All prime ministers enter Downing Street hoping to earn a heroic place in British history. A few succeed, but most do not.
Less than two years into his term as PM, Keir Starmer’s dire approval ratings and impending leadership challenge mean his time in No. 10 could go down as one of the shortest, and least popular, of modern times.
But YouGov’s latest tracker poll of the greatest PMs shows perceptions can and do change, with Labour’s two 20th-century reforming titans, Clement Atlee and Tony Blair, falling out of favour with the public.
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Winston Churchill (Conservative, 1940-1945 and 1951-1955) – Fame: 97%; Popularity: 67%
Arguably Britain’s most famous political figure of all time, Winston Churchill is almost synonymous with Western triumphs in the Second World War.
At the helm, it was his “extraordinary leadership” during the war years that “marked him out”, said the BBC. With sheer stubbornness, “he inspired a nervous and hesitant Britain” by exuding energy and a determination never to give in.
In 2002, he was voted the “greatest Briton of all time” in a nationwide poll that attracted “more than a million votes”, said the BBC. Churchill won nearly 450,000 of those votes, beating Isambard Kingdom Brunel into second by 56,000 votes.
Such adulation reflects a 20th-century impression of the great war-leader, however. His robust approach to defeating Hitler’s Germany aside, during his own era “Churchill’s record was so bad he was viewed as a negative indicator”, said Forbes.
Churchill’s “policies on Ireland”, “mismanagement of the British economy” between the wars and his “astonishingly bigoted opposition to Mahatma Gandhi” and the Indian independence movement, have invited a re-examination of his legacy.
Robert Peel (Conservative, 1834-1835, 1841-1846) – Fame: 67%; Popularity: 42%
Sir Robert Peel, the son of a wealthy Lancashire mill owner, arguably laid the foundations of the workers’ rights legislation of today.
His first speech in the Commons was a “sensation”, and described by the Speaker of the House as “the best first speech since that of William Pitt”, according to Parliament Records.
Peel’s time in office was defined by social reform, including “limiting the number of hours women and children could work” and improving “safety standards” in factories. His Mines Act of 1842 also banned the employment of women and children underground.
He can be credited with introducing a mainstay of current British society, by establishing London’s Metropolitan Police Force. Due to spearheading the new police movement, he is the reason why police officers have since been nicknamed “peelers” or, more commonly, “bobbies”.
He also reduced the number of offences “punishable by death”, and made efforts to “educate prisoners” during his time as home secretary, said Radio Times.
He was also instrumental in pushing the Catholic Emancipation Bill through Parliament, ending the ban on Catholics in parliament and high office, after more than 20 years of opposition from previous governments.
Margaret Thatcher (Conservative, 1979-1990) – Fame: 100%; Popularity: 42%
During her three terms in power, Thatcher “revolutionised Tory thinking”, and is still “adored and revered” by the party, most notably current leader Kemi Badenoch, and “despised and reviled on the left and in many working-class communities” more than three decades later, said Sky News.
On the economic front, Thatcher lay at the heart of the UK’s “most radical postwar effort to increase competition and productivity”, believing in “curbing regulation and stimulating competition, including by liberalising the City of London”, said the Financial Times.
Despite entering government at a time of high unemployment, her effective – if controversial – policies stimulated the economy, as well as entering the Falklands War in 1982.
She championed free-market policies, often drawing heated criticism from mining communities, and forged stark divisions between the upper and working classes.
She found her ideological “soulmate” in Ronald Reagan, “making the so-called special relationship extra special” as they joined forces to fight communism, said Sky News.
Her legacy in British politics is “formidable”, and has radically “changed the political climate” for the parties and governments that follow, said The Telegraph.
Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington (Conservative, 1828-30, 1834) – Fame 80%; Popularity 37%
Like Churchill, Wellesley has “become synonymous with one of Britain’s most celebrated victories”, after defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, said the BBC. Hailed by poet laureate Alfred Lord Tennyson as the “last great Englishman”, his legacy “still towers over British history today”.
His “stern and often authoritative leadership style earned him the nickname, ‘The Iron Duke’” and as PM, he “developed a reputation for pushing back against reform and social justice causes”, said King’s College London, the university he had a hand in founding.
He opposed the Jewish Civil Disabilities Repeal Bill, which allowed Jewish people to enter Parliament, but granting civil rights to Catholics would become one of his “greatest achievements”, overseeing Catholic emancipation in 1829.
The Duke had a “much less enlightened position on parliamentary reform”, said Gov.uk. “His fear of mob rule was enhanced by the riots and sabotage that followed rising rural unemployment” and he “defended rule by the elite and refused to expand the political franchise”.
His opposition to parliamentary reform caused his popularity to dive and he was forced to resign in 1830 after the government was defeated on the issue in the Commons. He served as PM again briefly in 1834 while Sir Robert Peel was preparing to take over.
Harold Macmillan (Conservative, 1957-1963) – Fame 77%; Popularity 34%
Taking over from Anthony Eden in the wake of the disastrous Suez Crisis, Macmillan emerged to “lead a demoralised Conservative party and a country that was still in the depths of turmoil”, said Gov.uk.
His easy manner and calming influence earned him the nickname “Supermac”. Despite his patrician upbringing, he was a “moderniser at heart” who championed economic planning. His premiership coincided with a rise in living standards that saw him famously campaign for re-election in 1959 on the boast that the British public had “never had it so good”.
He successfully repaired the damage done to Anglo-American relations by the Suez crisis and, in his “winds of change” speech in 1960, distanced himself from apartheid and significantly accelerated independence for British colonies in Africa.
Attempts to gain Britain entry into the new European Economic Community were thwarted by French President Charles de Gaulle in 1963, however, leading him to write in his diary that “all our policies at home and abroad are in ruins”. Increasingly seen as out of touch, he eventually stood down later that year, following the Profumo scandal.
