“Ideal perfection is not the true basis of English legislation. We look at the attainable; we look at the practicable; and we have too much of English sense to be drawn away by those sanguine delineations of what might possibly be attained in Utopia, from a path which promises to enable us to effect great good for the people of England.”

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1884/feb/28/motion-for-leave in the House of Commons (28 February 1884) during a debate on the Representation of the People Bill.
1880s

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William Ewart Gladstone 121
British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United… 1809–1898

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