IT is perhaps the measure of the man that Robert Peel was able to change his mind. Nicknamed "Orange Peel" by Daniel O'Connell during his tenure as Irish Chief Secretary, this is the man whose change of heart delivered Catholic Emancipation a decade or so after he left Ireland. Peel did not believe in the tyranny of consistency and therein lies the genesis and genius of modern British Conservatism.

Peel's political career is marked by a number of significant and long-enduring achievements.

Catholic Emancipation is certainly one. But school children in the English-speaking world will bestremember Peel for his establishment of the 'Peelers', the London metropolitan police, also in 1829.

Of equal importance is his decision in 1842 to introduce peacetime income tax, the first step towards shifting the balance between direct and indirect taxation that has marked the last two centuries.

This is a book about a Tory grandee written by a Tory grandee. Hurd's admiration for Peel is always evident. Peel's strengths are Conservative strengths. Peel and Hurd share a distaste for their party's extreme wing.

Peel undoubtedly deserves his place in the pantheon of the Conservative Party. Having opposed the Great Reform Act of 1932, he was among the first to realise times were changing and the Tories should adjust accordingly. Hurd places great emphasis on comments made by Peel as early as 1820 to this effect.

Peel's Tamworth manifesto, issued in advance of the 1834 election, is widely regarded as the first Conservative manifesto.

Hurd believes Peel's election as prime minister in the 1841 election marks the first time the king's prime minister was chosen by the people, a function of the growing influence of political parties. Yet the author also realises that while Peel may have been at the heart of this change he was also uncomfortable with it. Peel believed that regardless of where his support came from within the Commons it was his job to lead. That conviction led ultimately to his downfall.

Peel stands alongside Pitt, Liverpool, Wellington, Palmerston, Disraeli (a political nemesis) and Gladstone as one of Britain's foremost political leaders of the 19th century. Yet his tenure as prime minister was relatively short, two years in the 1830s and a truncated term between 1841 and 1846. But those facts belie his influence. He was the senior House of Commons man under Wellington and arguably under Liverpool too.

Unusually for politicians of his age Peel was economically literate, perhaps reflecting his background. Peel, while wealthy, came from none of the great aristocratic families. His father and grandfather had made their money in the cotton mills. Hurd suggests Peel was the first truly Victorian prime minister and his values represented those of that age.

Peel's reputation is defined by his decision to repeal the Corn Laws in 1846, even though he had sought no prior mandate to do so.

His evolution as a free trader was a lengthy journey. He had always been sympathetic to Tory economic reformers and remained committed to protectionism only as long as he felt it justifiable in the national interest. He was never an economic class warrior for the agricultural interest.

The extent of Peel's influence on British politics is underplayed by Hurd in one sense. Not only is he one of the acknowledged founders of the modern Conservative Party, he contributed to the foundation of the Liberal Party also. Following the split in the Conservatives over the repeal of the Corn Laws many remaining Peelites ended up as an element in the emerging Liberal party.

William Gladstone, who went on to become the foremost Liberal of his century, was a Peelite disciple in the 1830s and 40s.

Given the life he led, Peel's premature demise was a rather mundane tragedy. In 1850, only four years after he left office as prime minister, he fell from his horse and was crushed to death.

He will never be fondly remembered in this country, after all he nearly fought a duel with Daniel O'Connell and he never returned to Ireland after 1818. Hurd argues throughout the book that Peel was aware of and interested in the plight of ordinary people. He is satisfied Peel would have intervened more than the Whig government during the famine and that a Peel government, had it been returned in 1847, would have advocated Home Rule.

As an established novelist it is not surprising that Hurd's book is an easy read. The book is an ode to Peel and the one-nation Tory tradition but neither Peel's achievements nor the book are any the less for that.