Exploring the conservatism of Benjamin Disraeli | Edward Kendall

This year marks the 175th anniversary of Disraeli’s completion of his trilogy of political novels - Coninsgby (1844), Sybil (1845), and Tancred (1847). It would therefore be remiss for a conservative blog to let this year pass without paying some tribute to the great man himself.

Benjamin Disraeli was born in 1804 in London to a moderately wealthy Jewish-Italian family. He began a legal career as a solicitor and then joined Lincoln’s Inn with a view to practicing at the Bar, but he abandoned this profession to lose money gambling on the stock exchange before launching a newspaper called The Representative which he envisioned as a competitor to The Times.

When this venture failed he began to write novels (partially motivated by a desperate need to pay off his debts). Whilst his novels were well-received, the proceeds were not quite enough to pay off the debts the young dandy was accruing.

For an ambitious young man like Disraeli a political career had an obvious appeal, with the added perk that a member of Parliament could not be imprisoned for debt.

Disraeli entered Parliament as a Tory whilst continuing to write novels on the side. It was during this period that he wrote his most famous political novels, Coningsby and Sybil, wherein he attacked the extreme inequalities and poverty that had been caused by the industrial revolution. He urged for an alliance between the rich and the poor, to be led by a charismatic young politician, to restore the nation’s civic pride.

Like the novels of Charles Dickens, Disraeli’s novels focus largely on what Thomas Carlyle described as “the condition of England question.” That is the great inequality, poor working conditions, and increase in poverty which had arisen as a result of the Industrial Revolution. Disraeli seems to have had a great deal of respect for Carlyle (another key conservative thinker), for during his premiership he persuaded Queen Victoria to bestow a pension upon him.

It is worth pausing here to note the content of these novels, for it is within them that we come closest to finding a formulation of Disraeli’s political philosophy and ideals.

One thing which is striking is his sympathy for the plight of the poor. In Coningsby the eponymous hero declares that conservatism must “secure the happiness of the people'' and in Sybil he declares that power “has only one duty - to secure the social welfare of the PEOPLE.” In the latter novel he also describes England as consisting of two nations, the rich and the poor, “between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy.”

He claimed they were “as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets'' and that they “are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners and are not governed by the same laws.”

Whilst social conditions may have vastly changed since then, alienation between the elites and the toiling masses is something that is still with us today as Paul Embery points out in his book Despised: Why the Modern Left Loathes the Working Class.

In 1868 Disraeli finally climbed to “the top of the greasy pole” (an expression which we owe to the man himself), only to be ousted later that same year in a general election.

Nevertheless, he became Prime Minister again in 1874 and held the premiership until 1880. His premiership was marked by a flurry of social legislation which reflected the political principles which he had espoused in his novels.

These legislative reforms were radical in many ways giving lie to the notion that conservatism is backward-looking and opposed to change. As far as Disraeli was concerned, conservatism and change are compatible so long as the change proposed does not ride roughshod over the cherished traditions and institutions which people so highly value.

He once said, “In a progressive country change is constant; and the great question is not whether you should resist change which is inevitable, but whether that change should be carried out in deference to the manners, the customs, the laws, the traditions of the people, or in deference to abstract principles and arbitrary and general doctrines.” This is the essence of conservatism.

Disraeli saw that there was a natural sympathy between “the Conservative Party and the Radical masses” and confident that “the working classes of England are proud of belonging to a great country” he enfranchised them with the Reform Act of 1867-8. Like Lord Randolph Churchill in later years, he trusted the people. Something that many of our contemporary politicians could also learn to do.

Consequently, Disraeli turned the Conservative Party into the national party - the party of the people and not just the landed classes. He repeatedly said, “The Tory party, unless it is a national party, it is nothing.” He was unashamedly populist too: “The Tory party is only in its proper position when it represents popular principles,” declared Disraeli in 1863. “Then it is truly irresistible.”

He brought both rich and poor into this national party, but in recent years the Conservative Party has lost touch with its roots and followed a liberal metropolitan agenda which has gone down badly with many of its traditional working-class voters.

Populist conservatism has received a lot of bad press in recent years and populist is often used as a slur in politics, but it has been shown to be popular with many voters and not without good reason. There has been a trend in recent decades for the metropolitan elite of both the left and right to be rather condescending towards much of the traditional working-class vote.

Their concerns about mass migration and rapid social change are dismissed as being the product of irrational prejudice, as opposed to rooted in valid concerns about jobs, wages, and social cohesion.

Disraeli was a controversial figure during his time, however, with Lord Salisbury calling him “a mere political gangster without principles or honesty” and Lord Shaftesbury describing him as “a leper with no principles, without feeling, without regard to anything human or divine, beyond his personal ambition.” This was partially due to his brazen ambition, but probably also concealed a hidden (or sometimes not so hidden) antisemetic prejudice against him.

Furthermore, it is worth noting that Disraeli had to fight his way into politics from humbler circumstances than many of his critics, to whom politics was a gentlemanly pursuit and civic duty as opposed to a career. In a sense, Disraeli was Britain’s first career politician (or at least the first to become Prime Minister).

Living as we do during a period where there appears to be a marked gap between the vast body of socially conservative British voters and the metropolitan elite who dominate both major parties, the current Conservative party could do worse than take some lessons from Disraeli.

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