The leaked plans contain both good and bad ideas, but will act as a licence to print money for the so-called big six
Not many people seem to remember Benjamin Disraeli’s novels these days, partly because – by and large – they weren’t very good. Indeed, had their author not gone on to become one of the most important politicians of the 19th century, it’s likely they would have been almost entirely forgotten: a mixture of Byron-esque pastiche and half-baked political manifesto churned out largely to subsidise his extravagant London lifestyle. “When I want to read a novel, I write one,” Disraeli once claimed. Contemporary critics scoffed that it showed.
And yet for their many flaws, there’s some interesting stuff in there: the flesh and bones of the ideology he would take with him into office, a paternalistic conservatism whose influence over modern politics – even if only in motif – endures to this day. Disraeli deplores the widening gap between rich and poor. He chides the avarice of the ruling class and the thoughtless worship of wealth. He declares: “Power has only one duty – to secure the social welfare of the PEOPLE.”
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