The Prime Ministers We Never Had: Success and Failure from Butler to Corbyn

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I wonder what he'd make of the Labour Party today - my hunch is that he'd be quietly proud of Blair and the work of the government. Parties and Prime Ministers". BBC News. 19 May 1998. Archived from the original on 18 March 2004 . Retrieved 12 October 2008. Ultimately, while I enjoyed this book I felt that there was something missing. The author purposefully made this book to focus on why these figures did not become Prime Ministers. But by doing this exclusively he left out perhaps the most intriguing question to be answered; what would they have been like as Prime Ministers? I had just opened up and the first customer in told me the news. I just could not believe it - I was stunned. As a life-long Labour supporter, as were the majority of my friends, we were just stood around in silence for what seemed like an eternity. Even though we were young teenagers, we were both aware of the significance of his death and the hole it left in British politics.

Political parties select their leaders in various ways, but most include a vote of their members. How unusual is it to have a Prime Minister without an election?McMullen Rigg, James (1899). "Townshend, Charles". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol.57. London: Smith, Elder & Co. The angle, looking at those who were touted for the top job but never achieved it, allows for a lot more insight than I would have expected. I actually found it much more interesting and revealing than books charting the PMS we did get. Courthope 1838, p.33; Eccleshall & Walker 2002, p.123; Englefield, Seaton & White 1995, pp.124–130; Pryde et al. 1996, p.47; Shaw 1906, p.447; Tout 1910, p.740. Character is destiny. Discuss.” That was Steve Richards’s preferred essay title when studying Shakespeare as a schoolboy, and is one of the running themes in The Prime Ministers, a thoughtful and compelling book that expands on the televised and unscripted lectures Richards did for BBC Parliament at greater length. Mosley, Charles, ed. (1999). Burke's Peerage and Baronetage. Vol.1–2 (106thed.). Crans, Switzerland: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books).

Eccleshall & Walker 2002, p.196; Englefield, Seaton & White 1995, pp.195–198; Royal Statistical Society 1892, p.9. King, Anthony Stephen, ed. (1985). The British Prime Minister (2nded.). Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-0635-1. By far the sanest president of recent times was Obama,” Runciman declares. Which may well be true, but Runciman has no way of reliably establishing it. He moves from that assertion to the argument that Obama’s exemplary sanity was the reason he achieved less than Lyndon Johnson as president. A claim that is unknowable is used to justify an argument that is, at best, disputed. Might the differences between the two presidencies not be found in the fact that Johnson received significant cross-party support for all of his great reforms while every one of Obama’s legislative achievements, from healthcare to financial services regulation, were opposed bitterly by the Republicans? You have to say right away that Steve Richards is very fair to politicians. It is an admirably unfashionable habit among political commentators. Some scribblers nowadays would concoct an affair between David Attenborough and the Queen if either secular saint were to show an inclination to vote Labour.

How unusual is it to have a Prime Minister without an election?

Cook & Stevenson 1980, p.11; Eccleshall & Walker 2002, p.28; Englefield, Seaton & White 1995, pp.16–21; Pryde et al. 1996, p.46; Tout 1910, p.740. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society. Vol.55. London, UK: Royal Statistical Society. 1948 [First published 1892] – via the Internet Archive. Butler & Butler 2010, pp.6–9; The Constitutional Yearbook 1919, p.42; Eccleshall & Walker 2002, p.252; Englefield, Seaton & White 1995, pp.237–243.

My wife and I were honeymooning in Inverness at the time of John Smith's death. At the same time there was a Scottish Conservative Party conference and a Scottish professional Snooker tournament going on. Chapman, Richard A. (2002). "History: from earliest times to the present day". The Treasury in Public Policy-Making. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-86426-3. I was at university and had gone to my mates' room where they had a TV and they broke the news to me. I remember just sinking to the floor with my head in my hands and didn't speak for about ten minutes. The country, and indeed the world, was robbed of potentially one of the great post-war Prime Ministers. Cook & Stevenson 1988, p.41; Eccleshall & Walker 2002, p.14; Englefield, Seaton & White 1995, pp.7–10; Jones & Jones 1986, p.222.

‘Electing’ Prime Ministers

a b The British Magazine and Review 1782, p.79; Eccleshall & Walker 2002, pp.46, 50; Englefield, Seaton & White 1995, pp.39–43.