My favourite Benjamin Disraeli story – in a crowded if largely apocryphal field – comes from a dinner party the then prime minister attended in the late 1870s. War is raging in the Balkans, and with public opinion overwhelmingly in favour of a British intervention, the mood at the table is understandably tense. Eventually one guest, unable to bear the awkward silence any longer, bursts out: “Mr Disraeli, what are you waiting for?”
“At this moment, madam,” Disraeli replies, “the potatoes.”
