Robert Walpole, who took office on 3 April 1721 and is by convention regarded as the first of the 55 prime ministers to have guided this country’s fortunes over the past three centuries, was at ease with sex and money and self-enrichment at public expense. A famous caricature of him, entitled “Idol-Worship, or The Way to Preferment”, shows his naked arse being kissed by one office-seeker, while another holds a petition and bowls a hoop on which are found the words “Wealth, Pride, Vanity, Folly, Luxury, Want, Dependence, Servility, Venality, Corruption and Prostitution”.
Neither during his 20 years and 314 days in power, nor subsequently, have moralists seen anything to admire in Walpole. Jonathan Swift wrote a poem called “The Character of Sir Robert Walpole”:
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