Historical rankings of British Prime Ministers

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Although many surveys have been conducted in order to construct rankings of the success of individuals who have served as President of the United States, until the late 1990s few had been done for Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom. Two polls in 1999 and 2000 were done by BBC Radio 4 and the British Politics Group; both only consulted a relatively small number of experts. A wider reaching poll was conducted in 2004 by the University of Leeds and Ipsos MORI. All rankings involved only 20th century prime ministers, with no coverage for the other 31 pre 20th century Prime Ministers.

Contents

[edit] Popular opinion

[edit] Newsnight poll

Margaret Thatcher has fared well in popular opinion polls.
Clement Attlee is highly rated for his post-war leadership and social reforms.

In September 2008 the BBC Newsnight programme conducted an online poll, asking voters to decide who they thought was the greatest and worst of postwar Prime Ministers. 27,000 people responded, and decided that Winston Churchill was the greatest, with Attlee second, and Gordon Brown last.[1]

The full results were:

1. Winston Churchill
2. Clement Attlee
3. Margaret Thatcher
4. Harold Macmillan
5. Harold Wilson
6. Tony Blair
7. Edward Heath
8. John Major
9. James Callaghan
10. Alec Douglas-Home
11. Anthony Eden
12. Gordon Brown

[edit] BBC Radio 4 Poll

Winston Churchill is highly rated for his leadership during the Second World War.

In December 1999 a BBC Radio 4 poll of 20 prominent historians, politicians and commentators for The Westminster Hour produced the verdict that Churchill was the best British Prime Minister of the 20th century, with Lloyd George in second place and Clement Attlee in third place. As Blair was still in office he was not ranked. The worst PM in that survey was judged to be Anthony Eden.[2]

  1. Churchill (Con)
  2. Lloyd George (Lib)
  3. Attlee (Lab)
  4. Asquith (Lib)
  5. Thatcher (Con)
  6. Macmillan (Con)
  7. Salisbury (Con)
  8. Baldwin (Con)
  9. Campbell-Bannerman (Lib)
  10. Wilson (Lab)
  11. Heath (Con)
  12. Callaghan (Lab)
  13. Bonar Law (Con)
  14. MacDonald (Lab)
  15. Douglas-Home (Con)
  16. Balfour (Con)
  17. Major (Con)
  18. Chamberlain (Con)
  19. Eden (Con)

[edit] British Politics Group Poll

In 2000 the British Politics Group, a network of UK and American scholars of British politics, ran another poll which received only 22 responses, with the top three ranked in order as Churchill, Attlee and Lloyd George. Again as Blair was still in office he was not ranked.[3]

  1. Churchill (Con)
  2. Attlee (Lab)
  3. Lloyd George (Lib)
  4. Thatcher (Con)
  5. Macmillan (Con)
  6. Asquith (Lib)
  7. Wilson (Lab)
  8. Salisbury (Con)
  9. Heath (Con)
  10. Baldwin (Con)
  11. MacDonald (Lab)
  12. Callaghan (Lab)
  13. Campbell-Bannerman (Lib)
  14. Chamberlain (Con)
  15. Balfour (Con)
  16. Major (Con)
  17. Douglas-Home (Con)
  18. Bonar Law (Con)
  19. Eden (Con)

[edit] BBC History Magazine list

Historian Francis Beckett ranked the 20th century Prime Ministers with points out of five in 2006, based on how well the leaders implemented their policies - not on the policies themselves. Margaret Thatcher and Clement Attlee shared the highest ranking.[4]

5: Margaret Thatcher
5: Clement Attlee
4: Edward Heath
4: Winston Churchill
4: Harold Macmillan
4: Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman
3: Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, Lord Salisbury
3: Herbert Henry Asquith
3: David Lloyd George
3: Stanley Baldwin
3: James Harold Wilson
3: Tony Blair
2: James Callaghan
2: Arthur James Balfour
1: Andrew Bonar Law
1: James Ramsay MacDonald
1: Sir Alec Douglas-Home
1: John Major
0: Robert Anthony Eden
0: Neville Chamberlain

[edit] Mori/Leeds University survey

In 2004, the University of Leeds and Ipsos Mori conducted an online survey of academics who specialised in 20th century British history and/or politics, only 139 actually responded. The respondents were asked to rate all the 20th century British Prime Ministers in terms of their success and asking them to assess the key characteristics of successful PMs.

Respondents were asked to indicate on a scale of 0 to 10 how successful or unsuccessful they considered each PM to have been in office (with 0 being highly unsuccessful and 10 highly successful). A mean of the scores could then be calculated and a league table based on the mean scores.[5]

The three Liberal Prime Ministers were judged on average to have been the most successful, scoring a mean of 6.2. The five Labour PMs averaged 5.8 and the twelve Conservative PMs 4.8.

[edit] Prime Ministers by average scholar rank

# Prime Minister Years in Office Political party Mean Score
1 Clement Attlee 1945-1951 Labour 8.3
2 Winston Churchill 1940-1945, 1951-1955 Conservative 7.9
3 David Lloyd George 1916-1922 Liberal 7.3
4 Margaret Thatcher 1979-1990 Conservative 7.1
5 Harold Macmillan 1957-1963 Conservative 6.5
6 Tony Blair 1997-2007* Labour 6.3
7 Herbert Asquith 1908-1916 Liberal 6.2
8 Stanley Baldwin 1923-1929, 1935-1937 Conservative 6.2
9 Harold Wilson 1964-1970, 1974-1976 Labour 5.9
10 Lord Salisbury 1895-1902 Conservative 5.8
11 Henry Campbell-Bannerman 1905-1908 Liberal 5.0
12 James Callaghan 1976-1979 Labour 4.8
13 Edward Heath 1970-1974 Conservative 4.4
14 Ramsay MacDonald 1924, 1929-1935 Labour 3.7
15 John Major 1990-1997 Conservative 3.7
16 Andrew Bonar Law 1922-1923 Conservative 3.5
17 Neville Chamberlain 1937-1940 Conservative 3.4
18 Arthur Balfour 1902-1905 Conservative 3.4
19 Alec Douglas-Home 1963-1964 Conservative 3.3
20 Anthony Eden 1955-1957 Conservative 2.5
  • *Poll taken in 2004, while Blair was still in office.

[edit] Other polls

In a BBC poll to find the 100 Greatest Britons in 2002, five Prime Ministers were ranked in the top 100. Winston Churchill was voted greatest Briton, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington was in 15th place, (though not featured in contemporary polls as he was a 19th century politician), Margaret Thatcher was in 16th place, Tony Blair was 67th and David Lloyd George was 79th.[6]

The BBC television programme The Daily Politics asked viewers in 2007 to select their favourite Prime Minister. Margaret Thatcher topped the list with 49% of the vote, with Clement Attlee coming second with 32%.[7]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ BBC Newsnight poll
  2. ^ Churchill, 'Greatest' PM of 20th Century BBC Politics, accessed January 4, 2000
  3. ^ Rating British Prime Ministers Ipsos MORI, accessed 29 November 2004
  4. ^ Thatcher and Attlee top PM list, BBC News website, 29 August 2006
  5. ^ Rating British Prime Ministers Ipsos MORI, accessed November 29, 2004
  6. ^ 100 Great Britons BBC History, accessed 23 May 2007
  7. ^ Your Favourite Prime Minister, 13 June 2007

[edit] External links

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