Lord Ailesbury was on the independent benches in the House of Lords, but he had liberal leanings, supporting the Whig governments. On 1 Feb 1849 he responded to the Queen's loyal address "...if not that, pursuing so unusual a course, he might appear to be acting disrespectfully towards their lordships, and perhaps to some degree towards Her Majesty..." He supported the reformist agenda of the Whig government particularly in foreign relations. He was strongly in favour of Palmerston's gunboat diplomacy, and supported a joint taskforce with France to bombard Naples and Sicily to end the atrocities there in 1849. He would not propose any reductions in the army numbers, because adequate defences were needed for each colony far in excess of those presently. He required the "presence of the noble and gallant Duke" with no reduction in the Artillery. Indeed, he thought the artillery should be supplemented by cuts to the infantry. He agreed with the earl of Yarborough's warnings of revolutionary Europe posed to Britain. He encouraged adding to the powers of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and applauded the emergency powers introduced in 1848.