Word: whig
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...hundred years ago, everyone took for granted that the Tories were a conservative party, the Whigs a liberal one. So when Tory Benjamin Disraeli pushed through Parliament the liberal Reform Bill of 1867 (doubling the electorate), both Whig and Tory rank & file were as stunned as if night had turned into day. Tory Leader Lord Derby had to dash about explaining the significance of this extraordinary stroke to his amazed followers. "Don't you see," he cried delightedly, "how we have dished the Whigs...
Subsequently, dishing the Whigs (or as Disraeli put it: "Tory men and Whig measures") has been a basic plank in Tory platforms. Even Britain's Hesketh Pearson relishes nothing more than the tart flavor of a well-dished Whig-and Pearson denies that he is a Tory at all. In his time, he has written sympathetic biographies of such diverse spirits as Dickens, G.B.S., Oscar Wilde and Gilbert & Sullivan. But, Tory or no Tory, Biographer Pearson seems to see eye-to-eye with Dizzy on a great many matters of principle. He is strongly opposed, for one thing...
...function smoothly. During his eight years of office, President Tubman has extended the vote to Liberia's women and the hinterland tribesmen, but he also got Liberia's constitution amended to permit the President to serve an unlimited number of four-year terms. Tubman's True Whig Party, representing the descendants of the 15,000 freed U.S. slaves who first settled the nation, has ruled over Liberia almost without interruption since...
This year, as election time approached, a fusion party decided to upset the Whig pork barrel. The fusionists chose as their champion a sixtyish, reform-minded Kru tribesman named Dihdwo Twe (pronounced Daydaw Tooey), who at the age of 15 had hitchhiked his way to an education in the U.S. and friendship with Mark Twain. Tubman, although he has more than a political grudge against his opponent-Twe is married to Tubman's ex-wife-did not interfere with Twe's campaign. For a while it looked as if Liberia might have a real election...
...Charles Grey was to win a place in history as "the very type of old Whig nobleman, punctiliously honorable and high-minded." As Prime Minister, to the gnashing of Tory teeth, he pushed through the Reform Bill of 1832, set Parliament on its modern course as a democratic house. George Romney's portrait of him almost succeeds in characterizing a sitter whose character was not yet evident. He caught Charles Grey's idealism as well as his pride, conveyed both in the open brow, direct glance and faint curl of the lips...