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|title=Pistols at Dawn: Two Hundred Years of Political Rivalry from Pitt and Fox to Blair and Brown

|author=John Campbell

|date=September 2010

|isbn=978-1845950910

}}

When Benjamin Disraeli became Prime Minister in 1868 for the first time, he proudly told a friend that he had climbed to the top of the greasy pole. Political history is strewn with cases of rival politicians who have aspired to that same summit, or at least to the leadership of their party. Some have started out as close friends, others as cabinet colleagues whose differences have led their parties to serious electoral defeat if not come close to splitting them altogether.