Cradle of the system.(The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs. Disraeli)(Book review)

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The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs. Disraeli, by Richard Aldous (Norton, 368 pp., $27.95)

'EVERY boy and every gal / That's born into the world alive / Is either a little Liberal / Or else a little Conservative." The bifurcated world thus summarized in Gilbert and Sullivan's Iolanthe was the creation of two men, Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone. They are the subjects of this engaging and gracefully written book. Why should Americans care about the rivalry between two British politicians who died more than a century ago? Because the events described in this book remind us of an important and timely truth--i.e., that partisan politics, even at its most bitter, usually has little impact on the dull business of running a great power. In fact, the cleverer the politician, the more a great issue--whether it be Irish home rule or the War on Terror-becomes a tool for use instead of a problem to be solved.

Certainly Disraeli and Gladstone were two of the cleverest men ever to enter politics. They were also among the strangest. William Gladstone began as a reactionary Tory, rather as Hillary Clinton started out as a Goldwater girl. His very first political speech was a blast against the Reform Bill of 1832--even though the bill virtually created the Liberal party, of which he would become the greatest leader. Over a nearly 60-year career, Gladstone's deep evangelical Christianity moved him steadily to the progressive Left. He would become prime minister not once but four times--although the more his policies reflected his true convictions, as in the case of home rule for Ireland, the more ineffectual he was in realizing them.

Benjamin Disraeli was a baptized Christian, but barely English in blood. His perfumed, exotic appearance (false rumors floated about that he was homosexual) and his constant references to his Jewish heritage grated on the Tory country squires, who nonetheless followed him four separate times as their leader in the House of Commons. He did not become prime minister with a Conservative majority until he was 69.

Between them, Disraeli and Gladstone created the face of modern politics. Their rivalry played out in the years when England finally ceased to be a nation of broad acres and became one of factory smokestacks, suburbs, and railway stations, while the electorate swelled from barely one in five Englishmen to something within hailing distance of manhood suffrage, together with a secret ballot. In England, by Gladstone's death in 1898 only the male who did not pay for the roof over his head was still left out.

New voters meant a new politics. For the 1868 election against Gladstone, Disraeli set up the Conservative Central Office, with branches around the country, to recruit candidates to stand for office. It told them what issues they were to address, and what to say: the beginning of the modern political party. For the 1880 general election Gladstone ...