Douglas Hurd

Douglas Hurd became Home Secretary in 1985. Before that, he served as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and as a Minister of State in the Foreign and Home Offices. He has co-written eight novels, the most recent being The Palace of Enchantment. His article in the present issue is based on a speech delivered at Tamworth on 5 February, the bicentenary of Sir Robert Peel’s birth.

Douglas Hurd’s Tamworth Manifesto

Douglas Hurd, 17 March 1988

Bristol in the hands of the mob for three days, the Mansion House and three prisons sacked, rioters killed in Derby, Nottingham Castle burned to the ground – that was the news from England in the summer of 1832. We should not be beguiled by the calm portraits of Sir Robert Peel or his heavy, measured prose. He led his party through times much more violent than our own. During a time of tumultuous social change he fundamentally changed its direction.

The Man Who Never Glared: Disraeli

John Pemble, 5 December 2013

‘All actors want to play Disraeli, except fat ones,’ the American filmmaker Nunnally Johnson said. ‘It’s such a showy part – half Satan, half Don Juan, man of so...

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