Benjamin Disraeli, although a Conservative, is sympathetic…

Benjamin Disraeli, although a Conservative, is sympathetic to some of the demands of the Chartists and has argued for an alliance between the landed aristocracy and the working class against the increasing power of the merchants and new industrialists in the middle class, helping to found the Young England group in 1842 to promote the view that the landed interests should use their power to protect the poor from exploitation by middle-class businessman.

Disraeli continually seeks a Tory-Radical alliance, to little avail.

The working class does not possess the vote and therefore has little tangible political power.

Although Disraeli forges a personal friendship with John Bright, a Lancashire manufacturer and leading Radical, Disraeli is unable to convince Bright to sacrifice principle for political gain.

After one such attempt, Bright notes in his diary that Disraeli "seems unable to comprehend the morality of our political course.”

Disraeli had become a Tory by the time he won a seat in the House of Commons in 1837 representing the constituency of Maidstone, though he had initially stood for election unsuccessfully, as a Radical.

The next year he had settled his private life by marrying Mary Anne Lewis, the widow of Wyndham Lewis, Disraeli's erstwhile colleague at Maidstone.