ABSTRACT
The chapter draws particularly on the exploitation of the press by Lord Palmerston and his views of its usefulness during the heyday of his political career in the years between the early 1830s and mid-1860s. Palmerston emerged from minor office in 1830 at the age of 46 and thereafter dominated British foreign policy debates, either as minister or critic, until his death 35 years later. In the eighteenth century foreign affairs accounted for a large proportion of the overall news coverage in British newspapers, but to a significant degree this was derived from Parliament itself, rendering the press frequently little more than an echo of Westminster debates. As Richard Cobden, one of Palmerston's severest critics, noted in 1850, the public and many newspaper editors had succumbed to a 'superstitious belief' in Palmerston's liberalism largely because he had deluded them by 'his dextrous use of the press'.
