This soldier and statesmen deserves the memorial shield in Parliament that is now customary for Members killed in the line of duty.
He ranks with Gladstone as one of the truly great premiers of the 19th Century. Both also inflicted huge damage on their respective parties.
It is a shame that IRA violence – and Westminster neglect – undid the hopeful and constructive spirit in which Stormont was born.
He proposed a limit was placed on the number of life peers that could be created. Much criticism of the House of Lords could have been spared.
His first premiership was accidental and cut extremely short by Gladstone – but ‘Dizzy’ did manage to make the Queen a Tory.
From Wellington to Johnson, this institution has managed to keep itself at the heart of Tory politics.
By happy chance, it coincided with the State Opening of the new Parliament, elected in July, which was ‘restored to something of its pristine splendour’.
Butler added a further key factor: “six years of left-wing propaganda accompanied by a virtual cessation of right-wing propaganda”.
At no other time since 1945 has a working majority for one Party been turned at a single election into a working majority for another.
The great Parliamentarian then spoke to his colleagues from the heart. “Some Members wept,” Channon noted.
If Boris Johnson now gives real political substance to what has become an overused catch-phrase, he will recreate the Tories in the image of “ Honest Stan” Baldwin.
Disraeli defined conservatism as ‘love of country and an instinct for power’, and her successors should strive for her winning fusion of the two.
He was murdered by terrorists 40 years ago today. Now there is a new, exemplary biography of him.
How a proud, unbending leader misread his party, brought down a government, and set back the idea of sharing power for a generation.
Never before had British and Irish representatives put their names to a formal agreement of this kind as complete equals.