Hope you don't mind if I take the opportunity to talk about two of my favourite characters of the period, both of whom won seats against the established interest. Two more opposite people could hardly be found than William Wilberforce (virtuous, Pittite, anti-slavery campaigner and premature Victorian) and Banastre Tarleton (fornicator, Foxite, slave-trade defender, and archetypal dashing 18th century rakehell). But they both had courage and charm by the bucketful, which is why I love 'em, and no doubt why they succeeded.

] Wilberforce got elected as a member for Yorkshire in 1807, in defiance of a deal that split the two county seats between the Harewoods (Tory) and the Wentworths (Whig).

Indeed so. His decision to contest Yorkshire in 1784 was an act of considerable courage (or lunacy). He was at the time a Pittite, though he was an Independent later on. He was already member for Hull, and he had to contest that one as well as a fall-back, at a cost of more than 8000 pounds. In Yorkshire he was up against the interest of Earl Fitzwilliam (ie the Wentworths), one of the richest men in England, who had dozens of boroughs in his pocket. He won, and gained enormous prestige for himself and Pitt as a result.

Tarleton ran in the same election of 1784 for Liverpool, lost narrowly, and won in 1790. He was opposed by the Corporation of Liverpool, which had its own candidates. The Tarleton family backed him up in this election (though they ran his own brother against him in a subsequent one -- ah, family harmony!) The Tarletons were Liverpool merchants (including slave traders), his father had been Mayor, so he wasn't an outsider. His reputation as a war hero (or war villain, from the American point of view) served him well: he'd lost two fingers in the American War and would wave his mangled hand on all occasions.

For both of them, staying in the seat meant abiding by the wishes of large numbers of ordinary voters, and for both this led to actions in Parliament that appear badly in modern eyes. The Yorkshire clothiers wanted freedom to set wages and conditions without any protest from their workers: Wilberforce introduced the Combination Acts that made trade unionism a criminal -- and sometimes capital -- offence. Similarly, Liverpool made a lot of money out of the slave trade: Tarleton was therefore one of its most noted defenders.

However, to get back to the original question, I don't see Mr Palmer kissing fishwives (like Tarleton) or throwing up a perfectly good seat to contest the huge seat of Yorkshire (like Wilberforce). His courage we don't know about: but charm? No.