The Prime Ministers summary

The rise and fall of British prime ministers are often very swift. Public opinion and the Westminster media circus are unforgiving. The ways in which prime ministers are characterized can often be deeply unfair and simplistic.

Over time, the media pigeonholes prime ministers. For instance, Labour’s Harold Wilson, who governed the UK from 1964 to 1970 and 1974 to 1976, was widely reviled by the newspapers and the nominally objective public broadcaster, the BBC, who attempted to sketch him as a uniquely drab figure. Likewise, the Tory leader John Major was depicted as a weak, ineffectual man during his tenure from 1990 to 1997. Once the seeds were planted, these impressions tended to stick in the public consciousness.

Harold Wilson was a great survivor, winning three elections in 1964, 1966 and 1974. This was an astounding achievement for a Labour leader, matched only by Tony Blair. 

Such an achievement required a masterful grasp of political maneuvering. Consider the way Wilson managed the 1975 referendum on Britain’s relationship with Europe.

As the troubled 1970s drew to a close – a decade of strike action and high inflation – a new figure moved into view. This figure would change everything. Her rise seemed unstoppable, inevitable, as if driven by a powerful wind. This, of course, was Margaret Thatcher.

To begin with, she overthrew the old Conservative Party establishment.

Margaret Thatcher was dramatically deposed in 1990 by MPs from her own party. Her successor couldn’t have been more different.

John Major, who took the reins in November of that year, was determined to steer the party back to its moderate tradition, after Thatcher’s right-wing leadership.

In 1994, Tony Blair became leader of the Labour Party, after a decade and a half of Tory rule. By this time,  John Major was crashing in the polls, and things looked promising for Labour. 

However, Blair had been an MP during the crushing election defeats of the 1980s, and was anxious not to make the same mistakes.

In 2005, after eight years in the wilderness, the Tories chose a new leader, the thirty-nine-year-old David Cameron. They’d lost three elections under deeply unpopular leaders, and seemed a spent force.

When David Cameron first appeared, he was hailed as the fresh face on the block, but he had little experience of high office. Slick, bright and self-confident, he had come up fast through the Tory ranks, serving as a parliamentary advisor to John Major at the tail end of his premiership.

In the chaos following the 2016 Brexit vote, the former Home Secretary, Theresa May, quickly became leader of the Conservative Party. It was a short leadership contest, in which all the other contestants dropped out. Theresa May was left to govern a newly divided country.

As she sought control of the situation, May positioned herself as someone who would solve “the burning injustices” that had contributed to the leave vote winning. Subsequently, she became very popular. To strengthen her hand, in April 2017 she called a snap general election, in which she assumed she would crush her opposition.