How long do prime ministers serve
Derisively dubbed the 'Iron Lady' by the Soviet press, she wore the moniker with pride. Her government's free-market policies included trade liberalisation, deregulation, sweeping privatisation, breaking the power of the unions, focus on the individual and the creation of an 'enterprise culture'.
The first PM to serve three consecutive terms including two 'landslide' victories she was eventually toppled by her own party following the disastrous imposition of a 'poll tax'.
Nonetheless, she is generally considered to be one of the best peace time prime ministers of the 20th Century. Callaghan inherited the office of prime minister following the surprise resignation of Harold Wilson.
With only a tiny parliamentary majority to support him, he faced an increasingly one-sided confrontation with organised labour in the form of rampant strike action. Things came to a head in the so-called 'Winter of Discontent', a phrase from Shakespeare borrowed by Callaghan himself to describe the events leading up to February Britain was 'strikebound', with public servants staging mass walk outs, leaving food and fuel supplies undelivered, rubbish uncollected and - most notoriously - bodies unburied.
Things became so bad in Hull it was dubbed 'the second Stalingrad'. The tabloid press has since been accused of overstating the severity of the situation and wrongly quoting him as saying 'Crisis? What Crisis? In March , Wilson became prime minister for the third time at the head of a minority government, following the first hung parliament one where no party holds a majority for 45 years.
Often described as a wily fixer and negotiator, it took all of his skills to hold on to power in the face of economic and industrial turmoil. His party was also sharply divided, with many Labour members of parliament MPs bitter about Wilson's manoeuvring against his colleagues. He called another general election in October , thereby ending the shortest parliament since , and was returned to office with a majority of just three seats.
Exhausted, Wilson resigned saying 'politicians should not go on and on'. Heath succeeded in taking Britain into the European Economic Community EEC , the precursor to the European Union, despite two previous failed attempts by Britain to gain entry, in and But his government was dogged by torrid industrial relations and recurrent economic crises. Things came to a head in January , when industry was put on a 'three-day week' to conserve fuel.
Fuel was in dangerously short supply following a combination of domestic industrial action coal miners on 'work-to-rule' and a quadrupling of prices by Middle Eastern oil exporting nations in the wake of Israel's victory in the Yom Kippur War. In March , Heath called a general election on the question of 'who governs Britain?
To his surprise the result was a hung parliament one where no party holds a majority and he was ousted. In , 'Good old Mr Wilson' - an avuncular, pipe-smoking figure - came to power amid much excitement and optimism.
He had promised a 'new Britain' forged in 'the white heat of a second industrial revolution'. In reality, his administration never escaped from a cycle of economic crises, vainly battling against further devaluations of the pound. Wilson won a second general election in the year England lifted the football World Cup making him the first Labour PM to serve consecutive terms.
In , the government failed in its application for membership of the European Economic Community EEC and was also finally forced to devalue sterling. The electorate became disillusioned with Wilson, who lost narrowly to the Conservatives in the election.
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Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets CSS if you are able to do so. This page has been archived and is no longer updated. Find out more about page archiving. Prime Ministers and Politics Timeline. David Cameron Conservative, - Present Top. Gordon Brown Labour, - Top. Tony Blair Labour, - Top. John Major Conservative, - Top. Margaret Thatcher Conservative, - Britain's first female prime minister came to power with the country descending into industrial and economic chaos.
James Callaghan Labour, - Callaghan inherited the office of prime minister following the surprise resignation of Harold Wilson. Harold Wilson Labour, - In March , Wilson became prime minister for the third time at the head of a minority government, following the first hung parliament one where no party holds a majority for 45 years. Harold Wilson Labour, - In , 'Good old Mr Wilson' - an avuncular, pipe-smoking figure - came to power amid much excitement and optimism.
Sir Alec Douglas-Home , Conservative, - In , a change in the law allowed hereditary peers to disclaim or 'drop' their titles, which in turn meant they were able to become members of parliament MPs.
The only peer ever to do so and become prime minister was Douglas-Home, formerly the 14th Earl of Home, who assumed the office when Harold Macmillan retired due to ill health. He was the first prime minister in the post-war period not to win his own mandate be elected or re-elected by popular vote. Harold Macmillan , Conservative, - Macmillan came to power at a time when Britain was confronting its loss of world-power status and facing mounting economic troubles.
Nonetheless, he successfully associated the Conservatives with a new age of affluence and the burgeoning consumer revolution. But his oft-quoted assurance 'You've never had it so good' actually finishes 'What is beginning to worry some of us is, is it too good to be true?
His government is principally remembered for the so-called 'Profumo Affair', a sex scandal that erupted in and contributed to the Conservatives' defeat at the general election the following year.
After lying to the House of Commons, Profumo admitted the truth in June and resigned in disgrace. Macmillan resigned due to ill health in October the same year. Many years before, Churchill had anointed Eden as his successor, but later acknowledged he had made 'a great mistake'.
His opinion was born out as the new PM blundered into the Suez Crisis. Following Egypt's decision to nationalise the Suez canal, Britain the principal shareholder , France and Israel invaded in October to near-universal condemnation and the threat of nuclear strikes by the Soviet Union.
Within a week, Britain was forced into an embarrassing climb-down. Humiliated and in ill-health, Eden left the country for a holiday at the Jamaican home of James Bond author, Ian Fleming. He resigned on 9 January Sir Winston Churchill , Conservative, - Churchill's desire to return to power, despite his assured place in history, had much to do with his belligerent refusal to accept that the British public had rejected him in Now the electorate was seeking to put behind it the hardships and privations of the post-war years under Clement Atlee and return to a more traditional idea of society - so-called 'housing and red meat' issues.
Churchill tried - and failed - to recreate the dynamism of his wartime administration, and he struggled to adjust to the political realities of the Cold War, preferring direct action and personal diplomacy to proxy wars and cabinet consensus.
His refusal to retire, despite suffering a stroke, caused mounting frustrations among his colleagues. At the age of 80, he finally conceded to his failing health and stepped down, although he continued to serve as an MP. Clement Attlee , Labour, - World War Two had sharply exposed the imbalances in Britain's social, economic and political structures. For a population that had sacrificed so much, a return to the pre-war status quo was simply not an option. In , a report by Sir William Beveridge, chairman of a Ministry of Health committee, had advocated a system of national insurance, comprehensive welfare for all and strategies to maintain full employment.
The 'Beveridge Report' formed the basis of Labour pledges in the election and resulted in a landslide victory. Attlee's government successfully harnessed the wartime sense of unity to create the National Health Service, a national insurance scheme, a huge programme of nationalisation including the Bank of England and most heavy industries and a massive building programme.
He also made Britain a nuclear-armed power. These sweeping reforms resulted in a parliamentary consensus on key social and economic policies that would last until But by , a row over plans to charge for spectacles and false teeth had split the cabinet.
Party disunity and a struggling economy contributed to Attlee - cruelly dubbed by Churchill 'a modest man with much to be modest about' - losing the next election. Winston Churchill , Conservative, - By the time Churchill was asked to lead the coalition government in , he had already enjoyed colourful and controversial careers as a journalist, soldier and politician. He had twice 'crossed the floor' of the House of Commons, the first time defecting from Conservative to Liberal and serving as First Lord of the Admiralty during the early years of World War One.
Demoted in the wake of the slaughter at Gallipoli, he preferred to resign and take up a commission fighting on the Western Front. Despite standing against the Conservatives in a by-election, Churchill was welcomed back into the party that same year and served as Chancellor of the Exchequer for five years under Stanley Baldwin. But personal disagreements and his vehement anti-Fascism would lead to nearly a decade in the political wilderness. Following Neville Chamberlain's resignation in , Churchill finally realised his 'destiny' and accepted the office of prime minister.
Promising nothing more than 'blood, toil, tears and sweat', he almost single-handedly restored Britain's desire to fight on in adversity.
Despite Churchill's enormous personal popularity, by the electorate no longer wanted a war leader and the Conservatives lost by a landslide. Neville Chamberlain , Conservative, - Rarely has the hyperbole of politicians been as resoundingly exposed as when Neville Chamberlain returned from his negotiations with Adolf Hitler, brandishing his famous 'piece of paper' and declaring the agreement it represented to be 'peace for our time'.
With his policy of 'appeasement' towards Hitler utterly bankrupted, Chamberlain resigned in He was replaced by Winston Churchill. When the issue of honours was discussed, he stated that he wanted to die 'plain Mr Chamberlain, like my father'. His father, Joseph Chamberlain, was the politician who split the Conservatives in by pushing for tariffs on imported goods. It was this very issue that convinced Churchill to defect to the Liberals, with whom he first achieved high office.
Chamberlain died six months after resigning. Stanley Baldwin , Conservative, - When Baldwin returned to power in , the financial crisis sparked by the Wall Street Crash six years before appeared to be over. Baldwin advised Edward that Mrs Simpson would not be accepted as Queen by the public, and that the king could not condone divorce as head of the Church of England. The king proposed a 'morganatic' marriage, whereby Mrs Simpson would become his consort, but not Queen.
The government rejected the idea and threatened to resign if the king forced the issue. The story then broke in the press, to general disapproval by the public. Rather than break the engagement, Edward abdicated on 11 December Credited with saving the monarchy, Baldwin is also condemned for failing to begin re-arming when it became clear that Nazi Germany was building up its armed forces.
Ramsay MacDonald , Labour, - MacDonald began his second term at the head of a minority government one that does not have an outright majority and with the economy in deep crisis. Britain was still in the grip of the Great Depression and unemployment soon soared to two million.
With fewer people able to pay tax, revenues had fallen as demand for unemployment benefits had soared. Unable to meet the deficit, by it was being proposed that benefits and salaries should be cut. Labour ministers rejected the plan as running counter to their core beliefs. MacDonald went to the king, George V, to proffer his resignation. George suggested MacDonald to try and form a 'national government' or coalition of all the parties.
This is the last recorded direct political intervention by a British monarch. The National Government was formed, with MacDonald as prime minister, but Stanley Baldwin, leader of the Conservative Party, the de facto 'power behind the throne'. MacDonald is still considered by many in the Labour Party as their worst political traitor.
Stanley Baldwin , Conservative, - In May , the Trades Union Congress called for a general walkout in support of a coal miners' protest against threatened wage cuts. It was the first and, to date, only general strike in British history.
The strike affected key industries, such as gas, electricity and the railways, but ended after just nine days due to lack of public backing and well-organised emergency measures by Baldwin's government. Far from succeeding in its aims, the General Strike actually led to a decline in trade union membership and the miners ended up accepting longer hours and less pay.
It also gave impetus to the Trade Disputes Act, which curtailed workers' ability to take industrial action. Baldwin's government also extended the vote to women over 21 and passed the Pensions Act, but eventually fell as a result of the Wall Street Crash of , and the Depression that followed.
It was the first party to gain power with the express purpose of representing the voice of the 'working class'. An MP since , MacDonald was respected as a thinker, but criticised by many within his own party as insufficiently radical despite appointing the first female cabinet minister, Margaret Bondfield, in His opposition to World War One had made him deeply unpopular and he continually suffered a torrid time at the hands of the press. The publication by two newspapers of the 'Zinoviev letter' did much to damage his chances in the run up to the election.
The letter which he had seen but decided to keep secret purported to be from Soviet intelligence and urged British communists to commit acts of sedition. Public calls for political reform led to one of the most shocking events of his tenure: the Peterloo Massacre , when an estimated 18 protestors were killed by private militia in Manchester. Pitt the Younger more than deserved his moniker: he was a mere 24 years of age when he first became Prime Minister in He served two separate terms, and has the dubious merit of being the British leader who first introduced income tax to the nation — a much needed revenue injection following costly conflicts like the American War of Independence.
It was during his premiership that the Acts of Union came into force, uniting the Kingdom of Great Britain with the Kingdom of Ireland.
Pitt also played an integral role in bringing Britain into a fresh European alliance against Napoleon, but the stresses of power took their toll — he died aged just 46, during his second term as Prime Minister. Read more about: Battles Napoleon: flawed hero or power-mad tyrant? The man who shaped the office of Prime Minister remains the person who served in that role the longest.
Sir Robert Walpole began his premiership in , and carried on for almost 21 years. Walpole himself famously said 'I unequivocally deny that I am sole and prime minister'. However, Walpole was undoubtedly a pioneeringly powerful figure, cultivating close relations with the new Hanoverian monarchy. An important part of his legacy is 10 Downing Street — he was offered the house as a private residence by George II, but insisted it being given to those who serve as the First Lord of the Treasury.
Which, for quite some time now, means the Prime Minister. Get to know the role of the Prime Minister with this fact sheet. Learn how the Prime Minister is chosen, their responsibilities, and about their official residences.
The Prime Minister is the leader of the Australian Government. By convention - tradition - the Prime Minister is a member of the House of Representatives and leads the parliamentary party, or coalition of parties, with the support of the majority of members in the House.
The Prime Minister is chosen by a vote of the members of the government. The Prime Minister can keep their job as long as they are a member of parliament and have the support of the government.
Australia has no maximum period of service for a Prime Minister, unlike countries such as the United States, where the President can only serve for two 4-year terms. The Prime Minister is the most powerful person in the Australian Parliament and has many tasks, including:. When in the House of Representatives, the Prime Minister sits at the central table in front of the government and directly opposite the Leader of the Opposition.
As the head of the Australian Government, they take the lead in presenting major speeches to Parliament about government policy and answering many questions directed to the government during Question Time.
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