ABSTRACT
For many of the early twentieth-century Labour Party and trade union leaders, William Gladstone was used as a gold standard of morality in politics. The roots of Gladstone's appeal to a large section of working people were in the moral seriousness of his politics, his perceived fairness between classes and his views of a widening electorate. In favouring the People', Biagini follows, among others, Peter Clarke who judged Victorian politics to be based on status and culture, rather than class. Gladstone's early appeal to a wide public stemmed initially from his financial policies when Chancellor of the Exchequer. Gladstone's pronouncements in the later 1880s and 1890s were often surprisingly radical, but when analysed usually had the aim of fostering social cohesion. He was dismissive of such strands of newer radicalism such as land nationalisation, a cause which provided links with some early labour movement pioneers.
