Please join the David Starkey Members' Club via Patreon www.patreon.com/davidstarkeytalks or Subscribestar www.subscribestar.com/david-starkey-talks and submit questions for members Q & A videos. Also visit www.davidstarkey.com to make a donation and visit the channel store shop.davidstarkey.com. Thank you for watching.
the only reason disraeli was great, was that he shown cromwell was funded by foreign bankers for his revolution and had charles 1st killed. thus rendering every monarchy and government since charles first VOID.
The so called humanitarian interventions of the Tony Blair years were disastrous for Britain's international reputation and for the countries concerned. Still we are continuing to pay the price for that in so many unfortunate ways around the world. Interesting perspective. Thank you.
You just can't be serious, this " Government " has returned the country back to the Victorian times, with the greatest disparity in wealth of anywhere in Europe. It's wrecked our economy and the amount of corruption is horrendous.
Dear Sir: Thankyou for the courage, time and effort you have taken to upload these talks. While I do not agree with some of your statements, I respect you and your work enough to listen: You have made me think deeply about the issues you address, and have led me to see flaws on both sides. I am grateful. It remains my hope that humans of all political persuasions can somehow find common ground to show effective compassionate action in addressing the problems of our time.
Ever since Dr Starkey made this beautiful channel I have been hoping he would one day devote a video to Disraeli, of whom I had heard him speak admiringly in several interviews and who is one of my political heroes. I am very grateful that he has indeed made such a video and a lengthy one at that. Disraeli should never be forgotten and I want to thank Dr Starkey profoundly for keeping his memory alive and for stressing the importance of Disraeli in our day and age.
Thank you for another interesting talk. On the story of liberal intervention, Gladstone and the Balkan crisis is a moment with interesting differences with our current ancestor we have today. The main one I think is that Gladstone’s interventionism is directed towards protecting Christians. It’s no coincidence that Victorian’s had an uncomfortable relationship with the Ottoman Empire - seen before during the Greek war of independence. The Christian revival movements in Victorian Britain did not like the compromises necessary as part of the Eastern Question (propping up an Ottoman state to prevent Russian dominance in the east), that I think Disraeli understood. Disraeli ultimately is flamboyant, but also flexible enough to be comfortable with the trade offs that that movement could not stomach.
Dear Mr. Starkey, I could not agree more with your descritption on conservativism and it's ever evolving course of self renewance! Thank you so much for amplifying and strengthen my views on the matter. best regards! X.H.
Dr. Starkey, David, what wonderful answers and analogies. Your depth of knowledge and understanding of historical facts is so impressive and your way of conveying and teaching so easy to take in and understand. Your cancellation by academia was nothing short of scandalous and a major injustice not only to you but to your prospective students. That, however, is the publics major gain. Thank you, Robert.
I think his sudden easy jumper to conclusions and analogies and " answers" in hindsight makes it ok people dont take him as serious anymore. He WAS a good historian, dont know wjy his bitterness about chancelation makes him seem to wanna proof there was a point to it.
@@herzkine I have to let you into a secret... History is all about hindsight, it's the past. If you don't think his cancellation by the WOKE extremists was unfair and destructive, well that's your opinion. If you don't think he's a good historian "anymore" don't listen. How does someone who "was a great historian" and that in their retirement passes on their lifetime's work, suddenly becomes "not a good historian"? I suspect your view is all political and not based on facts.
Great video. I have always found Disraeli and Gladstone fascinating. You do an excellent job of breaking this down for us. Disraeli saw a much bigger picture just as John Adams did when he agreed to defend the British soldiers in Boston. Oh, he was despised for that certainly did not have the financial resources to withstand being ruined. But due process and justice has to be for all.
Great stuff. Before he was cancelled, we only got Starkey once every few months, now we get as much as we want. Would be great to also have some engagement with other academics/ intellectuals so some of the great man's more outrageous statements can be challenged and discussed. Just a thought.
Just connected with this and found it fascinating. As a student I always thought of the old Roundhead/Cavalier saying in relation to Gladstone vs. Disraeli: 'Right but repulsive, wrong but romantic'. Not that Disraeli was 'wrong' - far from it in most instances - but Gladstone was surely 'right' in many of his domestic reforms? Introducing meritocratic entrance exams for the civil service, ending the practice of purchasing of army commissions, widening the provision of free and secular state education, taxing heavy spirits to tackle endemic alcoholism, - weren't all of these Gladstonian reforms with vital long term benefits? High minded, preachy people such as Gladstone are neither colourful nor attractive, but sometimes they are the required antidote to the sleaze that naturally engulfs politics when unchallenged. Cue the present day - don't we desperately need a new Gladstone to roll back the capture of our society by a corrupt, plutocratic 'chumocracy' with enormous power? He / She / They could start by passing a law to prevent senior state regulators moving straight across into hugely overpaid jobs at the head of the industries they purported to regulate (OFWAT and the FCA come straight to mind). So I'd welcome Gladstone-2!
Who was the hidden hand Disraeli was speaking of? This is a very interesting quote. “Governments do not govern, but merely control the machinery of government, being themselves controlled by the hidden hand.”
Civilization itself. If the 'hand' is strong and works toward upholding itself it thrives. If it is weak then _The Gods of the Copy Book Headings_ step up and explain the price of failure.
Matt if ever you have the Opportunity i suggest a visit to the Hughenden Manor Library, near High Wycombe, Bucks .... Disraeli was well versed with the Men who Govern from behind the High Doors and Pillars of initiation.
I'd disagree that Gladstone was a leveller in a way comparable to later left wing beliefs. He believed fervently in hierarchy and described himself as an inegalitarian. Gladstonian liberalism was really about Christian individual sovereignty, not social justice. He hated languid, entitled aristocratic leadership which he saw as exploitative, but did believe in leadership by the competent, educated and wealthy. He hated bullies and bullshitters, you might say, and encouraged responsibility. Later welfare state socialism in the name of social equality is a bastardisation of Gladstonian liberalism.
I wish I could give this video 10 thumbs up. This is one of the best of Dr. Starkey's videos. I was well aware of Disraeli, but never paid much attention to him. My loss. The English/British system is different from that of the US and other countries. This is not a bad thing, and in fact, is quite appropriate. There is no one best system. I am in the US, although I have lived in the UK. Both systems have their good and bad sides. I prefer to live in the US, although I loved my time in the UK. While I was there, I ran, and was elected. to Board of Governors of my children's school. It was the best experience I could have had. I got to see a small part of the government of the country. I actually had to get a letter from the Home Office to be able to run as a foreigner. I still have it, somewhere. I tool all the training available to governors (please excuse the spelling, but spell check won't let me use the proper one). Unlike most ex-pats most of my contacts and friends were locals. This, I believe, enriched my experience. To conclude, I must thank Dr. Starkey for his incredible content. I don't always agree with him (although I do more often than not), but I always appreciate his point of view and his knowledge. That he is willing to share it with all of us is a wonderful thing.
Please Sir: Who did the painting of you, the one sitting down and dressed in a sporting look.. It it well done and I appreciate it. thank you for your time
Thank you so much! As a German, I am highly fascinated by the rhetorical mastery, in which British historians, philosophers and political theorists can bring History to life - espacially History of Ideas. Does anyone have an idea what to read in order to further engage with Disraeli's world of thought?
If you have never listened to them, Isaiah Berlin's series of talks about Romanticism are perhaps one of the finest recorded examples of that British mastery of the extemporaneous exposition of the history of ideas.. 🙂
As a Scottish nationalist David, I can say without contradiction, I know no fellow Scottish nationalists that refer to the English as colonisers. Will there be some? Well of course but it really is overplayed as is just about every critique of Scottish nationalists. We want to build a better nation, though in the global political economic world we now live under that will be extremely difficult. Breaking Scotland away from the British state is a noble goal, I hope to live to see it & acknowledge the difficult times that will have to be endured in that process. Work as though you live in the early days of a better nation. Always enjoyable & interesting listening to your vast knowledge. Best wishes.
I think Dr Starkey would be better as an advisor to a younger political leader. Cromwell or Wolsey to a new Henry VIII? Does Dr Starkey know Lord Frost? Lord Frost took a first in History and French at Oxford University as well as negotiating the Brexit deal...I am sure they share common ground and Lord Frost looks like a man who understands the modern world as well as the nation that we grew up knowing...
"Intoxicated with his own verbosity" - wow - such a phrase has fullest effect when it is reserved for those politicians who are unequivocally intoxicated - to the eyeballs - with their own verbosity. In the modern day, such a person can be no other than John Bercow.
My English father-in-law was a working class Tory and my mother-in-law, Labour. My wife... took her father's path and was Conservative. Canada has a similar problem: the Conservatives of today have no ideology of conservatism. That ended in the 1960s.
Today's Canadian conservatives (and a lot of conservatives) in general are only about making sure the upper and higher end of the middle class get their tax breaks and spend through tax cuts
America has the exact same problem. America lost its true sense of Conservatism when it the East Coast Establishment won pushing forth its abstract goals of liberal internationalism. The "new American Right" that rose with the Cold War was not "Conservative" and this idea that they are "conservative" allows the false notion of the 'party switch' that is heavily pushed within the American school system. The historiography is absurd & ahistorical unless combined with the ability as a victor within a culture struggle to rewrite the history within the lens of a Nouvelle Gauche dominated academia in addition to the hostile takeover over the Republican Party (Conservative Party) by international liberals in the 1940s and solidified in 1952. Only thing is that we tend to assume the people who took over the Establishment in 1964 with Goldwater and further solidfied in 1980 by Reagan were "conservative" - - but they most certainly were not. Reagan was a neoliberal and Goldwater was a self-declared libertarian, more interest in the abstract ideal of the economy and less so the reality of it.
@@themainmanborah Though I do note there is an attempt is some quarters to link modern so-called conservatism to Edmund Burke and Adam Smith. The last conservative intellectual known widely here in Canada was George Grant.
Disraielly was modern conservative,he had brought about electoral reform, bringing in lower class people to vote,His speeches were like blowing winds reforming the parliament to catch up with the time,He was a real constitutional who knew old flexible English constitution, Quite right the English judicial system is also very old,but the liberal Blair set up supreme court,in fact house lord's judicial committee is the last court of appeal.Never before we have seen an irrational prime minister like Blair,He was a davastating, Gladstone was also liberal ,very brave and rhetorical.S otland had its own parliament,but here we don't have federal government rather unitary form of government
Hello david. Just watched disraeli,a true romantic so this video was just perfect to watch after watching the dvd. What a great man disraeli was.. Wish we had more mps like him around today.
This was a truly great and fascinating talk, but we've now gone way beyond being "a bit imperfect". The system is clearly fracturing, breaking and will need another tearing before it is repaired.
I am so glad you are not surgeon. You have a broken leg? Lets break one of your arms as well, that's the best way to get that leg repaired!! Lol. Common sense man, repairing and tearing are the opposite you cannot tear to repair. That is called demolition and mimicry! The very thing we need avoid.
Sir, you are a national treasure to Americans and Britons. I channel you when I explain to my children that the people ordained their constitution; no pope no pretentate, the people
I made exactly the same point in an essay at Sunderland Polytechnic in 1986, Although Dr. Starkey does it with more flourish and unfortunately has the ability to use the actions of Blair and Johnson to illustrate his point.
Three things I think are important are as follows; 1 - You former Conservative (usually) MP’s at the constituency home gate with the wife and children after an affair is publicised putting in the whole spectacle and being basically publicly humiliated and losing their ministerial position etc. This seems fine given they have been directly elected from the whole 2.4 children angle and virtues of the (usually) Christian position on family life etc. You then fast forward to the present and have a wildly different society with no such dominant religious angle and yet men (usually) are still humiliated and lose their career (whether supreme in their brief or not) because of basically sex.....this just seems insane and so wrong. In other words - another intolerance has replaced the previous doctrine of intolerance. 2 - I think it has become clear to many people (not me as I predicted this long ago) that the grave harm of Blair was not solely Iraq but in fact, what took place domestically. The list is sizeable and you mentioned another area that is on that list - the road of good intentions and all that. In time more people will become far more aware of just how harmful his ‘things will only get better’ actually was. 3 - I think the moment you mentioned the referendum pertinent to the 1867 act of Disraeli it was rather important. If you imagine that nobody (of significant number) in large working class areas was even registered (or intending to vote as they don’t vote in elections ordinarily) to cast their vote in that referendum then you begin to realise just how apathetic the very people Disraeli included in democracy actually were - I was one of them. You may conclude that including a broader segment of society into democracy (as Disraeli does) is step 1 (a vital prerequisite for genuinely being democrat as a state) but surely they (the now included electorate) need to be inspired for something/someone to actually get off their backsides and go and vote for. I will now continue watching the rest of your great work.
Mrs Thatcher's economic ideas were very much in the tradition of Gladtone, as was widely acknowledged at the time. In the 20th century there was much overlap between liberalism and conservatism in response to the rise of Labour. You can see this in the career of Winston Churchill, as I'm sure Dr Starkey knows. I believe that if Gladstone's struggle to achieve Home Rule for Ireland had succeded both countries would have been spared much pain and misery.
I've heard Simon Heffer describe himself as a Gladstonian Liberal. Starkey in discussion with the fellow Cambridge Historian would make a fascinating conversation.
A word of caution regarding some of these judgements on Gladstone re his being some sort of midwife to the Labour Party: Gladstone was extremely chary of public expenditure on almost anything, as he believed that money should be 'left to fructify in the pockets of the people'; so he deplored higher taxation. He also showed very little enthusiasm for government intervention on social reform, which he found distasteful both due to its expense and also because it was not consistent with Liberalism as allowing a freedom of choice. The New Liberalism under Lloyd George, even with Churchill and LG under Asquith, was well called as it differentiated it from Gladstonian Liberalism, which was essentially laissez-faire. Gladstone was interested in institutional reform to increase efficiency and moral justice. He wasn't a precursor of Labour at all, and it is quite wrong to see him as such.
Slight correction: Disraeli's father and mother never converted out of Judaism. They remained Jews though they stopped attending services at the Bevis Marks synagogue. Isaac Disraeli wrote "The Genius of Judaism" the year that Benjamin wrote "The Wondrous Tale of Alroy" (a semi-historical tale about an attempt to restore the Jews to their homeland). When Benjamin was twelve, his father's friend Sharon Turner took him and his sister to be baptized at an Anglican church with their father and mother's permission. Eventually, all four Disraeli siblings became Anglicans but the parents did not convert and both Benjamin and his father were fascinated by Jewish history and identity.
dear david love your dizzy upload dizzy would put the modern day tories to shame him and gladstone both did much good i hope you are well stay safe yours avon leicestershire 2022
Disraeli was indeed a genius and what a character and it indicates that the British weren't racist or prejudiced , nor was Queen Victoria , no wonder Queen Victoria loved and respected Disraeli , he was amusing, brilliant and showed the Queen abject respect and loyalty, whereas Gladstone, although brilliant would have been a sanctimonious bore , she couldn't stand him initially .
The citizens of anywhere are depicted, in my view, by the character of Gabriel Conroy in Joyce's story, The Dead. I'm sure that wasn't Joyce's intention but it's my analysis of that revolting, rootless, condescending cosmopolitan.
Gladstone was right in his reaction to the Bulgarian massacres. It was the UK's following policy of propping up the sick man at the Bosporus that was shameful. (Blair's intervention in Iraq - which wasn't his decision anyway - a stable and cukturally different was a whole different matter.) He also was right on home rule. That it never came through caused all the Irish troubles from 1916 onwards.
To call Gladstone a liberal is an absolute joke. Where do these historians get off with their anachronisms? By every measure, if you were to question Gladstone on what he thought of diversity, mass immigration, white privilege, abortion, homosexuality/transsexuality he would rebuke you and be insulted for even asking him these questions. These are statesmen who lived in very different ages where imperial policy reigned supreme when monarchs influenced and headed governments negotiating deals and vetoing policies and legislation. You are dealing with a European Christian hegemony. Gladstone would never be gunhoe about bestowing upon England the boon of Islam. Absurd. And regarding his dismissal of intervention into Bulgaria Starkey fails to mention that these are imperial and colonial times. It's not equivalent to modern liberal intervention. And he seems to be downplaying the mass murdering ways of the Ottoman Turks who exterminated Greeks, Armenians and Slavs for over 400 years. This was the era of the British, French, Spanish, and Dutch empires where intervention was a matter of business and imperial policy. And finally to compare Gladstone to Keir Starmer is so obtuse. A socialist rainbow flag lover of mass migration to a man who wouldn't let his child wed a person of colour, these are the types of men being compared. The main flaw with these established historians is to apply "Left/Right" or "Liberal/Conservative" binaries to distinct eras that have profoundly different moral, cultural, social, ideological and economic realities that even suggest these convenient political classifications timelessly reconcile them is an enormous mistake. This is exactly what is wrong with modern conservatives-even ones like Starkey who I respect.
Yes I remember listening to him and thought he spoke more common sense than the Tories did at that time. When he died & then the Slug called Bliar took over, any thoughts of ever voting Labour evaporated!
John Smith's politics would not of been mine(he was massively pro EU - for a start), but he at least did want to help working class people and actually believed in Britain and its institutions - compared to that utter traitor Blair.
Paradoxically speaking, if the UK had a more robust system of checks and balances like the United States, separation of powers included, Blair would have never been able to abolish a position like Lord Chancellor. Because we in the US separate the executive and legislative branches more, and because we have an upper house that is still on equal footing to the lower house, and because we have a written constitution with a very high bar to amend, the ability of a Blair like figure to do much real long term damage constitutionally is next to zero. Frankly, long term the British constitution is doomed precisely because its historical nature as a nebulous/abstract concept, means you always one election away from a radical rewriting of your system and the minute the Lords or the King were to intervene as a "check", those institutions will have signed their death warrants. Also it should be noted that even in the United States, our Vice President is also President of the Senate. If the electoral college is a tie, the House elects the President by state delegation and the Senate elects the Vice President by majority vote. The Chief Justice presides over impeachment trials in the Senate. Just because an institutions crosses over the boundary, does not by itself mean that it violates the separation of powers, in fact such boundary crossing is essential for the separation of powers to function as part of a system of checks and balances.
That was a very insightful presentation and as an American I will look for books detailing Disraeli's life and career because it seems to me that Donald Trump is something of an American version of Disraeli. Many will disagree but Trump's clarion call of "America First" speaks to the forgotten middle class here in America.
Disraeli and Gladstone were the last two Prime Ministers to have statues dedicated in Westminster Abbey. Not trying to be political but it seems to me that a statue of the greatest Prime Minister who ever lived and the first woman Prime Minister is more than enough reason to add two more.
Wouldn't England and Whales be better off without Scotland? I was living and working in England in the early 2000s. When I asked one of my English management colleagues about the Scotland situation his response was quite interesting. He said, build a trench across the border and hopefully it will float out to sea. This was also the era of the Quebec independence referenda. They had two and neither was successful. I had a meeting in London with a Canadian business partner just before the second. He predicted rightly, that the second would fail. What was happening then was demographics. You should have seen the speculation in the US on what would happen if Quebec had separated from Canada. I recall one PBS report that speculated that the rest of Canada would become part of the United States.
Note how the representative of Liberalism switches from Gladstone to John Stuart Mill at the point that Starkey tries to heap all credit for the 1867 extension of the franchise on Disraeli. That's because Disraeli's decision was partly motivated by fear of the radical wing of Gladstone's party and of Radical MPs like John Bright. Starkey is right that the Tories have shown an ability to risk yielding positional power throughout their history, but it has never been without some struggle from below, including Peterloo (the Tory response to which was the closing down of the main publication (now the Guardian) sympathetic to the murdered protesters), the inspiration of Garibaldi, the Hyde Park demonstrations etc
david speaking of dizzy i have some victoian albums of photo cabinet cards some of royalty and some of polictians namely of dizzy and of gladstone as well as both albert and victoria and their nine children and their familys i would love to show you them but keep your youtube going see you soon yours avon leicestershire 2022
What about the wars in Afghanistan and South Africa? Another war in the Middle East that Britain got involved in - and with disastrous results - which ultimately cost Disraeli his premiership. Gladstone did give us our civil service system(before Blair mucked that up) and was right about Irish Home Rule(although I think that should of really have been passed under Peel's tenure) - ultimately that resulted in so much bloodshed in Ireland and the UK.
Please join the David Starkey Members' Club via Patreon www.patreon.com/davidstarkeytalks or Subscribestar www.subscribestar.com/david-starkey-talks and submit questions for members Q & A videos. Also visit www.davidstarkey.com to make a donation and visit the channel store shop.davidstarkey.com. Thank you for watching.
the only reason disraeli was great, was that he shown cromwell was funded by foreign bankers for his revolution and had charles 1st killed. thus rendering every monarchy and government since charles first VOID.
Is this available on DVD ?
The so called humanitarian interventions of the Tony Blair years were disastrous for Britain's international reputation and for the countries concerned. Still we are continuing to pay the price for that in so many unfortunate ways around the world. Interesting perspective. Thank you.
midwit take. oliver cromwell and the dutch, scandi, french and german bankers did this. thank protestantism
Blair/Brown fiasco will keep Labour unelectable for decades.
It was lap service to the US. I think even Blair understod it wa sgoing tio happen no matter what (Teh AMericans hade made their mind up).
You just can't be serious, this " Government " has returned the country back to the Victorian times, with the greatest disparity in wealth of anywhere in Europe. It's wrecked our economy and the amount of corruption is horrendous.
Correct, socialist taxes destroyed the economy and sent the UK backwards
Dear Sir: Thankyou for the courage, time and effort you have taken to upload these talks. While I do not agree with some of your statements, I respect you and your work enough to listen: You have made me think deeply about the issues you address, and have led me to see flaws on both sides. I am grateful.
It remains my hope that humans of all political persuasions can somehow find common ground to show effective compassionate action in addressing the problems of our time.
I understand the world 🌎 better by listening to Dr Starkey and understand why I struggle with so many imported ideas thankyou ❤️
A little rough on olde. Disraeli comparing him to Johnson though. I agree on rating over Gladstone.
A much better camera set up than previous vids.
Great content, as always Mr Starkey
Friday night, a dram of Glenfarclas 25 and a talk by Mr Starkey. Need I say more.
A man of good taste.
Cigar or Church Warden?
Ever since Dr Starkey made this beautiful channel I have been hoping he would one day devote a video to Disraeli, of whom I had heard him speak admiringly in several interviews and who is one of my political heroes. I am very grateful that he has indeed made such a video and a lengthy one at that. Disraeli should never be forgotten and I want to thank Dr Starkey profoundly for keeping his memory alive and for stressing the importance of Disraeli in our day and age.
"New wine into old bottles."
Splendid stuff. Thank you.
Thank you for another interesting talk. On the story of liberal intervention, Gladstone and the Balkan crisis is a moment with interesting differences with our current ancestor we have today. The main one I think is that Gladstone’s interventionism is directed towards protecting Christians. It’s no coincidence that Victorian’s had an uncomfortable relationship with the Ottoman Empire - seen before during the Greek war of independence. The Christian revival movements in Victorian Britain did not like the compromises necessary as part of the Eastern Question (propping up an Ottoman state to prevent Russian dominance in the east), that I think Disraeli understood. Disraeli ultimately is flamboyant, but also flexible enough to be comfortable with the trade offs that that movement could not stomach.
Thank you Matt for your comment.
Dear Mr. Starkey, I could not agree more with your descritption on conservativism and it's ever evolving course of self renewance! Thank you so much for amplifying and strengthen my views on the matter. best regards! X.H.
A memorable talk, David, with a memorable quote, amongst many, "that jumped up little squirt Lord Faulkner". Thank you.
Dr. Starkey, David, what wonderful answers and analogies. Your depth of knowledge and understanding of historical facts is so impressive and your way of conveying and teaching so easy to take in and understand. Your cancellation by academia was nothing short of scandalous and a major injustice not only to you but to your prospective students. That, however, is the publics major gain. Thank you, Robert.
I think his sudden easy jumper to conclusions and analogies and " answers" in hindsight makes it ok people dont take him as serious anymore. He WAS a good historian, dont know wjy his bitterness about chancelation makes him seem to wanna proof there was a point to it.
@@herzkine I have to let you into a secret... History is all about hindsight, it's the past. If you don't think his cancellation by the WOKE extremists was unfair and destructive, well that's your opinion. If you don't think he's a good historian "anymore" don't listen. How does someone who "was a great historian" and that in their retirement passes on their lifetime's work, suddenly becomes "not a good historian"? I suspect your view is all political and not based on facts.
@@herzkine- i agree
Great video. I have always found Disraeli and Gladstone fascinating. You do an excellent job of breaking this down for us. Disraeli saw a much bigger picture just as John Adams did when he agreed to defend the British soldiers in Boston. Oh, he was despised for that certainly did not have the financial resources to withstand being ruined. But due process and justice has to be for all.
Fantastic presentation Mr Starkey- like a Bach cantata!
More please!😁🤩
Unbelievable 🙄🙄🙄
Great stuff. Before he was cancelled, we only got Starkey once every few months, now we get as much as we want. Would be great to also have some engagement with other academics/ intellectuals so some of the great man's more outrageous statements can be challenged and discussed. Just a thought.
Long-time Starkey fan - LOVING these talks!
Indeed, I am so happy he made a UA-cam channel
Just connected with this and found it fascinating. As a student I always thought of the old Roundhead/Cavalier saying in relation to Gladstone vs. Disraeli: 'Right but repulsive, wrong but romantic'. Not that Disraeli was 'wrong' - far from it in most instances - but Gladstone was surely 'right' in many of his domestic reforms? Introducing meritocratic entrance exams for the civil service, ending the practice of purchasing of army commissions, widening the provision of free and secular state education, taxing heavy spirits to tackle endemic alcoholism, - weren't all of these Gladstonian reforms with vital long term benefits? High minded, preachy people such as Gladstone are neither colourful nor attractive, but sometimes they are the required antidote to the sleaze that naturally engulfs politics when unchallenged. Cue the present day - don't we desperately need a new Gladstone to roll back the capture of our society by a corrupt, plutocratic 'chumocracy' with enormous power? He / She / They could start by passing a law to prevent senior state regulators moving straight across into hugely overpaid jobs at the head of the industries they purported to regulate (OFWAT and the FCA come straight to mind). So I'd welcome Gladstone-2!
This was more then a talk , it was a lesson. And a very good one at that . Thankyou David.
Awesome. Excellent channel. Brilliant content.
Brilliant as always.
I love shows like this - Disraeli Churchill etc
I would love to see a video on Stanley Baldwin and one nation conservativism.
Who was the hidden hand Disraeli was speaking of? This is a very interesting quote. “Governments do not govern, but merely control the machinery of government, being themselves controlled by the hidden hand.”
Civilization itself.
If the 'hand' is strong and works toward upholding itself it thrives.
If it is weak then _The Gods of the Copy Book Headings_ step up and explain the price of failure.
Probably Adam Smith's "invisible hand" of the free-market economy.
Matt if ever you have the Opportunity i suggest a visit to the Hughenden Manor Library, near High Wycombe, Bucks .... Disraeli was well versed with the Men who Govern from behind the High Doors and Pillars of initiation.
The hidden hand of power and influence.
I'd disagree that Gladstone was a leveller in a way comparable to later left wing beliefs. He believed fervently in hierarchy and described himself as an inegalitarian. Gladstonian liberalism was really about Christian individual sovereignty, not social justice. He hated languid, entitled aristocratic leadership which he saw as exploitative, but did believe in leadership by the competent, educated and wealthy. He hated bullies and bullshitters, you might say, and encouraged responsibility. Later welfare state socialism in the name of social equality is a bastardisation of Gladstonian liberalism.
Thank you Dr Starkey! Brilliant.
I really enjoyed this, and I don't think I've ever learned as much as this in less than an hour
I wish I could give this video 10 thumbs up. This is one of the best of Dr. Starkey's videos. I was well aware of Disraeli, but never paid much attention to him. My loss.
The English/British system is different from that of the US and other countries. This is not a bad thing, and in fact, is quite appropriate. There is no one best system. I am in the US, although I have lived in the UK. Both systems have their good and bad sides. I prefer to live in the US, although I loved my time in the UK. While I was there, I ran, and was elected. to Board of Governors of my children's school. It was the best experience I could have had. I got to see a small part of the government of the country. I actually had to get a letter from the Home Office to be able to run as a foreigner. I still have it, somewhere. I tool all the training available to governors (please excuse the spelling, but spell check won't let me use the proper one). Unlike most ex-pats most of my contacts and friends were locals. This, I believe, enriched my experience.
To conclude, I must thank Dr. Starkey for his incredible content. I don't always agree with him (although I do more often than not), but I always appreciate his point of view and his knowledge. That he is willing to share it with all of us is a wonderful thing.
Indeed, Disraeli was an outstanding political leader and he deserves all our admiration. Thank you very much for this remarkable analysis.
Please Sir: Who did the painting of you, the one sitting down and dressed in a sporting look.. It it well done and I appreciate it. thank you for your time
Thank you so much! As a German, I am highly fascinated by the rhetorical mastery, in which British historians, philosophers and political theorists can bring History to life - espacially History of Ideas. Does anyone have an idea what to read in order to further engage with Disraeli's world of thought?
Read his trilogy Coningsby; Sybil, and Tancred 8:50
If you have never listened to them, Isaiah Berlin's series of talks about Romanticism are perhaps one of the finest recorded examples of that British mastery of the extemporaneous exposition of the history of ideas.. 🙂
I always love your lectures and analysis.
As a Scottish nationalist David, I can say without contradiction, I know no fellow Scottish nationalists that refer to the English as colonisers. Will there be some? Well of course but it really is overplayed as is just about every critique of Scottish nationalists. We want to build a better nation, though in the global political economic world we now live under that will be extremely difficult. Breaking Scotland away from the British state is a noble goal, I hope to live to see it & acknowledge the difficult times that will have to be endured in that process. Work as though you live in the early days of a better nation.
Always enjoyable & interesting listening to your vast knowledge. Best wishes.
One of your best yet Dr Starkey! Ask me I think it the UK needs someone with the brass to stand up an say Make Britain Great Again.😉
I think Dr Starkey would be better as an advisor to a younger political leader. Cromwell or Wolsey to a new Henry VIII? Does Dr Starkey know Lord Frost? Lord Frost took a first in History and French at Oxford University as well as negotiating the Brexit deal...I am sure they share common ground and Lord Frost looks like a man who understands the modern world as well as the nation that we grew up knowing...
@@golfbulldogFrost has wrecked our Economy by pushing through that ludicrous brexit, and making us a laughing stock.
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"Intoxicated with his own verbosity" - wow - such a phrase has fullest effect when it is reserved for those politicians who are unequivocally intoxicated - to the eyeballs - with their own verbosity. In the modern day, such a person can be no other than John Bercow.
My English father-in-law was a working class Tory and my mother-in-law, Labour. My wife... took her father's path and was Conservative. Canada has a similar problem: the Conservatives of today have no ideology of conservatism. That ended in the 1960s.
Today's Canadian conservatives (and a lot of conservatives) in general are only about making sure the upper and higher end of the middle class get their tax breaks and spend through tax cuts
America has the exact same problem. America lost its true sense of Conservatism when it the East Coast Establishment won pushing forth its abstract goals of liberal internationalism. The "new American Right" that rose with the Cold War was not "Conservative" and this idea that they are "conservative" allows the false notion of the 'party switch' that is heavily pushed within the American school system. The historiography is absurd & ahistorical unless combined with the ability as a victor within a culture struggle to rewrite the history within the lens of a Nouvelle Gauche dominated academia in addition to the hostile takeover over the Republican Party (Conservative Party) by international liberals in the 1940s and solidified in 1952. Only thing is that we tend to assume the people who took over the Establishment in 1964 with Goldwater and further solidfied in 1980 by Reagan were "conservative" - - but they most certainly were not. Reagan was a neoliberal and Goldwater was a self-declared libertarian, more interest in the abstract ideal of the economy and less so the reality of it.
@@themainmanborah Though I do note there is an attempt is some quarters to link modern so-called conservatism to Edmund Burke and Adam Smith. The last conservative intellectual known widely here in Canada was George Grant.
Disraielly was modern conservative,he had brought about electoral reform, bringing in lower class people to vote,His speeches were like blowing winds reforming the parliament to catch up with the time,He was a real constitutional who knew old flexible English constitution,
Quite right the English judicial system is also very old,but the liberal Blair set up supreme court,in fact house lord's judicial committee is the last court of appeal.Never before we have seen an irrational prime minister like Blair,He was a davastating,
Gladstone was also liberal ,very brave and rhetorical.S otland had its own parliament,but here we don't have federal government rather unitary form of government
Every word that comes out of this man’s mouth is nectar.
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Hello david.
Just watched disraeli,a true romantic so this video was just perfect to watch after watching the dvd.
What a great man disraeli was..
Wish we had more mps like him around today.
Thank you Dr Starkey.
(6:15) 'Intoxicated with the EXUBERANCE of his own verbosity.' My mother would often quote it and then laugh.
Excellent 👍 thanks keep the good work up 👏👏
Thank you
Dizzy was of a character and intellect that’s virtually impossible to imagine in British politics today. A truly great Briton.
If in doubt about a quiz question about an historical prime minister, chances are the answer is Disraeli.
RIP Professor John Vincent. His book on Disraeli was regarded as the Magnum Opus for some time.
This was a truly great and fascinating talk, but we've now gone way beyond being "a bit imperfect". The system is clearly fracturing, breaking and will need another tearing before it is repaired.
I am so glad you are not surgeon. You have a broken leg? Lets break one of your arms as well, that's the best way to get that leg repaired!! Lol. Common sense man, repairing and tearing are the opposite you cannot tear to repair. That is called demolition and mimicry!
The very thing we need avoid.
24:00 "Dishing the Whigs" = "Owning the Libs"?
“Semi fascist states of continental Europe” - could not have been described with any better precision.
Like certain people in the Tory Party 😖
I'm a Palmerston and Gladstone man myself
Brilliant!
Thank you.
Dr. Starkey, could you recommend any biographies of Disraeli, the Great Conservative? Thank you, sir.
More like this please.
In the thumbnail there seems to be a passing resemblance between D & S...Good video, thanks!
Great video thanks
Marvellous talk
Loved this
Sir, you are a national treasure to Americans and Britons. I channel you when I explain to my children that the people ordained their constitution; no pope no pretentate, the people
A national treasure to the Americans ??, that explains a lot. 😅
Most of what I knew of Disreali was from Trollope's caricature in the Palliser novels ("probably not temporary insanity"), so this was enlightening.
And Disraeli created a great album with the rock group Cream.
he said, giving us the Gears
@@WakingUpToday213 Haha!
Do you have a book recommendation on Disraeli?
I love your channel, great information. Would you ever do a video on the battle of Towton.
The 'petty MP' was Daniel O'Connell, hardly petty.
Love the lamp
I made exactly the same point in an essay at Sunderland Polytechnic in 1986, Although Dr. Starkey does it with more flourish and unfortunately has the ability to use the actions of Blair and Johnson to illustrate his point.
Three things I think are important are as follows;
1 - You former Conservative (usually) MP’s at the constituency home gate with the wife and children after an affair is publicised putting in the whole spectacle and being basically publicly humiliated and losing their ministerial position etc. This seems fine given they have been directly elected from the whole 2.4 children angle and virtues of the (usually) Christian position on family life etc.
You then fast forward to the present and have a wildly different society with no such dominant religious angle and yet men (usually) are still humiliated and lose their career (whether supreme in their brief or not) because of basically sex.....this just seems insane and so wrong.
In other words - another intolerance has replaced the previous doctrine of intolerance.
2 - I think it has become clear to many people (not me as I predicted this long ago) that the grave harm of Blair was not solely Iraq but in fact, what took place domestically. The list is sizeable and you mentioned another area that is on that list - the road of good intentions and all that. In time more people will become far more aware of just how harmful his ‘things will only get better’ actually was.
3 - I think the moment you mentioned the referendum pertinent to the 1867 act of Disraeli it was rather important.
If you imagine that nobody (of significant number) in large working class areas was even registered (or intending to vote as they don’t vote in elections ordinarily) to cast their vote in that referendum then you begin to realise just how apathetic the very people Disraeli included in democracy actually were - I was one of them.
You may conclude that including a broader segment of society into democracy (as Disraeli does) is step 1 (a vital prerequisite for genuinely being democrat as a state) but surely they (the now included electorate) need to be inspired for something/someone to actually get off their backsides and go and vote for.
I will now continue watching the rest of your great work.
David, you talk about how bad the Balkans are now. They were no better under the Turks. What does that tell you?
May I ask your thoughts on the books by AN Wilson and Douglas Murray ? Thank you.
Mrs Thatcher's economic ideas were very much in the tradition of Gladtone, as was widely acknowledged at the time. In the 20th century there was much overlap between liberalism and conservatism in response to the rise of Labour. You can see this in the career of Winston Churchill, as I'm sure Dr Starkey knows. I believe that if Gladstone's struggle to achieve Home Rule for Ireland had succeded both countries would have been spared much pain and misery.
Can you do a video of William Gladstone please?
amazin as always
Excellent!
I've heard Simon Heffer describe himself as a Gladstonian Liberal. Starkey in discussion with the fellow Cambridge Historian would make a fascinating conversation.
Goat intro ✴️😁
Of course Labour would never have got into power without the 1918 Reform Act, which gave non property owners the right to vote.
Gladstone was not the 1st political statesman to get a state funeral - Palmerston had one in 1865 much to the annoyance of the queen.
A word of caution regarding some of these judgements on Gladstone re his being some sort of midwife to the Labour Party: Gladstone was extremely chary of public expenditure on almost anything, as he believed that money should be 'left to fructify in the pockets of the people'; so he deplored higher taxation. He also showed very little enthusiasm for government intervention on social reform, which he found distasteful both due to its expense and also because it was not consistent with Liberalism as allowing a freedom of choice. The New Liberalism under Lloyd George, even with Churchill and LG under Asquith, was well called as it differentiated it from Gladstonian Liberalism, which was essentially laissez-faire. Gladstone was interested in institutional reform to increase efficiency and moral justice. He wasn't a precursor of Labour at all, and it is quite wrong to see him as such.
To whomever is looking after the audio, it’s super low quality - maybe over compressed?
Slight correction: Disraeli's father and mother never converted out of Judaism. They remained Jews though they stopped attending services at the Bevis Marks synagogue. Isaac Disraeli wrote "The Genius of Judaism" the year that Benjamin wrote "The Wondrous Tale of Alroy" (a semi-historical tale about an attempt to restore the Jews to their homeland). When Benjamin was twelve, his father's friend Sharon Turner took him and his sister to be baptized at an Anglican church with their father and mother's permission. Eventually, all four Disraeli siblings became Anglicans but the parents did not convert and both Benjamin and his father were fascinated by Jewish history and identity.
dear david love your dizzy upload dizzy would put the modern day tories to shame him and gladstone both did much good i hope you are well stay safe yours avon leicestershire 2022
Recently watched the 1930's film Disraeli starring George Arliss. Would love to see it remade today.
See the Mudlark and the Invincible Mr Disraeli
I'm a hard line Unionist.
Disraeli was indeed a genius and what a character and it indicates that the British weren't racist or prejudiced , nor was Queen Victoria , no wonder Queen Victoria loved and respected Disraeli , he was amusing, brilliant and showed the Queen abject respect and loyalty, whereas Gladstone, although brilliant would have been a sanctimonious bore , she couldn't stand him initially .
4.02 Isaac never converted / renounced Judaism. He got very fed up with the anachronistic ways of Bevis Marks, but he died a jew nonetheless.
I don't think Disraeli ever said the "priests in the temple of Solomon" line. Certainly not in Parliament
The citizens of anywhere are depicted, in my view, by the character of Gabriel Conroy in Joyce's story, The Dead. I'm sure that wasn't Joyce's intention but it's my analysis of that revolting, rootless, condescending cosmopolitan.
Gladstone was right in his reaction to the Bulgarian massacres. It was the UK's following policy of propping up the sick man at the Bosporus that was shameful.
(Blair's intervention in Iraq - which wasn't his decision anyway - a stable and cukturally different was a whole different matter.)
He also was right on home rule. That it never came through caused all the Irish troubles from 1916 onwards.
This talk made me deeply dislike Disraeli, the opposite of it's intended effect.
To call Gladstone a liberal is an absolute joke. Where do these historians get off with their anachronisms? By every measure, if you were to question Gladstone on what he thought of diversity, mass immigration, white privilege, abortion, homosexuality/transsexuality he would rebuke you and be insulted for even asking him these questions.
These are statesmen who lived in very different ages where imperial policy reigned supreme when monarchs influenced and headed governments negotiating deals and vetoing policies and legislation. You are dealing with a European Christian hegemony. Gladstone would never be gunhoe about bestowing upon England the boon of Islam.
Absurd. And regarding his dismissal of intervention into Bulgaria Starkey fails to mention that these are imperial and colonial times. It's not equivalent to modern liberal intervention. And he seems to be downplaying the mass murdering ways of the Ottoman Turks who exterminated Greeks, Armenians and Slavs for over 400 years.
This was the era of the British, French, Spanish, and Dutch empires where intervention was a matter of business and imperial policy. And finally to compare Gladstone to Keir Starmer is so obtuse. A socialist rainbow flag lover of mass migration to a man who wouldn't let his child wed a person of colour, these are the types of men being compared.
The main flaw with these established historians is to apply "Left/Right" or "Liberal/Conservative" binaries to distinct eras that have profoundly different moral, cultural, social, ideological and economic realities that even suggest these convenient political classifications timelessly reconcile them is an enormous mistake.
This is exactly what is wrong with modern conservatives-even ones like Starkey who I respect.
More epicness
Had John Smith lived the country would never have been cursed with Blair.
Yes I remember listening to him and thought he spoke more common sense than the Tories did at that time. When he died & then the Slug called Bliar took over, any thoughts of ever voting Labour evaporated!
John Smith's politics would not of been mine(he was massively pro EU - for a start), but he at least did want to help working class people and actually believed in Britain and its institutions - compared to that utter traitor Blair.
They all thought he was a snake, and I call snake. As Hotspur puts it, 'Tell truth and shame the devil'
Paradoxically speaking, if the UK had a more robust system of checks and balances like the United States, separation of powers included, Blair would have never been able to abolish a position like Lord Chancellor. Because we in the US separate the executive and legislative branches more, and because we have an upper house that is still on equal footing to the lower house, and because we have a written constitution with a very high bar to amend, the ability of a Blair like figure to do much real long term damage constitutionally is next to zero.
Frankly, long term the British constitution is doomed precisely because its historical nature as a nebulous/abstract concept, means you always one election away from a radical rewriting of your system and the minute the Lords or the King were to intervene as a "check", those institutions will have signed their death warrants.
Also it should be noted that even in the United States, our Vice President is also President of the Senate. If the electoral college is a tie, the House elects the President by state delegation and the Senate elects the Vice President by majority vote. The Chief Justice presides over impeachment trials in the Senate. Just because an institutions crosses over the boundary, does not by itself mean that it violates the separation of powers, in fact such boundary crossing is essential for the separation of powers to function as part of a system of checks and balances.
That was a very insightful presentation and as an American I will look for books detailing Disraeli's life and career because it seems to me that Donald Trump is something of an American version of Disraeli. Many will disagree but Trump's clarion call of "America First" speaks to the forgotten middle class here in America.
To compare the subtle, imaginative brilliance of Disraeli to the lumpen, ignorant blathering of Trump is a true stretch of the imagination.
Disraeli and Gladstone were the last two Prime Ministers to have statues dedicated in Westminster Abbey. Not trying to be political but it seems to me that a statue of the greatest Prime Minister who ever lived and the first woman Prime Minister is more than enough reason to add two more.
love Starkey
Wouldn't England and Whales be better off without Scotland? I was living and working in England in the early 2000s. When I asked one of my English management colleagues about the Scotland situation his response was quite interesting. He said, build a trench across the border and hopefully it will float out to sea.
This was also the era of the Quebec independence referenda. They had two and neither was successful. I had a meeting in London with a Canadian business partner just before the second. He predicted rightly, that the second would fail. What was happening then was demographics. You should have seen the speculation in the US on what would happen if Quebec had separated from Canada. I recall one PBS report that speculated that the rest of Canada would become part of the United States.
Note how the representative of Liberalism switches from Gladstone to John Stuart Mill at the point that Starkey tries to heap all credit for the 1867 extension of the franchise on Disraeli. That's because Disraeli's decision was partly motivated by fear of the radical wing of Gladstone's party and of Radical MPs like John Bright. Starkey is right that the Tories have shown an ability to risk yielding positional power throughout their history, but it has never been without some struggle from below, including Peterloo (the Tory response to which was the closing down of the main publication (now the Guardian) sympathetic to the murdered protesters), the inspiration of Garibaldi, the Hyde Park demonstrations etc
david speaking of dizzy i have some victoian albums of photo cabinet cards some of royalty and some of polictians namely of dizzy and of gladstone as well as both albert and victoria and their nine children and their familys i would love to show you them but keep your youtube going see you soon yours avon leicestershire 2022
What about the wars in Afghanistan and South Africa? Another war in the Middle East that Britain got involved in - and with disastrous results - which ultimately cost Disraeli his premiership. Gladstone did give us our civil service system(before Blair mucked that up) and was right about Irish Home Rule(although I think that should of really have been passed under Peel's tenure) - ultimately that resulted in so much bloodshed in Ireland and the UK.