A commentary, by a political journalist, on British prime ministers from Wilson to Johnson, so roughly covering my adult life. Very good, but I found the writing a bit frenetic.
Each chapter starts with an initial comment, then dives into almost random events in the person’s leadership to illustrate a point. I would have found a more structured approach easier and better, even a chronological one by year covering the key events, perhaps with a summary at the end.
He does comment, near the end that a colleague had suggested he produces a league table, with some challenging unexpected results. He suggests Heath (for epic moves to secure membership of the EC) and Brown (for his response to the 2008 financial crisis).
The obvious headliners are Thatcher and Blair for the way they succeeded in changing British politics, but all successful prime ministers need a lot of luck and judgement to succeed. Good to go over all this ground again - I had forgotten many of the events which dominated the news at the time.
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