Disraeli discussed by Douglas Hurd and Edward Young Through these words and countless others, Disraeli took on a new life in 20th and 21st-century politics. But when it comes to understanding the man himself, more often than not these phrases lead us down a false trail. In some ways, the real Disraeli was more remarkable than the mythical one, driven by a relentless thirst for excitement and a taste for extravagant ideas. How should we value Disraeli's contribution to our history? Certainly, we must put to one side much of the hagiography that still hangs over him. He was not a one-nation Conservative - and this was not simply because he never used the phrase. He rejected the concept in its entirety. The whole point about the phrase "two nations" was that they represented two different ways of life and thought that could not be reconciled. Nor was Disraeli a Tory democrat. He manoeuvred his party with immaculate skill into a position where it put forward and passed a Second Reform Act, but he was no ardent convert to democracy himself. The Bill was in large part a way of rescuing his own career. Above all, in his heart Disraeli was very far from progressive. His starting point was backward looking; he wanted to revive but improve the old ways of doing things. By swallowing these myths, subsequent leaders of all parties have, to borrow Vernon Bogdanor's telling phrase, perhaps been "dominated more by Disraeli's ghost than by the man." And yet when we strip away the paint of present-day politics, the portrait that remains of Disraeli is far from unimpressive. His contribution to British politics was vast, transformative and special - and it was chiefly built around two notable gifts. The first gift concerned the integrity of political parties. Disraeli believed that partisan politics were an essential ingredient of stable politics. "We should always remember that if we were not partisans we should not be Ministers," he said at one point. And at another he explained: "I say you can have no parliamentary government if you have no party government." At the time, this was a new and radical concept; political parties were only beginning to take shape and the idea that a politician had duties not just to the nation and to his constituents but also to a political organisation took many years to come to fruition. At the time, it helped transform the nature of parliamentary democracy, equipping it for an era of mass politics in which votes were no longer based on factional and highly localised interests but on wider arguments about the national interest as a whole. Of course, the difficulty with this concept was that inevitably there would be antagonism between party and national interests. Indeed, this is one of the most frequent complaints against the continued power of sizeable political parties in our parliamentary system today. But at the time, these arguments were still evolving. Disraeli's second gift was essentially literary. His most powerful strength was the creative energy with which he transformed Victorian politics. The public were fascinated by his speeches in the Commons. As Lord Curzon later put it: "The jewelled phrase, the exquisite epigram, the stinging sneer. He was like a conjurer on a platform, whose audience with open mouth awaited the next trick. The result was that half a century before mass democracy, Disraeli made Parliament popular. He did this not by dint of legislative achievement, but simply by using his imagination to say brilliant, witty, and memorable things. Oscar Wilde wrote that Disraeli after his death would not be spoken of on Parnassus, but he would be quoted in Piccadilly. This has indeed become the way we remember Disraeli today. He was the phrasemaker. If Disraeli were alive today, he would despair at the lack of courage and bravery among our political classes. These days we are subjected to parliamentary performances that border on banal. Hour after hour, politicians in Parliament and in the media operate at the bottom of their abilities, churning out featureless, indeed often thoughtless, phrases without the courage to take a real argument to an interviewer or an opponent. The result is that we are driven to accept, even applaud, the platitudinous exchange of abuse as the essence of politics. Wit has almost disappeared from our political discourse. Indeed, this is partly why our leaders so often resort to the quotation book in order to borrow their wit from Disraeli. The contrast between past and present is depressing but instructive. We do not believe that Members of Parliament today are less intelligent than their predecessors in the 1860s and 1870s. On the contrary, the average level of education and native intelligence among our legislators is almost certainly higher now than then. It is easy to forget the deadweight of mediocrity that then peopled the benches of the House of Commons on both sides. Many Members of Parliament never spoke at all; others spoke to no particular purpose. Many were content with their lot as backbenchers and the prestige it gave them; the level of ambition is certainly greater now than then, being more widely spread. But ambitious backbenchers today face a barrier that is hard to surmount. They find themselves confronted with the general dislike and distrust of those whose votes they seek. There are different ways of tackling this difficulty. Some Members of Parliament busy themselves in their constituencies and make a name for themselves through local campaigns. They have their reward; it is common to find people who join in the general contempt for the political class while retaining an admiration for their own Member of Parliament. There are others who achieve the decisive advance by the intensity of their convictions. Yet all these techniques merely skirt around the main problem. In truth, it is boredom rather than cynicism that most accurately explains the present disillusionment with politics. We are strong in analysis, weak in imagination. Not lacking in strong feeling, but missing genuine eloquence and integrity that can persuade us by lifting our spirits. Above all, people have lost confidence in politicians because politicians have lost confidence in themselves. They bustle about, renouncing power at every opportunity, eagerly shifting decision-making down to expert bodies or local government. All this may be virtuous, but it ducks the main difficulty - that politicians are too timid to say interesting things. Of course, we are not calling for countless clones of Disraeli. Not all can - or should - try to soar to the heights that he did. Imagination can show itself in many ways. One of us, when in politics, supplied far fewer phrases than Disraeli to the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Indeed, his most famous quotation is currently subject to a paternity test: did D Hurd or G Howe first say that "Britain punches above its weight in the world?" But to quibble over this distracts from the main point. What matters, and is missing today, is that politicians should show genuine independence of thought when they debate. They should stir themselves to find imaginative ways of making an argument, not simply repeat the lines to take. At the moment, too often, too few try to do this - adding to the widespread impression that politicians are all the same. There are of course notable exceptions, and at present it is the most prominent exception who proves the rule. According to most accepted wisdom on modern politics, Boris Johnson should have been ruined years ago. He has been accused of all kinds of conventional wickedness, including being unfaithful and insulting the people of Liverpool. And yet his reputation has soared past these difficulties. This is in large part because he is entertaining and makes good use of his education in his rhetoric. Of course, there is a question of control. While Disraeli tried to keep his comedy in check and did not let his wit gallop away with him, Boris allows himself to be consumed by his own jokes. This makes it difficult when he wants to make a serious point. But, one way or another, Boris has none the less done today what Disraeli did in the 19th century, namely to raise the level of interest in politics up several pegs. We must not push this parallel too far. In some ways, it was easier for Disraeli to capture people's imagination in the 19th century. Political rivalries loomed larger in 19th-century politics than they do today. This was an age without footballers or film stars. Kings and queens, though once at the top of the tree, were by the 19th century less noteworthy than in previous centuries. This left a gap for politicians that no longer exists, to use the strength of their lungs and their wits to capture and hold an audience. Yet our aspirations should be the same today. This does not mean politicians should try to compete with celebrities; nothing good can come of that. Rather, they should be bold enough to make good use of the platform and position that they have earned by their election. They should use their standing to campaign and speak out, making genuinely thoughtful and imaginative speeches about the future of our country and the purpose of politics. This in the end was Disraeli's great achievement. He may not have reformed the nature of British society. He may not have transformed our standing overseas. But he did make politics interesting and engaging. If we look in his career for solid achievement, we shall be disappointed. But if we want something to raise our game, Disraeli is the man. Disraeli or The Two Lives by Douglas Hurd & Edward Young 320pp, t £16 (plus £1.35 p&p) 0844 871 1515 (RRP £20)