Man is made to adore and to obey: but if you will not command him, if you give him nothing to worship, he will fashion his own divinities, and find a chieftain in his own passions.

However landlords did not adjust the rents they were charging for land rented to farmers for growing wheat or "corn". The establishment of the income tax on a permanent basis had been the subject of much inter-party discussion since the fall of Peel's ministry in June 1846. The government's principal measure for the 1858 session involved re-organising the governance of India the Indian Mutiny having exposed the inadequacy of dual control.

Disraeli fascinated and divided contemporary opinion; he was seen by many including some members of his own party as an adventurer and a charlatan and by others as a far-sighted and patriotic statesman. Disraeli invented the political novel of which Sybil and Vivian Grey are perhaps the best-known today. Disraeli's career from 1852 onwards was also marked by an intense rivalry with William Ewart Gladstone who eventually rose to become leader of the Liberal Party.