William Ewart Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone's reply to Disraeli's budget, December 1852 Disraeli closed the budget debate late at night with a fierce speech, and Gladstone rose at once to answer it, to a storm of cheering and counter-cheering. The division, taken in the early morning, went against the government by 305 votes to 286, Lord Derby's minority ministry fell, and Lord Aberdeen formed a Peelite and Whig coalition with Gladstone at the Exchequer. His early biographers say his speech turned the vote. Other accounts give more weight to Irish members who deserted the government over its income tax plans, so read it as the speech that sealed a defeat rather than one that conjured it from nothing.