It’s hard to think about politics today without immediately picturing the face of a party’s leader, charismatic or otherwise. Whether delivering a rousing conference speech, squirming through a TV interview, or being caught by a “hot mic”, figures like Nigel Farage, Jeremy Corbyn, Donald Trump and Boris Johnson have dominated the political landscape in recent years.

We often talk about them more than the parties they represent. In many ways, the party has become a faction of its leader. But is this rise in personality politics really anything new? History – particularly 18th-century history – suggests otherwise.

Nobody embodied this form of politics better than Charles James Fox, as my latest book explores. Fox was as famous for his charisma and scandals as he was for his statesmanship. Though an aristocrat, he was known as the “man of the people”, with a loyal following within and outside of parliament.

Fox might technically have belonged to the Whig party, over its rival the Tory party. But such distinctions in his day were almost useless. Politics in Fox’s era was factional and centred around personality as much as politics.

So strong was the draw and bond of the Foxites’ leader, that when Fox died in 1806, his movement collapsed, and his followers scattered. A testament to the fragility of leader-based politics.

Rather than voting or speaking........

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