The recent UK election reminds readers with long memories of 1874, when Disraeli’s Conservatives defeated Gladstone’s Liberals after the latter’s reforming first ministry. Boris Johnson is a chancer, like a miniscule Disraeli, and his novel is much less good than Sybil, or the Two Nations, which coined the idea of one nation Toryism. Disraeli’s young hero travels to the north of England to discover the existence of poverty, while Johnson has just careered around the north to harvest votes.
Neophyte Tory voters from the north should remember that Primrose League Toryism did little to alter the material conditions of the working class. Disraeli offered working-class Tories only jingoism and imperialism, anticipating the nativism and fantasies about “Empire 2.0” that Johnson and his clique are peddling.
Alas, working-class Toryism has long been with us. The struggle continues.
Charly Lomas
Aulas, France
• I was somewhat intrigued reading how Stanley Johnson, reacting to his son’s victory in last week’s general election, disingenuously puts it down to the Johnson genes. Would those genes be the same as those of King Frederick I of Württemberg, ancestor to both the current Bonaparte family and the Johnson clan through his daughter Catherine and son Paul? For it seems Frederick was lacking in scruples and was quite content to be elevated from being a duke to a king by Napoleon.
Through his support for Napoleon, Frederick was able to expand his territory, ultimately supplying 15,000 troops – many of whom were never to return – for Napoleon’s 1812 invasion of Russia. When Napoleon’s luck ran out, Frederick negotiated with the allies to come over to their side providing he could keep his title of king and his newly acquired territories. However, perhaps a gene not inherited by the Johnsons is the one of height and size, for Frederick was 6ft 11in and weighed around 200kg.
David H Yeats
Smethwick, West Midlands
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