ABSTRACT
During the latter part of the eighteenth century, Parliament witnessed a period of virulent opposition with the contributions of Fox, Burke and their Whig colleagues; though even then, what may be termed party lines were very fluid indeed, Whig support being divided between Rockingham, on the one hand, and the other, Chatham and Shelburne. To be really effective, Opposition parties, by the very nature of their existence, require important issues upon which to oppose. In 1774, the start of the war with America provided just such an issue. The years between 1846 and 1860 were uneasy and confused ones for those in Opposition, with very little evidence to support the existence of a Shadow Cabinet, though Disraeli, writing to Lady Londonderry in December 1846, claimed that his party had a ‘better chance of governing the country than the late Cabinet’.
