PMs coping with adversity

When Vince Cable tried to topple Gordon Brown from his perch with his jibe about from Stalin to Mr Bean, the PM was saved because he had ballast. Over 30 years of developing his ideas and debating them with colleagues and party members. When Tony Blair was savaged by most of the press and his own party over Iraq, he floated above it because he inhaled hydrogen and had that belief of righteousness. John Major saw off his detractors by his challenge to put up or shut up, and he had a hinterland that included time as Chancellor, Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary. Margaret Thatcher had an inner belief in her vision of individualism. David Cameron had none of these qualities and is languishing in the doldrums between the Tory Party of the last century and the privatised sanctuary that his modernists would subscribe to. It seemed to me that the prime ministers could be divided into three groups: 

• those who introduced radical change and were electorally successful - Attlee, MacMillan, Wilson, Thatcher and Blair. 
• Those who won an election but who struggled to make an impact or endear themselves to the wider public: Churchill (in his 1951 -1955 guise), Heath, Major and probably Cameron; and 
• those who never won an election and were considered failures - Eden, Douglas-Hume, Callaghan, and Brown.

Cameron won one election outright and negotiated a coalition government with the Lib Dems after failing to win in 2010 when Gordon Brown had lost the electorate.

The PM who made the most significant changes, which have withstood the test of time, was Attlee, not a charismatic communicator, but someone who managed a team of talented politicians and allowed them to radically reform the role of government, thereby eradicating much of the pre-war perils of poverty and class division. MacMillan invested heavily in public infrastructure and was brave enough to bring down the curtain on the empire. Wilson led the expansion of higher education, carried out significant social and economic reforms during his first six years as PM. Thatcher abandoned the post-war consensus about the role of the state and adopted neo liberal policies that created a strong market economy and privatised or reduced many public services. Blair courted the city, the press, and media, but did carry out significant social reforms, such as introducing the minimum wage, providing international aid, and investing heavily in Education and Health facilities, with consequent improvements.