Bentinck (who led the party in the Commons until 1849 and was a close ally of Disraeli, setting him up with his own wealth as a country gentleman) was viewed in a similar way to Stanley (interested in horses – he and Disraeli were nicknamed the Jockey and the Jew) and during his brief tenure as Commons leader, did little to strengthen the Conservatives.
As far as Disraeli’s leadership in the commons (after 1849) is concerned, his leadership wasn’t poor, in fact far from it. The unfortunate fact, however, that he was extremely mistrusted by many Conservatives (Peelites and Protectionists), due to both social prejudice (he was born a Jew and was mostly uneducated), and lack of confidence due to the belief that he had used the divide over the Corn Laws to further his own political ambitions, meant that he was less successful than he could otherwise have been. He did try to heal the wounds of 1846, by deliberately denouncing protection as ‘not only dead, but damned!’, but Gladstone and other former Conservatives mistrusted and detested him, due to both prejudice and anger at his scathing attacks on Peel, during the Corn Law debates, and were therefore unwilling to rejoin him. There was also some lack of confidence from within his own ranks, as was exemplified by the reluctance of the party to support his and Bentinck’s stance;”where is your Christianity if you do not let in their Judaism?”, over the issue of tolerance towards Jewish membership of Parliament (a practising Jew was elected for the City of London). The subsequent criticism from the rest of the party, mostly backbench squires, culminated in Bentinck’s resignation. However, Disraeli made steady progress, arguably as quickly as was possible, and in this period laid the foundations for the Conservative comeback afterwards. He even tried to extend the franchise and pledge to parliamentary reform in order to make the Tories more popular, but was defeated in the Commons, as support from the opposition was needed (since the Conservatives were a minority government). Though somewhat arrogant, Disraeli’s own description of his early leadership, in 1860, as successful; “finding the party in great depression” and “rallying the members”, is a fair account.
It was the aftermath of the debates surrounding the repeal of the Corn Laws that was most important in ensuring that the Conservatives were so weak for the next twenty years. The hotly debated issue completely divided the party between factions with increasingly differing policies and ideals. A whole segment of Conseravtives broke off from the party, and a period of powerless recovery was, therefore, inevitable. Almost unhealable divisions and personal hatred meant that the Peelites were unlikely ever to return to the Conservatives, meaning that, until the Conservatives became more popular amongst the electorate, they were unlikely to regain a majority. However, the party actually experienced dwindling electoral results, due to the social change that the country was experiencing (the new, urban middle classes were mostly liberal, and some working class people had decided to vote for those that they actually supported, not merely for those that offered the greatest bribe or amount of alcohol).
Another important factor in ensuring that the party was weak was that the majority of the most able and intelligent Conservatives had rallied behind Peel and belonged to the Peelite faction. Other than the mistrusted Disraeli, the bulk of the party (Protectionists), had a complete lack of good spokesmen and able politicians. In 1851, Derby failed to assemble a government due to lack of talent, and the 1852 cabinet was known as “who, who?”. Disraeli, Chancellor of the Exchequer, was known to have admitted to knowing nothing about his position, and his budget was defeated, spelling the end of the Tories’ brief office.
One can conclude that Derby’s Conservative leadership was weak, and that it did have a detrimental effect on the fortunes of the party. However, as Derby did little, and Disraeli was leader in the Commons, he was the effective leader, and his leadership was quite strong. Furthermore, there were other, more important factors in ensuring that the Tories were weak, mainly that the divisions caused by the repeal of the Corn Laws were so great that they could not be healed (meaning a period of recovery was inevitable), as well as poor electoral results, lack of trust in Disraeli (some due to prejudice) and lack of able, protectionist politicians.
