What would William Gladstone champion today?

By PETER FRANCIS

WILLIAM GLADSTONE dominated 19th-century British politics and helped shift government away from the preserve of the aristocracy to something approaching a meritocracy. In a career spanning seven decades, he pursued an ethical foreign policy, extended voting rights (to men), proposed home rule for Ireland and freed up the economy by removing duties and tariffs. He was prime minister four times between 1868 and 1894 and served in Parliament for 62 years.

Gladstone brought liberal values to public policy. He sought to “rescue and rehabilitate” prostitutes; tried to establish a new university in Dublin open to Catholics and Protestants; and punished unfair landlords—which millennials living in London can only cheer. Sadly, his liberalism didn’t extend to the wholehearted abolition of slavery. (He abhorred slavery and saw it as a taint against the whole British establishment, his own family included, but he spoke in favour of compensation for plantation owners, which at first sight seems illiberal but arguably helped to end slavery somewhat quicker than in America.) Yet in other areas, he was an arch-champion of individual liberty.