A History of England18 Kesä 2023

147. Salisbury, man of his class

Before we return to the sorry tale of British rule in Ireland, this episode looks at some of the many other issues that Lord Salisbury addressed during his second ministry. What emerges is the portrait of a man of his class, moulded by the outlook of the aristocratic landowner, convinced that his peers were the men best positioned to lead without being ‘defiled by the taint of greed’ and therefore able to ensure that England, and by extension Britain, avoided change that was altogether too radical. That’s too radical not just for him but, indeed, for most Brits.

He was a man for whom all change was necessarily change for the worse. And yet, he could read circumstances well enough to know when certain changes were necessary, and ensure, heavy-hearted or not, they were made. One type of change he particularly disliked was modification of principles to suit electoral considerations, but he could make those too.

Indeed, that willingness of his contributed to driving forward the process that would make of the Conservative Party the most effective election-winning machine Britain has ever seen.

Illustration: Lord Salisbury during his second ministry, Harry Furniss, 1891. National Portrait Gallery 3411

Music: Bach Partita #2c by J Bu licensed under an Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives (aka Music Sharing) 3.0 International License.

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(275)

266. A time of dodgy dossiers

When Tony Blair took Britain to war in Iraq in 2003, as part of a US-led and rather limited coalition of nations, it was against the will of large numbers of Brits expressed in possibly the biggest de...

2 Marras 202514min

265. War in a unipolar world

By the latter part of the twentieth century, the world had become unipolar. The Soviet Empire collapsed even more rapidly than the British one had after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. China was not yet...

26 Loka 202514min

264. Ethics, votes and wars

We saw in the last episode, that Britain’s involvement in the NATO intervention in Kosovo could be regarded as part of an ‘ethical foreign policy’, since its objective, many felt, was humanitarian, th...

12 Loka 202514min

263. Tragedy at home, ethics abroad

Divorce, contrary to what many believe, was not permitted by the Church of England. Henry VIII didn’t divorce two wives, he had the marriages annulled, declaring in effect that they’d never happened. ...

5 Loka 202514min

262. Uncool

In the early years of Blair’s premiership, his supporters liked to refer to Britain as ‘Cool Britannia’, in a play on the title of the song ‘Rule Britannia’. Last week, we talked about some of the coo...

28 Syys 202514min

261. Cool Britannia

The Blair government threw itself into action as soon as it was formed.Rather confirming the existence of a deal between them, something they’ve never confirmed, Blair quickly appointed Gordon Brown C...

21 Syys 202514min

260. New Dawn

It was a new dawn. Or at least so Tony Blair said, as he emerged from his landslide victory in the 1997 General Election. It’s what he would say, isn’t it?Still, there was some truth to the claim. It ...

14 Syys 202514min

259. Major error, major success, Major’s out

We’re just about ready to move on from John Major but, before we do, we need to spend a few moments on two major events of his second premiership. One was a significant breakthrough, in Ireland, even ...

7 Syys 202514min