Prime Minister, 1874–80

Abstract

Disraeli was in his seventieth year when he formed his second administration. This was certainly an advanced age at which to be entering into untrammelled political power, with a secure parliamentary majority, for the first time, but Disraeli’s position was by no means unique. In fact, there was an obvious recent parallel in the career of Lord Palmerston, who had been a year older than Disraeli when he first became Prime Minister and yet remained in office, with one short break, until his death in 1865 at the age of almost eighty-one. Immediately after the 1874 general election, Markham Spofforth, a former assistant party agent, reported to Disraeli a conversation with the editor of the Morning Post, Algernon Borthwick (a fervent admirer of Palmerston’s), in which Borthwick had expressed the opinion that ‘if you [Disraeli] adopt a Palmerstonian policy you will be Prime Minister for life — and that seems to be the general impression.’¹ Presumably what Borthwick had in mind was that Disraeli should combine a cautious approach to domestic questions, avoiding drastic and unsettling reforms, with a firm conduct of foreign policy designed to uphold Britain’s interests abroad.