The Conservative Party’s Weakness As a Consequence Of Weak Leadership

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The Conservative Party’s Weakness As a Consequence Of Weak Leadership

After the resignation of Peel in 1846 the Conservative Party split

into three main groupings. The Peelites: loyal supporters of Peel who

were unsatisfied with the current Conservative Party, the Ultra Tories

who were the immovable, reactionary classical Tories who regarded the

party’s sole purpose as being the support and promotion of its

backers; the landowners, and finally the Liberal Conservatives who

argues that lately the party had lost support and that unless the

Tories started to rule in a more liberal fashion they would lose

power, the liberals believed that they must retain an aristocratic

approach whilst appealing to all sectors of the population.

Peel’s resignation meant that there was no real viable candidate to

stand in his place as party leader. Bentinck was definitely not ideal,

outspoken and often rude he was part of the rapidly disappearing breed

of MPs who regarded politics as a hobby that they indulged in for fun,

probably the most memorable moment of his career was probably his

leading, with Disraeli, of the protectionist opposition to Peel’s

repeal of the Corn Laws; compromise was utterly alien to Bentinck’s

nature. To no great surprise Bentinck soon resigned (over the “Jewish

question”) .The Earl of Derby seemed to be the only suitable leader

but he was considerably apprehensive and unenthusiastic to say the

least, the Duke of Newcastle wrote to him expressing his eagerness for

Derby “allow us to rally to you as our “great captain” but Derby

responded by saying that he did not hold the ambition to become the

leader of party. Nevertheless Der...

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emerging middle class, with drive and clarity of vision by an

appropriate leader I believe the conservative party could have been

re-born and turned into a major political force long before they fully

recovered from the effects of the split.

Of course such a leader did not arrive to save the conservatives in

their time of turmoil largely because, ultimately, the fight for power

in 1846-66 was a battle between a modern, efficient party whose

allegiance was to the promotion of a widely beneficial programme, (and

therefore very popular) against an old, outdated, worn out,

inefficient party with awful internal organization embodied

predominantly by rich land inheritors with an interest in politics

that went only so far as to consider it a hobby rather than anything

so serious as the running of an empire.

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