into power and that the new prime minister lord darby had named benjamin disraeli as his chancellor of the exchequer now that happened to hit that's very much because gladstone desperately himself wanted to become chancellor of the exchequer to seek israeli in that post for gladstone became a kind of a front a kind of provocation well to be fair to israeli he knew he wasn't the best qualified man to be chancellor of the exchequer he was up to his neck in debt he wasn't exactly a model of financial propriety and that's probably the reason gladstone was so appalled at his appointment but israeli did admit his shortcomings to the new prime minister lord darby who gave him the classic response don't worry old chap they'll give you all the figures well as the israeli found out it's not quite that simple he had succeeded to one of the highest offices of state an extraordinary feat for a man of his background but he was totally out of his depth and he knew it the closer he came to delivering his first budget speech the thing on which every new chancellor is judged the more anxious he became and not without reason but israelis knew nothing at all about the treasury or public finances he wasn't remotely interested in the subject he made a bizarre choice of revenues he was going to raise sources of taxation and actually targeted uh the poor the poorer householders sections of the urban middle class uh who were quite essential to the conservative party and he was destroyed his budget was finally polished off by a brilliant speech by a man called gladstone gladstone's attack on disraeli's first budget marks a turning point in their relationship their private feud was about to go public in a big way this is in the new house of commons it's literally just been opened so it's very much an event in uh in itself uh but it's also a very dramatic uh occasion because of the weather there's a fierce thunderstorm raging outside so the throughout the uh debate there's a kind of cacophonous booming of thunder and uh shafts of lightning coming through the windows creating this very dramatic scene delivers a wonderful speech uh it's very funny uh it appeals to the back benchers he says that he wasn't born a chancellor of the exchequer that he's he's just one of the parliamentary rabble which really gets the back benchers on his side he attacks uh important members of the opposition uh putting him up for ridicule so it's a very skillful speech and israeli sits down to huge cheers but during the cheers william gladstone pushes his way forward to the opposition dispatch box and starts speaking the house of commons erupted in the protest you know this silly man wanting to sort of carry on the debate and so forth but gladstone got through he forced himself on the house of commons and delivered this huge oration saying that israeli was the agent of magicians and evil essentially and by the time that gladstone has finished it is clear that he has in effect destroyed disraeli's budget after gladstone's speech the house divides the government loses the vote and very quickly thereafter resigns the defeat of israeli's budget set in motion a sequence of events which kept the gentleman's clubs of belgravia abuzz with discussion for weeks lord darby's government had fallen and a new government took power one made up of whigs radicals and p lights the three groups that would soon merge to form the liberal party and who should emerge as chancellor of the exchequer in this new administration well the man who just brought down the previous chancellor it was of course william gladstone gladstone was a very happy man a few days after his budget triumph he was here at the carlton club relaxing in the newspaper room reflecting on how well things had gone no doubt congratulating himself on his big achievement when suddenly he had a very nasty confrontation without warning the door burst open and a group of tory mps came rushing in they'd heard that gladstone was in the building and they wanted to teach him a lesson and they pushed him around and jostled him a bit they even tried to throw him out of the window onto the street below well he just about got away unharmed but as you can imagine he was pretty shaken and he'd have been even more shaken if he'd known how hated he'd become in the eyes of benjamin disraeli the corn law's affair had started the two men's feud now the budget day clash had given it real force no one knew it at the time but all their future dealings would be characterized by mutual suspicion and disdain political differences had played an important part in starting the feud and they'd continue to play a role in keeping it alive but character differences were clearly crucial as well they could not have been more different personalities israeli this exotic jewish novelist politician and gladstone from this liverpool trading family very very different the israelis cynicism and this lighthearted approach to things and to issues and this also um readiness to show off in in all possible ways were deeply annoying to gladstone and of course glaston also incensed and annoyed the israeli there's a famous example of someone saying he didn't mind gladstone behaving as if he had a card tucked up his sleeve he resented the implication that god had put it there well god did everything for gladstone gladstone and god were a partnership and i think prophet israeli found that very difficult to swallow soon after the great budget showdown the relationship between the two rivals suffered another sharp dip the cause was a fierce dispute about of all things furniture in the first half of the 19th century there was a tradition that the chancellor moving in here to number 11 downing street would pay his predecessor quite a big sum of money to cover the costs of tables and chairs and other furnishings that the chancellor would use and that is certainly what israeli did when he moved in here in february 1852 and naturally he expected gladstone to honor that tradition when he moved in here some 10 months later well gladstone was having none of it and he told israeli that if he had a problem he should write to the office of public works to complain needless to say the israeli was appalled but he soon got his revenge disraeli punished gladstone for what he done by depriving him of this splendid garment the ceremonial robe of the chancellor of the exchequer the robe had been worn by one of gladstone's political heroes the long dead william pitt and he was looking forward to wearing it himself but he never got the chance infuriated by the furniture row disraeli had taken the robe home with him to heunden where it remains to this day the israeli's decision to hold on to this robe was certainly an act of spite he wanted to teach gladstone a good lesson but there is another sense he wasn't just wanting to hang on to the garment he wanted to hang on to the job itself he was very keen to be a successful chancellor and he failed and what he was now dreading was seeing gladstone of all people excelling in that role and before long the very thing he dreaded came to pass glaston who was without doubt the great chance of the exchequer that we've had created a pattern which is recognizedly there in the office of the chancellor fix checker ever after the first modern budgets were gladstones the first really professional systematic approach to running a treasury he wasn't a great tax and spend chancellor indeed his taxation policy was normally either just to cover the necessary expense expansion government or to guide people's behavior but i think he had the solidity what we knew she called bottom widely seen by now as a highly capable politician gladstone was clearly heading for the top but his career soon hit a very sticky patch in the early 1850s his rise to the top was thrown into doubt by widespread public discussion of his dubious dealings with prostitutes nocturnal rambles through the red light districts of central london ostensibly aimed at rescuing fallen women had become a regular feature of his life a position they would retain until he was forced to abandon them in old age most of his contemporaries seem to have had no difficulty in seeing these moonlit walks as innocent even praiseworthy expeditions but for many people today they do look rather different he never had concealed that the big criterion for him was beauty that was what he went for beautiful young women and what exactly he did with these women is a matter of some mystery so what on earth was gladstone up to on those night nighttime visits of his were they missions of christian charity or were they rather different kinds of missionary activity truth is we'll never know but one event which happened here in panton street near piccadilly circus in may of 1853 does give us a clue because one night an unemployed man called wilson spotted gladstone in this street talking to a prostitute and he threatened to go to the newspapers unless gladstone got him a job well gladstone didn't panic in fact he had the man arrested and charged with blackmail and he didn't seem to mind that all of this would probably lead to a very public and very embarrassing trial that trial took place at the old bailey in june 1853 wilson the man who'd approached gladstone in the street was convicted of trying to blackmail him and sentenced to 12 months hard labor intriguingly gladstone got that sentence reduced was that because of guilt we just don't know what we can say with absolute certainty is that if the trial had taken place in modern times it is unthinkable that the affair would have ended with wilson's prison sentence the trial had revealed well let's be polite that there was very questionable behavior on gladstone's part if the trial are taking place today gladstone wouldn't have survived but in those days respectable public men were given the benefit of the doubt and that was gladstone's good luck in the wake of the wilson trial gladstone made another of his withdrawals from political life he went back to harden castle where he devoted his time to studying ancient history and chopping down trees a pastime that would bring him lots of satisfaction for the rest of his life and there again is the difference between israeli and gladstone israeli loved planting trees and glaston had this absolute passion for cutting them down everyone knew that sooner or later something would reawaken his interest in the wider world few people can have guessed though what that something would turn out to be in the summer of 1858 british politicians became very concerned about what was happening on the mediterranean island of corfu the island was governed by britain at that time something many of its inhabitants were unhappy about to say the least they wanted their homeland to be part of greece and violence had occurred as a result along with a small number of deaths the british high commissioner who occupied this imposing palace had failed to sort things out and so a decision was taken back in london to dispatch an official emissary to the island someone whose job it would be to review its system of government and sort out the unrest here in corfu as you can imagine there was a huge amount of gossip about who would be appointed to look into the island's affairs everyone assumed it would be some kind of senior civil servant or worthy diplomat well they were wrong on the 24th of november 1858 the great british warship terrible docked here it was a lovely sunny day like today who should emerge on the deck none other than william gladstone and the question on everyone's lips was what on earth is he doing here well the answer it seems is to fill up the cv see hither two he'd been in the treasury he'd govern money he'd govern taxes and all that kind of thing he had this urge to govern men he wanted to govern men and he had this little chance to go out to corfu and take over and you know put the coffee people right it was a kind of lull in his life he was getting nowhere politically he was frustrated he was a big chance a bit of an adventure right from the start things started going disastrously wrong gadsden made a fool of himself the moment he arrived by making it clear that he had no idea how to inspect a guard of honor and then he offended the commander of the local garrison so badly that the man refused to invite him to dinner and that was just the start what the future prime minister went on to do over the next few months marks the corfu period out as one of the most ill-judged episodes in his career when gladstone stepped into this magnificent palace the home of the high commissioner in corfu he was stepping into a trap he just couldn't see it he'd fallen in love with his surroundings and frankly you can't blame him and he'd written to the queen and said your majesty i'm the man to sort out corfu get rid of that high commissioner put me in his place and within weeks her majesty had agreed gladstone settled in and he was very happy back home his great enemy benjamin disraeli wasn't happy he was ecstatic without alerting gladstone to the fact the israeli had secretly engineered the entire kofu mission he got a friend of his a government minister called edward bulwarlitton to dangle the job under gladstone's nose in a none too subtle attempt to lure him away from the real center of power he hadn't expected the plan to work but it certainly had although gladstone was in many ways a great statesman most historians and and his contemporaries would agree that he was a pretty poor politician his political skills and particularly seeing traps were not particularly good and this is a good example of something that a more machiavellian politician probably would have spotted and been able to avoid i think it's very difficult to imagine disraeli falling for such an obvious trap the best thing about the situation from the israeli's point of view was that by agreeing to become the new high commissioner gladstone had sacrificed his parliamentary seat when this was pointed out to him he finally saw what a foolish mistake he'd made and he struggled to get himself out of the mess it wasn't easy if the queen asks you to do something you put yourself in a very difficult position if you say well actually your majesty i think i'd prefer not to do that but uh that's exactly the position that gladstone had put himself into and it's only through the intervention of one of his great mentors lord aberdeen who smooths things over with queen victoria that gladstone manages to get back to london and get himself re-elected as an mp gladstone's political career was almost derailed by his little adventure in corfu and everyone here at the palace of westminster knew it his old boss lord aberdeen agreed that he'd come very close to political disaster and then he paused and he said ah but he's great on the rebound and so he was what gladstone managed to do during the early 1860s was to establish himself as the great defender of quote ordinary people as chancellor of the exchequer in palmerston's liberal government he endeared himself to the inhabitants of the sprawling suburbs that had sprung up around britain's major cities gaining himself a telling nickname the people's william gladstone becomes the people's william first because he reduces all kinds of taxes on imports and in particular the impact of this is to make bread much cheaper so he becomes the champion of the people's breakfast table if you like and he also scraps the duty on newspapers usually referred to as the tax on knowledge so through these two ways gladstone appeals to a new audience tickets please sir hi there hey that's [ __ ] doing okay thank you sir all right and when are we in manchester we're getting manchester 12 24. thank you very much okay to cement his hold on his new following gladstone embarked on a kind of round britain tour he traveled by train to most of the country's biggest cities where he addressed the series of public meetings the likes of which britain had never seen before in modern day present day terms these meetings were something between a rock concert and one of the audiences of the pope people who come reverently to listen to him and it was like a religious occasion thousands of people would pack in to hear him he would address them without a microphone for an hour an hour and a half and galvanize an audience now that was unknown in british politics and it was then that people started getting really worried about him because it looked like demagogy it looked like deliberate populism in one sense it was but it had nothing to do with danced and following public opinion public opinion would follow him that was always the line what the crowds of people who came to see gladstone wanted to hear above all else was a commitment to change the voting system it's worth underlining once again that those working class and middle class people still didn't have the vote and understandably they thought things should change well rather sadly for them unsurprisingly for us today gladstone didn't entirely agree with him we're thinking of the vote at this point in time not as a right but as a as a public office it's a something a duty to perform something like being a member of a jury glaston was looking for this um moral capacity to stand up in in the public sphere cast your vote for the common good and he didn't think these people were actually ready for it of course democracy was a dirty word anyway for both conservatives and liberals at this stage democracy was something happening in america and very disruptive they had a civil war as a consequence of democracy over there but in 1864 gladstone had a famous change of heart he didn't become a true democrat overnight but he did decide that a modest increase in the number of people entitled to vote was something to which he could lend his support when word got out that gladstone had changed his mind on the voting system well it caused a sensation throughout britain and here in manchester one of britain's biggest working-class cities the reaction was no less pronounced thousands of workers were begging gladstone the people's williams they called him to declare finally and clearly that he was in favor of a change in the voting system and when he did they were overjoyed eighteen months later having been kicked out of his oxford seat in the meantime because of his support for electoral reform gladstone decided to capitalize on his popularity in manchester by attempting to become the mp for south lancashire to improve his chances of winning the seat he addressed an enormous public meeting yes okay i'll just check the availability for you it took place inside the free trade hall the remains of which now form part of a luxury hotel well it's difficult to believe but this used to be the site of one of the greatest public forums in britain we still have a few telltale signs on the walls and over the years there were dozens of brilliant speeches delivered at the free trade hall but none would have had the impact of the one delivered by gladstone in 1865. if you can believe it 6 000 people turned up on a very hot night in july to listen to him make his case for becoming the member of parliament for south lancashire right from the start he electrified the audience he said at last dear friends i am come amongst you then a slight pause and i am come unmuzzled well the implication was very clear for everyone in the hall he turned his back on the voters of oxford he was now a free man free to deliver the change to the voting system that everyone wanted accomplishing this change was the goal that gladstone now set himself it proved no easy task in 1866 after winning the south lancashire seat and becoming leader of the commons in a new liberal government he brought forward a bill designed to bring it about but it ran into trouble right away totally unacceptable to many liberal mps as well as most tories it provoked furious opposition inside the house disraeli or dizzy as some people were now calling him attacked the bill with all the eloquence at his command within months he and his supporters had destroyed it the defeat of gladstone's reform bill turned everything upside down the liberal government resigned the conservatives were back in power and it's interesting to note that as he left office the liberal prime minister lord russell predicted that the tories might well try out a reform bill of their own with us he put it a little bit of disease elixir thrown in gladstone thought that russell was talking absolute nonsense but gladstone was wrong in 1867 just as lord russell had predicted the earl of derby's conservative government with disraeli at its heart unveiled a new reform bill one that was noticeably more radical than gladstone's bill of the year before the move is widely considered to be a master stroke by disraeli but what was it all about well i think it was about israeli hauling the tory party into the modern age and i think he described it as pulling a omnibus of country gentleman up a hill and i think he thought that reform was absolutely inevitable and that the tory party could never succeed unless they embraced this idea and embrace it they did within a few months the israeli's bill had become law allowing the tories to take sole credit for the biggest democratic advance since the great reform bill of 1832 this development was certainly a setback for gladstone and he didn't take it well he turned his back on westminster again and returned to chopping down trees but in february 1868 politics caught his attention once again what jolted gladstone back to reality was the news from number 10 downing street the prime minister lord darby had been forced to resign because of ill health and the new prime minister at the age of 64 was benjamin disraeli it wasn't quite the way that israeli had hoped to make it to the top but it was a moment of great joy for him and a remarkable achievement we mustn't forget at this stage where disraeli has come from for a jewish man to become prime minister was something that was sensational not just in britain but attracted comment or almost throughout europe if we'd gone back to that dinner party in the 1830s when gladstone and israeli met for the first time gladstone and probably even israeli would have been absolutely astonished if we told them then that israeli would be the first of the two to be prime minister becoming prime minister was obviously the object of his ambition what did he say was that i've reached the top of the greasy pole and so it was a huge achievement for him considering what he'd been through the kind of ridicule and defeat which he'd suffered and was soon to suffer again the israeli's suffering resumed almost immediately for one simple reason he and his party weren't really in control of the house of commons the conservatives were in a minority so anything that the tories wanted to do the liberals were able to vote down gladstone was merciless in the way that he taunted the israeli on this if the israeli had made gladstone's life an absolute misery during the reform bill then gladstone more than reciprocated once israeli became prime minister by making his life as difficult as he possibly could hemmed in by gladstone disraeli was prime minister in name only hugely frustrated by this he called a general election after just 10 months in office he hoped to increase his majority but that's not what happened a little ungratefully perhaps the working-class men to whom israeli had given the vote used their newfound power not to reward him but to reward his archrival when all the votes had been counted it became clear that gladstone by now leader of the liberal party was about to replace his old enemy at number 10. gladstone was staying here at his country estate in north wales when a messenger arrived from the queen what was gladstone doing well he was out in the ground somewhere doing what he normally did chopping down trees with great energy the messenger told him that victoria wanted to see him back in london to talk about forming a government so gladstone paused and said this is very significant and he must have rattled the messenger because he then started chopping down more trees and went on for several minutes and then he stopped and said my mission is to pacify ireland the fact that ireland was in need of pacifying during the 1860s may come as a surprise to some people today but that country was indeed a very troubled place at that time the whole island including the south was ruled by britain and that was a big problem catholic indignation at anglo-protestant rule had to be assuaged and gladstone went out of his way to do that over the next six years he and his ministers brought forward several pieces of legislation aimed at settling irish grievances and they also introduced many other reforms ones which would make life better for the british people as a whole gladstone's first administration really is the greatest of all his administrations there's a real sense of energy and drive and it began what we now think of as mobility what we now think of as meritocracy examination to enter the civil service rather than patronage commissions in the army determined on ability rather than purchase the ancient universe is open to dissenters he began to open up society or think indeed of the great trade union legislation of 1871 again a landmark which in one shape or other they or informed the relationship and the nature of trade unionism in this country until they tabit legislation over a century later in 1982. while gladstone and his ministers pressed on with their reforms disraeli waited patiently hoping they'd run out of steam in april 1872 judging that they had he launched a highly effective attack on them in a speech at gladstone's old stomping ground manchester's free trade hall he delivered a witty speech in which he compared the members of gladstone's cabinet to a range of extinct volcanoes widely hailed in the national press the speech made it plain that israeli was back a few months later inside london's crystal palace he turned the heat up even more by revealing his bold vision of what the tory party's future direction ought to be what israeli was trying to do was to drag the conservative party into a new era of democratic politics that's what his reform act was all about and that was the whole point of his great speech at crystal palace the tory party needed to change now where have we heard that before so top of the agenda from now on would have to be the condition of the people in other words the tories needed to get serious about social reform about the living and working conditions of ordinary britons had been apparent in many of the novels that israeli had written over the years his decision to push the issue now though didn't stem solely or even mainly from a social conscience hard-headed political calculation was the main factor involved there is a new constituency out there that he has to appeal to and that is the working classes by making a pitch to them he's saying the conservative party is not simply about the wealthy the party has your interests at heart too it's a sign of how acute he was about recognizing the tide and the way in which things were moving only israeli could see that the newly enfranchised urban poor could be induced to vote conservative and only he could make them do it and make them do it he certainly did working-class voters defected to the tories in droves at the election of 1874 propelling the israeli into 10 downing street for the second time the opportunity came at a difficult time for him his wife had just died plunging him into gloom but he didn't let this put him off his stride over the next few years with the help of his ministers he introduced a wide range of timely and important reforms aimed at making life easier for working-class people there was a whole lot of social reforming legislation and a huge advances in public health reforms which you now relate regardless absolutely basic to ensure the fundamentals of life for people working in a mass production uh industrialized urban society he didn't have a hands-on connection with it i mean it was his ministers who did it but it was all in line with what he'd been saying even the orange obviously could be found in his most famous novels social reform was certainly at the heart of disraeli's second administration but it wasn't the only theme he was also busy boosting the british empire he seized control of the suez canal from the french and he cemented his famously good relationship with the queen by giving victoria the title of queen empress so by the start of 1876 all of these combined to make the israeli the clear favorite to win the next election but in april of that year something happened which changed the entire picture the event in question was in fact a series of atrocities which occurred in a part of the far-flung ottoman empire centered on the turkish city which we call istanbul that empire had spread out over the years to embrace a large part of north africa and much of eastern europe in april 1876 a nationalist revolt broke out in bulgaria one of the most volatile ottoman territories the empire's rulers responded by unleashing massive force thugish irregular troops known as bashi bazooks poured into the country and there was an orgy of violence some fifteen thousand people are thought to have been killed when news of this reached britain israeli reacted in a way which left many of his admirers angry and confused what israeli did was to misjudge the public mood and to misjudge it very badly the newspaper reports about the bulgarian atrocities had caused april here in britain and yet he dismissed them as coffeehouse gossip he seemed to be questioning whether the atrocities had taken place at all it was a monumental error and of course a gift to his main opponent gladstone had stepped down as leader of the liberal party by this stage and gone into semi-retirement he decided to refrain from making grand public gestures but israeli's response to the bulgarian crisis changed all that israeli took the view which cynical men have taken ever since and were taken before and will go on taking that foreign policy was a matter of maximizing britain's national interests gladstone believed in moral foreign policy a principle foreign policy and therefore whether it was in our interest to support the turks against the greeks or the greeks against the turks didn't really matter to him what mattered to him were the people he thought ought to be defended equally appalled by what the turks had done and by disraeli's dismissive response gladstone wrote an angry pamphlet denouncing them and him with equal venom hugely influential at the time it's widely seen today as one of the most effective political tracts any british politician has ever written and this is it it's called bulgarian horrors and the question of the east it's a pamphlet written in just four days by gladstone in the summer of 1876 and it is a blistering attack not just on the turks but on disraeli he mentions the massacre of women and children and then goes on to accused israeli of lethargy and tardiness and inefficiency and goes on to say this silence was obtained and the well-oiled machinery of our luxurious indifferent life worked smoothly on it was published in early september within a month it had sold 200 000 copies it was a sensation and as you can imagine disraeli wasn't exactly pleased what israeli wanted of course was a chance to get even and it soon came his way in april 1877 war broke out in the balkans the russians had used the bulgarian atrocities as a pretext for invading ottoman controlled territory something they've been longing to do for years the fighting went the russians way and all of a sudden it looked as though the ottoman empire might actually collapse the russians quite simply had to be stopped because if they managed to crush the ottoman empire well britain's position in the world would be immeasurably damaged so the israeli now faced his greatest challenge on the world stage and it came to a head here in berlin in 1878 the israeli had bullied and threatened the russians into coming to the conference table and what followed was one of the greatest diplomatic showdowns of the 19th century chosen because of its status as neutral territory at the heart of europe berlin became the setting for what was in effect the first global summit known to historians as the congress of berlin the summit determined the shape of europe right up until the first world war it was a glittering and high-powered affair attended by the representatives of many different countries but there's no doubt at all about who was the most important person there the great german diplomat prince otto von bismarck gave the game away when he pointed across the room and said to an advisor de alta yoda the old jew he's the man he was referring of course to disraeli who was 74 he was getting on a bit but he was the central figure at this congress everything revolved around him and he protected britain's interests at every turn israeli was able to exert mastery over the congress of berlin not only because he represented the world's most powerful empire but also because he possessed a stunning array of diplomatic skills the most important of these was the technique known as brinkmanship his talent in that area was vividly demonstrated halfway through the congress when the russians succeeded in bringing it to the verge of collapse the israeli's most effective weapon against the russians turned out to be a train the russians had already agreed to partition bulgaria in a certain way then they changed their minds and wanted more land and some of the leaders were happy to go along with it the israeli certainly wasn't so he summoned a special train and threatened the russians that unless they kept to their word he would get on the train go back to london and declare war well it didn't take long for the russians to climb down and the special train for the israeli wasn't needed after all this kind of hutzpah had been a hallmark of the israeli's entire career and it now supplied him with stupendous success as he traveled back to london at the end of the congress not to declare war but to resume his normal duties he must have known that he was likely to get an appreciative reception when he returned to britain but he can't have guessed just how warm his welcome would be israeli returns from berlin in triumph there's a procession through the streets of london he when he gets back to downing street huge crowds are waiting there to receive him his popularity was sky high having been the helpless object of his great rival scorn just 18 months previously the israeli was now back on top gladstone meanwhile was little more than a quietly seething presence on the edge of the political stage it looked for all the world as though their great competition had resolved itself in disraeli's favor once and for all but their 40-year long drama wasn't over yet the balance of power in their relationship would shift yet again within a short space of time thanks to gladstone's extraordinary ability to judge and influence the public mood had been keeping a bit of a low profile since the start of the balkan's war which isn't surprising because his house had been attacked by an angry mob accusing him of being a pacifist and a traitor well now everything had changed because the israeli had come back from berlin in triumph and gladstone was disgusted with what he thought was israelis belligerent performance on the world stage so he decided to enter the fray once again and the best way of doing that was to hit the campaign trail gladstone who was given to a bit of seat swapping had been the member of parliament for greenwich in london since 1868 now though he set out to capture a new constituency midlothian the part of scotland that centered on edinburgh even before he arrived in that city at the start of his campaign his attempt to win the seat caused quite a stir as was his want he travelled north by train at every stop along the way he spoke to large crowds who lapped up the attacks he made on israeli and all his works all of this was quite a splash for someone who wasn't even a party leader but it was dwarfed by the impact he was about to have in midlothian itself what happened here in the great city of edinburgh in november 1879 is still a cause for wonder because when gladstone arrived at waverly station down there he couldn't even get off the train there was an immense crowd gathered to greet him and when he did get out there was a torchlight procession along the streets of the city as his campaign got underway over the course of the next fortnight he would address countless meetings attended by more than 80 000 people and he didn't waste a single opportunity to hammer israeli and his pestilence policies well the crowds couldn't get enough and i think it's fair to say that the midlothian campaign changed the character of british politics until then a politician had not been expected to discuss or to debate policy with ordinary electors let alone be non-electors including women and here you have gladstone summoning the nation to discuss and to debate the pros and cons of the government of course he's not just speaking to those who hear his speeches all of those campaign speeches are reported in the newspapers so really in many ways this is the first national campaign run by a politician who very self-consciously is setting himself up as a national leader speaking to a national audience gladstone was really enjoying himself by now no longer bent on retirement he wanted to push the israeli aside and reclaim his place as leader of the nation and pretty soon a string of events greatly improved his chances of doing that 1879 sees the worst economic indicators for britain for almost a century it's the worst harvest for a hundred years agriculture goes into crisis unemployment is rampant and then added to this during this period after berlin the israelis great strength foreign affairs he suddenly seems to lose his magic touch there's a humiliating defeat at the hands of the zulus at isandawana there's similarly massive disappointment in afghanistan and although both of these reverses are very quickly turned around they definitely have an impact on the way in which disraeli is seen sensing that his old rival was on the ropes gladstone increased the pressure he was under by launching a second midlothian campaign the result was devastating the israeli or the earl of beaconsfield as he now was found that his huge popularity had evaporated he was now spoken of as a lame duck the country was quite depressed and there was quite a lot of hardship around and people therefore were not feeling very happy under the government of the day and a brilliant populist campaigner on a fairly fraudulent campaign swept the country away glenson had huge oratorical capabilities enormous energy much more energy than israeli had and he had this capacity for sensing the public mood far more than the israeli did and within two years the british people had forgotten about what israeli had achieved at the congress rebellion they weren't interested in foreign politics to that degree anymore and gladstone just swept israeli aside gladstone's barnstorming handed the liberals an easy victory in the election of 1880. he was reinstated as the party's leader at the insistence of fellow mps and embarked on a second term as prime minister this turn of events appalled queen victoria who famously accused gladstone of addressing her as though she were a public meeting but the person most seriously affected was of course disraeli the experience of being ejected from downing street for a second time by his oldest and bitterest enemy seems to have deprived israeli of the will to live in march 1881 a year after the election he caught a chill it developed into bronchitis and within a month he was dead the israeli's final act was to make quite clear that he did not want a state funeral like the duke of wellington or something he wanted to be buried like the english country gentleman he always wanted to be a private funeral at his country stayed at hewindon and this gladstone thought was the final disgraceful sham on israeli's part he didn't believe it he thought this was a real kind of footage even at the moment of disraeli's death gladstone simply couldn't suppress his feelings he refused to attend the funeral which took place here at israeli's local church at hewindon on the 26th of april 1881 and he made one final bitter reference in his diary and said as he lived so he died all display without reality of genuineness not a widely held view and certainly the queen would have disagreed because victoria had this memorial placed in the church it is the only memorial to a commoner ever erected by a reigning british monarch and by the way it's more than gladstone ever got once the israeli's funeral was out of the way gladstone got on with the job of running britain and on one level at least it was easier than before gladstone was in a sense emancipated from you know disraeli's being there being a rival there's no more he had no rival left really after that not up to handling this gigantic popular figure with no politicians of comparable stature anywhere in sight gladstone went on to dominate british politics for another decade and a half he served two more terms as prime minister and remained a commanding presence in the commons until he chose to retire at the age of 85. throughout this long finale to his amazing career he was routinely referred to as the grand old man but many people nowadays feel that his command of events was never as complete after disraeli's death as it had been while he was alive the basic truth about gladstone and israeli is that they depended on each other they sustained each other and the israelis memorial service here at westminster abbey which by the way gladstone could be bothered to attend the dean of westminster called them the great twin brothers of british politics and as you can imagine gladstone's blood pressure went through the roof but the dean was right gladstone and israeli sparked off each other and british politics was much richer for it this was a unique double act that lasted 40 years and it's a fair bet that we'll never see anything like it ever again vintage shell guides have us touring britain the classic motorist way next on bbc4 it was epic it was riotous and it was unrestrained

Channel: The History Room

Views: 564,986

Keywords: William Ewart Gladstone (Politician), Benjamin Disraeli (Politician), Conservative Party (Political Party), Bulgarian atrocities, Liberal Party, Queen Victoria (Monarch), British Empire (Interest), yt:quality=high, yt:stretch=16:9

Id: dZwBIY-o_cQ

Length: 87min 32sec (5252 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 14 2015