The Postwar Premiership League

Abstract

Who has been the best British prime minister since the Second World War? As David Cameron passes up and down the Grand Staircase in Number 10 Downing Street every day, the portraits of his predecessors as prime minister stare down at him. They are arranged in chronological order, with the most recent at the top of the stairs. If they were to be arranged in order of greatness, success or effectiveness in office, or policy achievement and legacy, the sequence would look very different.We report here the results from the latest survey of academic experts polled on the performance of post-1945 prime ministers. Academic specialists in British politics and history rate Clement Attlee as the best post-war prime minister, with Margaret Thatcher in second place just ahead of Tony Blair in third place. Gordon Brown's stint in Number 10 was the thirdworst since the Second World War, according to the respondents to the survey that rated his premiership as less successful than that of John Major.The prime-ministerial 'ratings game' is widely played. Prime ministers rate each other.

British MPs on British PMs: Parliamentary Evaluations of Prime Ministerial Success

“…In 1999 and 2000, respectively, the BBC and the American Political Science Association's British Politics Group (BPG) separately polled around 20 academics in efforts to rank all twentieth‐century Prime Ministers (for details of these earlier surveys, see Theakston, 2013). Theakston and Gill ( and ) then took the approach to a new level by conducting two large‐scale surveys of academic opinion. In their 2004 poll (Theakston and Gill, ), some 139 historians and political scientists rated how successful or unsuccessful each twentieth‐century Prime Minister was in office.…”

“…To keep things simple, the project was built around the central question posed by Theakston and Gill (; ) in their two surveys of academics: ‘How successful or unsuccessful do you think each of the following post‐war Prime Ministers was in office? Please answer using the 0 to 10 scale, where 0 means highly unsuccessful and 10 means highly successful’.…”

“…More specifically, it analyses the goals that MPs say Prime Ministers ought to pursue, the personal traits that MPs say are necessary for a Prime Minister to be successful, and the perceived success or otherwise of every post‐war Prime Minister from Clement Attlee to Gordon Brown. The use of expert surveys to rank British Prime Ministers has become something of a cottage industry in recent years (Theakston, ; Theakston and Gill, and ). While the views of historians and political scientists are of obvious interest, the views of practising politicians constitute a distinct and no less important body of opinion.…”

Political leadership as statecraft? Aligning theory with praxis in conversation with British party leaders

“…A prominent debate within this scholarship has developed about how prime ministerial and party leadership should be understood and assessed (Bennister, 't Hart, and Worthy 2014;Buller and James 2012;Byrne, Randall, and Theakston 2017;Greenstein 2009;Heppell 2014;Royal Holloway Group 2015;Theakston and Gill 2006;Theakston 2011;Theakston and Gill 2011). One leading framework for assessing political leaders is the neo-statecraft approach.…”

Understanding the Success of Presidents and Prime Ministers: The Role of Opposition Parties

“…Skowronek's patterns of authority also operate in 'Westminster' countries such as the United Kingdom (UK) and Australia. Experts in these countries also rank reconstructive leaders among their most successful leaders, including Clement Attlee and Margaret Thatcher in the UK, and John Curtin, Ben Chifley and Bob Hawke in Australia (Gordon and Grattan 2004;Theakston and Gill 2011).…”