How many times can we reinvent the same political heroes to fit the ever-shifting priorities of modern debates?

On this week’s Afternoon Light Georgina Downer speaks with Emily Jones about The Disraeli Myth. A fascinating book exploring the manipulation of historical memory for political purposes. It reveals how Sir Robert Menzies is far from unique in being selectively quoted to push contemporary agendas, and that he may yet be reimagined many more times.

Want to learn more about the evolution of conservative thought? Listen to these episodes of Afternoon Light:

Greg Melleuish on the Evolution of Political Terms: “That’s yesterday’s liberalism, therefore it’s conservatism”

Kit Kowol on Chamberlain, Churchill & the British Conservative Party during WW2: “There were other futures available”

Charles Moore on Margaret Thatcher’s Life, Legacy & 100th Birthday: “Almost Revolutionary Fervour”

Emily Jones is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Manchester, who has previously worked at Columbia University, the University of Cambridge, and the University of Oxford. Her DPhil was published as Edmund Burke and the Invention of Modern Conservatism, 1830-1914: An Intellectual History, which won the Longmans-History Today prize and was a Financial Times ‘Book of the Year’. Her new book, The Disraeli Myth: The Making of a Conservative Tradition, was published in July 2026 by Princeton University Press. She is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Higher Education Academy.