137. Two giants facing off across the Irish Sea
As the end of the parliament elected in 1874 approached, Gladstone confirmed that his re-emergence from retirement hadn’t been a one-off. He was ready to launch himself once more into full-time politi...
9 Apr 202314min
136. Triumph proves transitory
It had all been going so well. The Congress of Berlin had been a huge success, allowing Disraeli (and Salisbury) to bring back peace with honour. Things should have been flowing the Conservatives’ way...
2 Apr 202314min
135. Peace with honour
We start this episode with a Russian army north of Constantinople ready to invade the city, and a British naval squadron in the waters to its south ready – or at least apparently ready – to resist it....
26 Mar 202314min
134. Jingo
Here’s the episode where we learn where the word Jingoism was born. After talking last time about the remarkable achievements on the domestic front of the second Disraeli government with its social re...
19 Mar 202314min
133. Progressive Conservatives
Disraeli’s second government was an administration of progressive conservatism, a strange moment in a general history of the Conservative Party as essentially, well, conservative. Partly that was poli...
12 Mar 202314min
132. The pendulum swings
We've reached the point where the political pendulum has at last swung the Conservative way, giving it a working parliamentary majority for the first time in three decades. Despite all his efforts to ...
5 Mar 202314min
131. Sea change
A sea change took place at the 1874 British general election. The previous year, Gladstone and his government, exhausted by its searing pace of reform, lost a parliamentary vote on what he saw (and ma...
26 Feb 202314min
130. Pacifying Ireland
“My mission is to pacify Ireland,” Gladstone had declared when he took office as Prime Minister. This episode looks briefly at Disraeli’s behaviour as he left power, including the peerage he sought fo...
19 Feb 202314min
