page_title: Lord Randolph Churchill
section_title: End of political career
hierarchical_section_title: Lord Randolph Churchill / Career / End of political career
caption_attribution_description: 1881 Punch magazine cartoon of Lord Randolph Churchill, M.P., as a "midge with no sting in Parliament."
context_page_description: Lord Randolph Henry Spencer-Churchill was a British statesman. Churchill was a Tory radical and coined the term 'Tory democracy'. He inspired a generation of party managers, created the National Union of the Conservative Party, and broke new ground in modern budgetary presentations, attracting admiration and criticism from across the political spectrum. His most acerbic critics were in his own party, among his closest friends; but his disloyalty to Lord Salisbury was the beginning of the end of what should have been a glittering career. His elder son, Winston, wrote a biography of him in 1906.
context_section_description: Churchill was new to the leadership ranks, and became a relatively isolated figure in the cabinet. He did not think in terms of consulting his supporters and building a base in Commons; instead, he decided to use his strong public support to impose his positions on Prime Minister Lord Salisbury in both domestic and foreign affairs. He decided to demonstrate to the public that the Conservatives could be as economical in budgetary matters as Gladstone had been. Therefore, he proposed a budget with significant slashes that surprised and annoyed the Conservative MPs. They were willing to compromise, but he insisted on additional cuts in the Army and Navy that alarmed the service ministers. Churchill decided to threaten resignation—it proved one of the great blunders in British political history. In his resignation letter he stated that it was because he was unable as Chancellor to support the service. He expected his resignation to be followed by the unconditional surrender of the cabinet, and his restoration to office on his own terms. Instead, Salisbury accepted the resignation, and Churchill was out in the cold. Goschen replaced him as Chancellor. For the next few years there was some speculation about a return to front-line politics, but Churchill's own career was over. Even so, his economising ideas survived yet in the "Dartford Programme" of September 1886.
  Although Lord Randolph continued to sit in Parliament, his health was in serious decline throughout the 1890s. He was an ardent patron of horse-racing and in 1889, his horse L'Abbesse de Jouarre won The Oaks. In 1891 he went to South Africa, in search both of health and relaxation. He travelled for some months through Cape Colony, the Transvaal and Rhodesia, making notes on the politics and economics of the countries, shooting lions, and recording his impressions in letters to a London newspaper, which were afterwards republished under the title of Men, Mines and Animals in South Africa. He attacked Gladstone's Second Home Rule Bill with energy, and gave fiery pro-Union speeches in Ireland. During this time he coined the phrase "Ulster will fight, and Ulster will be right", echoing his earlier remark that in opposing Irish Home Rule "the Orange card would be the one to play".
  It was soon apparent that Churchill's powers had been undermined by the illness which was to take his life at the age of 45. As the session of 1893 wore on, his speeches lost their old effectiveness. His last speech in the House was delivered in the debate on the East African Scheme in June 1894, and was a painful failure.
caption: 1881 Punch cartoon by Edward Linley Sambourne of Lord Randolph Churchill, M.P., as a "midge with no sting in Parliament."
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