The split in the Tory / Conservative party over the repeal of the Corn Laws had profound implications for Disraeli's political career: almost every Conservative politician with official experience followed Peel, leaving the rump bereft of leadership.

Disraeli's first premiership was dominated by the heated debate over the established Church of Ireland.

Known by their nicknames " Dizzy " and the " Grand Old Man ", their colourful, sometimes bitter, personal and political rivalry over the issues of their time – Imperialism vs. Anti-Imperialism, expansion of the franchise, labour reform, and Irish Home Rule – spanned almost twenty years until Disraeli's death in 1881.

; 1851: Correspondence between Lord Stanley, whose father became British Prime Minister the following year, and Benjamin Disraeli, who became Chancellor of the Exchequer alongside him, records Disraeli's proto-Zionist views: " He then unfolded a plan of restoring the nation to Palestine – said the country was admirably suited for them – the financiers all over Europe might help – the Porte is weak – the Turks / holders of property could be bought out – this, he said, was the object of his life ...." Coningsby was merely a feeler – my views were not fully developed at that time – since then all I have written has been for one purpose.

Victoria favoured Disraeli's Tory policies over those of his Liberal rival, William Ewart Gladstone.

Lord Robert Cecil was first elected to the House of Commons in 1854 and served as Secretary of State for India in Lord Derby's Conservative government from 1866 until his resignation in 1867 over its introduction of Benjamin Disraeli's Reform Bill that extended the suffrage to working-class men.

In 1874 when Disraeli formed an administration Salisbury returned as Secretary of State for India and in 1878 was appointed Foreign Secretary and played a leading part in the Congress of Berlin, despite doubts over Disraeli's pro-Ottoman policy.

Disraeli's protagonist, the Duke of St. James, attends a horse race with a surprise finish: " A dark horse which had never been thought of, and which the careless St. James had never even observed in the list, rushed past the grandstand in sweeping triumph.

Having been Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department for two years in Disraeli's administration, Sir Matthew Ridley ( as he became when he succeeded his father as fifth baronet in 1877 ) was Financial Secretary to the Treasury in Lord Salisbury's interim government of 1885 to 1886.

At least two years earlier, Disraeli's political opportunism already had damaged Young England's credibility.

Stanley, with Disraeli's assistance, proposed and guided through the house the India Act, under which the subcontinent would be governed for sixty years.

Blake further argued that Disraeli's imperialism " decisively orientated the Conservative party for many years to come, and the tradition which he started was probably a bigger electoral asset in winning working-class support during the last quarter of the century than anything else ".

" However, the phrase is not found in any of Disraeli's works and the earliest known appearances were years after his death.

When the Conservatives came into power in 1874, his part for the next six years was to criticize Disraeli's " spirited " foreign policy, and to defend his own more pliant methods.

Disraeli's appreciation found an opportunity for displaying itself some years later, when in 1868 he invited him to be Lord Chancellor in the brief Conservative administration which followed Lord Derby's resignation of the party leadership.

Disraeli and Chelmsford had never got along particularly well, and Cairns, in Disraeli's view, was a far stronger minister.

While Disraeli's government survived until the December general election, the initiative had passed to the Liberals, who were returned to power with a majority of 170.

Disraeli's old reputation as the " Tory democrat " and promoter of the welfare state fell away as historians showed he that Disraeli had few proposals for social legislation in 1874-80, and that the 1867 Reform Act did not reflect a vision Conservatism for the unenfranchised working man.

* Florence Arliss as Lady Mary Beaconsfield ( in reality Disraeli's wife had died in 1872!

Chamberlain had been consulted by the Home Secretary, Richard Assheton Cross during the preparation of the Artisan's and Labourers ' Dwellings Improvement Act 1875, during Disraeli's social improvement programme.

Unlike many Liberals, Chamberlain's was not an anti-imperialist, for although he berated the government for its Eastern policy, the Second Afghan War of 1878 and the Zulu War of 1879, he had supported Disraeli's purchase of Suez Canal Company shares in November 1875.

In 1868, at the end of his first term as Prime Minister, Disraeli's wife Mary Anne had been created Viscountess Beaconsfield, of Beaconsfield in the County of Buckingham, in her own right, allowing her husband to remain a member of the House of Commons.

Cranborne wrote to Derby that he had discovered that Disraeli's plan would " throw the small boroughs almost, and many of them entirely, into the hands of the voter whose qualification is less than £ 10.

As a minority government they had to accept radical amendments, and Disraeli's Reform Act 1867 almost doubled the electorate, giving the vote even to working men.

Disraeli's debts incurred from this debacle would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Disraeli's preference for female company prevented the development of contact with those who were otherwise not alienated by his opinions, comportment or background.

Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford and a friend of Disraeli's, spoke strongly against the measure and implied that Russell was paying off the Jews for " helping " elect him.

Bentinck was succeeded by Lord Granby ; Disraeli's own speech, thought by many of his own party to be blasphemous, ruled him out for the time being.

Disraeli's proposal to extend the tax to Ireland gained him further enemies, and he was also hampered by an unexpected increase in defence expenditure, which was forced on him by Derby and Sir John Pakington ( Secretary of State for War and the Colonies ) ( leading to his celebrated remark to John Bright about the " damned defences ").

With Gladstone's refusal Derby and Disraeli looked elsewhere and settled on Disraeli's old friend Edward Bulwer-Lytton, who became Secretary of State for the Colonies ; Derby's son Lord Stanley, succeeded Ellenborough at the Board of Control.

Lord Cairns, Disraeli's Lord Chancellor, sought to remove the House of Lords jurisdiction for Scottish and Irish appeals as well, which would have completely removed its judicial jurisdiction.

During most of the 19th-century in fact, the term " tennis " referred to real tennis, not lawn tennis: for example, in Disraeli's novel Sybil ( 1845 ), Lord Eugene De Vere announces that he will " go down to Hampton Court and play tennis.

Chamberlain criticed Disraeli's forward foreign policy for diverting attention from domestic reform.

Cranborne also wrote to Derby arguing that he should adopt 10 shillings rather than Disraeli's 20 shillings for the qualification of the payers of direct taxation: " Now above 10 shillings you won't get in the large mass of the £ 20 householders.

Also, the annals of modern parliamentary history could find no parallel for Disraeli's betrayal ; historians would have to look " to the days when Sunderland directed the Council, and accepted the favours of James when he was negotiating the invasion of William ".

The action of the story follows Sybil Gerard, a political courtesan and daughter of an executed Luddite leader ( she is borrowed from Disraeli's novel Sybil ); Edward " Leviathan " Mallory, a paleontologist and explorer ; and Laurence Oliphant, a historical figure with a real career, as portrayed in the book, as a travel writer whose work was a cover for espionage activities " undertaken in the service of Her Majesty ".

Hunt was appointed to the Admiralty for Disraeli's second ministry, serving from 1874 until his death from gout in 1877.

Disraeli's politics at the time were influenced both by his rebellious streak and by his desire to make his mark.

The next day another Cabinet meeting took place, with Cranborne saying little and the Cabinet adopting Disraeli's proposal to bring in a Bill in a week's time.

The relative political fortunes of Gladstone and Hartington fluctuated-Gladstone was not popular at the time of Benjamin Disraeli's triumph at the Congress of Berlin, but the Midlothian Campaigns of 1879-80 marked him out as the Liberals ' foremost public campaigner.

He was, moreover, an Imperialist and a Colonial Federationist at a time when Liberalism was tied and bound to the Manchester traditions ; and, to the consternation of the official wire-pullers, he vigorously supported Disraeli's foreign policy, and in 1881 opposed the Gladstonian settlement with the Boers.