115. Who? Who? and a Great Show

115. Who? Who? and a Great Show

It was time for Disraeli to break through. Not yet to the top job: that, as Melbourne had predicted years before, would go to Stanley, now known as Derby. But Disraeli would land a big job in government, that of Chancellor of the Exchequer. Not an easy job for a man who was no financial expert. His major challenge was that he represented a political group opposed to the Repeal of the Corn Laws, just when Britain was at the top of its world leadership in economics, to which that repeal had contributed: the British had created a business environment that could benefit fully from free trade internationally (at least where it suited them). British success would be celebrated in a colossal show, the Great Exhibition, to be attended by millions, many of them taking advantage of the new mobility provided by the railway age. Meanwhile, Disraeli would be set the task of coming up with a budget in keeping with the times, but which would secure the support of people focused on the interests of the one group that had suffered most from the loss of tariff protection, the gentlemen farmers, with good landholdings though not as massive as those of the great noble families. Keeping them loyal mattered, since Derby and Disraeli's wing of the Conservatives was short of support (and of talent) after the business interests had deserted them to go with Peel. Illustration: The British contribution to the Great Exhibition, from Dickinson's Comprehensive Pictures of the Great Exhibition of 1851 (public domain) Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

Jaksot(275)

250. Return of the crisis man

250. Return of the crisis man

When Harold Wilson formed his second government, he immediately faced a major crisis inherited from Heath’s administration: the coalminers were on strike, a state of Emergency (Heath’s fifth in four y...

6 Heinä 202514min

249. Who governs Britain?

249. Who governs Britain?

How did Heath end up calling an election on the question of who governed the country? Especially as the choice he seemed to be offering was between him and the minders. This episode traces the impact ...

5 Heinä 202514min

248. Withered Heath

248. Withered Heath

Ted Heath’s government had to deal with two problems drawn from Britain’s postimperial standing: • adapting to its loss of global status, by negotiating, at the third time of asking and for the first ...

22 Kesä 202514min

247. Hopes dashed

247. Hopes dashed

After talking last week about his government’s achievements in the social sphere, this episode looks at the difficulties Wilson faced in economics and foreign affairs.One way Wilson explored to addres...

15 Kesä 202514min

246. The sixties, swinging - high and low

246. The sixties, swinging - high and low

According to the English poet Philip Larkin, the sixties saw the invention of sexual intercourse. While that may not be quite the case, it was certainly a time when a lot of people decided that it was...

8 Kesä 202514min

245. Pressures preventing progress

245. Pressures preventing progress

The Wilson government got off to a pretty sticky start, with the new Prime Minister learning, more or less as he arrived at Downing Street in October 1964, that the trade deficit for the year was like...

1 Kesä 202514min

244. Harold gets Home

244. Harold gets Home

Here we’re focusing on the changes that took place in Britain after Supermac (Harold Macmillan) stood down as Prime Minister.A lot of how that went depended on the Opposition formed by the Labour Part...

25 Touko 202514min

243. Sex, spies and a slippery slope

243. Sex, spies and a slippery slope

Last time we looked at the continuing disintegration of the British Empire. In this episode we look at two other key aspects of Macmillan’s foreign policy, Britain’s relations with the US and with pot...

18 Touko 202515min

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