Despite having a wealthy father, William Gladstone was never a rich man. The Hawarden estate in Flintshire, which came into his family through his wife, was unprofitable for years.

It is widely thought, particularly in the Conservative Party, that Disraeli made life significantly better for ordinary people in the late nineteenth century. This is a myth. It was Stanley Baldwin who committed the Conservatives to far-reaching social reform, as his record on housing shows.

On 27 September, Alistair Lexden, historian of the Conservative Party, recalled the character and the achievements of Stanley Baldwin, three times Prime Minister and Conservative Party leader for fourteen years from 1923 to 1937.

A letter published in The Times on September 26 contained the amusing story of a Tory MP, Sir Walter Bromley-Davenport, who, when taken ill in the Commons, brushed aside an offer of assistance from a well-known Labour MP who was a doctor, saying “I would rather die.” Alistair Lexden capped that w

People constantly get the origin of the term ‘one nation’ wrong. Alistair Lexden has corrected the mistake in the press on many occasions. He did so again in a letter published in The Spectator on 22 September under the amusing headline ‘Stan’s laurel’.

There was a reference in The Daily Telegraph on 3 September to the connection between the Royal Family and Crathie Kirk, near Balmoral which Queen Victoria started in 1848.

Since the collapse of the Northern Ireland Executive nineteen months ago, the Province has been run by civil servants. They are accountable to no one. The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has no power over matters that have been devolved from Westminster.

Lord Liverpool (1770-1828) was prime minister for longer than all but two of his predecessors, and longer than all his successors. He had to wait a long time for a full biography by a modern historian. It was finally published earlier this year. Alistair Lexden’s review of it follows.

Left-wing actors and film-makers love to distort history. A new film about the tragic incident that came to be known as Peterloo is attracting a great deal of attention even before its release.

Alistair Lexden is one of a number of lawyers, clerics, academics and others in the George Bell Group, formed to get the investigation of the allegations—grave in character, but just two in number—that have laid against the great Bishop George Bell (1883-1958) opened up to full and fair public sc