The straight man and the courtier

Gladstone and Disraeli were the Punch and Judy of Victorian politics, and reams have been published about them, but no one has written a book which centres on their relationship. Richard Aldous has had the clever wheeze of charting their rivalry, retelling the story in what he calls a ‘modern way’ for a generation who know little about the past.

Actually, the modern way turns out to be remarkably old-fashioned. This book is a romp. Aldous writes fluent, vivid prose and he excels at scene-setting. It’s all very filmic. The book opens with Gladstone at Hawarden Castle, his country home, receiving the telegram announcing the news of Disraeli’s death. Cut to Hughenden Manor, whence Dizzy’s coffin is carried out to the sound of peacocks screeching on the terrace. Flash back to the first encounter between the two men, at a dinner party almost half a century earlier, when Gladstone made no diary note of Dizzy, and Disraeli clocked Gladstone as ‘rather dull’, quipping that the best company there was the stuffed swan.