Tories, so long as they behave themselves, and help them pass Liberal measures”. A few months later he became firmly associated with them in the great campaign to stop the Reviews break-up of the United Kingdom. This did not bring him to Downing Street, but by 1900 his alliance with the Tories had made him an infinitely more powerful figure in the land than he had ever been as a Liberal. Nick Timothy has now produced a short, incisive and timely study of Chamberlain’s relationship with the Tories. He emphasises Chamberlain’s ultimate failure in “his two most famous battles”: to defeat Home Rule Reviewsand unite the British Empire. But, as he Our Joe: Joseph Chamberlain’s by two right-wing causes: the retention rightly stresses, Chamberlain’s radicalism, Conservative Legacy of Ireland within the United Kingdom particularly in relation to social reform, By Nick Timothy, Conservative and Britain’s imperial destiny with the never wavered. Though he never joined it History Group, £7.99 monarchy as its glittering symbol. (remaining a Liberal Unionist to the end), A new life of Chamberlain, drawing on his impact on the Conservative Party was oe Chamberlain, in the vast surviving archival sources, is badly profound and long-lasting. Churchill’s famous phrase, “made the needed. The main current biographies “Thanks to Chamberlain,” Timothy J weather”. By denouncing Gladstone’s provide a large amount of information about concludes, “the Conservatives became a Irish Home Rule Bill in 1886 and him, but leave the great paradoxes of his party with a positive programme, committed splitting the Liberal Party, he changed the extraordinary career unexplained. Only one to social reform, and capable of appealing course of British politics. By advocating work has successfully tackled them: Richard to all classes.” That is perhaps pitching it imperial unity through the creation of a Jay’s Joseph Chamberlain: A Political too high: the Tories had already worked tariff wall in 1903, he split the Tory Party Study, published over thirty years ago and out for themselves that they needed a “one and changed the course of British politics long out of print. nation”appeal and made the dead Disraeli again. He rarely made the political weather Chamberlain’s great problem was that the their hero in order to achieve it. Even so, calm or benign. Liberal Party would not have him as their Timothy’s valuable work will need to be Before 1886 he was a radical firebrand. leader at any price. Gladstone had no time taken carefully into account by historians of “The monarchy, the church, the aristocracy, for him long before they fell out over Ireland. the party, as well as by Chamberlain’s future the House of Lords, London society, the He built up no significant following of his biographers. Free education and the right limited franchise, the great vested interests own on the Liberal benches in Parliament. to compensation for industrial injuries were and professions – all in their turn became In order to wield substantial power, among the many reforms he induced the his targets,” as Churchill, who knew him Chamberlain sought to recast party politics Tories to implement. well, later recalled. He was in alliance with Churchill’s Mr Timothy is at present a political reluctant to share a carriage father, Lord Randolph, adviser to Theresa May. It is important to with the Prince of Wales when whose progressive views and note that this publication was completed the latter visited Birmingham ruthless ambition made him before Mrs May set out to make herself – which Chamberlain had as uncomfortable among the better known in the Conservative Party. made his impregnable political Tories as Chamberlain was There is no suggestion here that the mantle citadel, having transformed among the Liberals. of Chamberlain – that great populist it into a model of good local In December 1885, before politician – has fallen on her. government in the 1870s. He the onset of the Home Rule was widely referred to as “the crisis, Chamberlain was Lord Lexden is a Conservative peer and co-author British Robespierre”. Yet after reported to have “made of a detailed account of party politics in 1885-86 1886 his life was dominated up his mind to support the entitled The Governing Passion

62 | THE HOUSE MAGAZINE | 18 April 2013 www.politicshome.com