Whipping the wicked
Peter Clarke, 17 April 1980
The Optimists: Themes and Personalities in Victorian Liberalism
by Ian Bradley.
Faber, 301 pp., £12.50, January 1980,0 571 11495 4 Show More
by Ian Bradley.
Faber, 301 pp., £12.50, January 1980,
“... rise and fall of Liberal support are, however, rather less convincing. Gladstone himself took a keen speculative interest in electoral sociology and found encouraging precedents for the fact that the humble and meek made the warmest response to the Liberal appeal. ‘Did Scribes and Pharisees or did shepherds and fishermen yield the first, most and readiest ... ”