Historical rankings of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom

The Times constructed a poll for the first time of all British Prime Ministers in the lead-up to the 2010 general election. Before this there were two polls in 1999 and 2000, carried out by BBC Radio 4 and the British Politics Group; both consulted only 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 prime ministers from the 20th and 21st centuries, with no coverage for the other 31 pre-20th-century Prime Ministers.

2010 University of Leeds survey of postwar PMs

Clement Attlee is highly rated for his post-war leadership and social reforms.

In 2010, the University of Leeds and Woodnewton Associates carried out a survey of 106 academics who specialised in British politics or British history, to rank the performance of all 12 prime ministers who served between 1945 and 2010. Churchill's ranking was thus determined from his second term only.^[1][2]

#	Prime Minister	Years in Office	Political party
1	Clement Attlee	1945–1951	Labour
2	Margaret Thatcher	1979–1990	Conservative
3	Tony Blair	1997–2007	Labour
4	Harold Macmillan	1957–1963	Conservative
5	Harold Wilson	1964–1970, 1974–1976	Labour
6	Sir Winston Churchill	(1940–1945), 1951–1955	Conservative
7	James Callaghan	1976–1979	Labour
8	John Major	1990–1997	Conservative
9	Edward Heath	1970–1974	Conservative
10	Gordon Brown	2007–2010	Labour
11	Sir Alec Douglas-Home	1963–1964	Conservative
12	Sir Anthony Eden	1955–1957	Conservative

Mori/University of Leeds survey

In 2004, the University of Leeds and Ipsos Mori conducted an online survey of 258 academics who specialised in 20th-century British history and/or politics. There were 139 replies to the survey, a return rate of 54% — by far the most extensive survey done so far. The respondents were asked, among other historical questions, 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.^[3]

The five Labour Prime Ministers were, on average, judged to have been the most successful, with a mean of 6.0 (median of 5.9). The three Liberal PMs averaged 5.8 (median of 6.2) and the twelve Conservative PMs 4.8 (median of 4.1).

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	1923–1924,1924–1929, 1935–1937	Conservative	6.2
9	Harold Wilson	1964–1970, 1974–1976	Labour	5.9
10	Lord Salisbury	1895–1902	Conservative	5.8
11	Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman	1905–1908	Liberal	5.0
12	James Callaghan	1976–1979	Labour	4.8
13	Sir 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	Sir Alec Douglas-Home	1963–1964	Conservative	3.3
20	Sir Anthony Eden	1955–1957	Conservative	2.5

• *Poll taken in 2004, while Blair was still in office.

Previous surveys

BBC Radio 4 Poll

Sir Winston Churchill is a stalwart favourite of scholars and the public alike 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.^[4]

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)

BBC History Magazine list

Margaret Thatcher has fared well in popular opinion polls.

Anthony Eden has not fared well in popular opinion polls and historical rankings of 20th century Prime Ministers.

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.^[5]

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

Popular opinion

Newsnight poll

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.^[6]

Harold Macmillan

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

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.^[7]

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%.^[8]

Prime ministers ranked by The Times and its correspondents

#		Name	Party	Term in office	The Times overall [9]	Matthew Parris [10]	Peter Riddell [11]	Ben MacIntyre [12]
1	1	Robert Walpole	Whig	1721–1742	09	14	16	07
2	2	Spencer Compton, 1st Earl of Wilmington	Whig	1742–1743		50	51	42
3	3	Henry Pelham	Whig	1743–1754	29	19	34	20
4	4 6	Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne	Whig	1754–1756 1757–1762	41	40	32	41
5	5	William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire	Whig	1756–1757	44	35	44	47
6	7	John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute	Tory	1762–1763	46	44	49	40
7	8	George Grenville	Whig	1763–1765	48	51	48	39
8	9 13	Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2nd Marquess of Rockingham	Whig	1765–1766 1782	32	30	42	38
9	10	William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham	Whig	1766–1768	16	25	14	18
10	11	Augustus FitzRoy, 3rd Duke of Grafton	Whig	1768–1770	49	42	50	49
11	12	Frederick North, Lord North	Tory	1770–1782	50	49	37	44
12	14	William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne	Whig	1782–1783	26	29	41	05
13	15 20	William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland	Whig	1783 1807–1809	39	27	43	37
14	16 18	William Pitt the Younger	Tory	1783–1801 1804–1806	04	12	05	03
15	17	Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth	Tory	1801–1804	39	36	39	36
16	19	William Grenville, 1st Baron Grenville	Whig	1806–1807	43	39	40	35
17	21	Spencer Perceval	Tory	1809–1812	36	38	47	33
18	22	Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpool	Tory	1812–1827	19	22	22	15
19	23	George Canning	Tory	1827	31	08	36	23
20	24	Frederick John Robinson, 1st Viscount Goderich	Tory	1827–1828		37	52	51
21	25 28	Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington	Tory	1828–1830 1834	24	18	30	17
22	26	Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey	Whig	1830–1834	08	09	10	06
23	27 30	William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne	Whig	1834 1835–1841	25	26	21	32
24	29 31	Robert Peel	Conservative	1834–1835 1841–1846	06	06	08	08
25	32 38	John Russell, 1st Earl Russell	Whig	1846–1852	21	15	29	14
26	33 36 39	Edward Smith-Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby	Conservative	1852 1858–1859 1866–1868	18	23	19	16
27	34	George Hamilton-Gordon, 4th Earl of Aberdeen	Peelite	1852–1855	42	41	31	43
28	35 37	Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston	Whig Liberal	1855–1858 1859–1865	13	11	20	11
29	40 42	Benjamin Disraeli	Conservative	1868 1874–1880	10	07	06	09
30	41 43 45 47	William Ewart Gladstone	Liberal	1868–1874 1880–1885 1886 1892–1894	03	04	02	04
31	44 46 49	Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury	Conservative	1885–1886 1886–1892 1895–1902	11	10	12	25
32	48	Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery	Liberal	1894–1895	45	46	46	50
33	50	Arthur Balfour	Conservative	1902–1905	30	28	38	31
34	51	Henry Campbell-Bannerman	Liberal	1905–1908	22	24	26	30
35	52	H. H. Asquith	Liberal	1908–1916	11	21	09	26
36	53	David Lloyd George	Liberal	1916–1922	02	02	03	02
37	54	Bonar Law	Conservative	1922–1923	34	47	35	24
38	55 57 59	Stanley Baldwin	Conservative	1923–1924 1924–1929 1935–1937	14	20	11	13
39	56 58	Ramsay MacDonald	Labour	1924 1929–1935	33	48	33	29
40	60	Neville Chamberlain	Conservative	1937–1940	35	45	28	52
41	61 63	Winston Churchill	Conservative	1940–1945 1951–1955	01	01	01	01
42	62	Clement Attlee	Labour	1945–1951	07	05	07	22
43	64	Anthony Eden	Conservative	1955–1957	47	43	45	48
44	65	Harold Macmillan	Conservative	1957–1963	15	17	13	21
45	66	Alec Douglas-Home	Conservative	1963–1964	36	32	27	34
46	67 69	Harold Wilson	Labour	1964–1970 1974–1976	20	33	17	19
47	68	Edward Heath	Conservative	1970–1974	23	13	18	46
48	70	James Callaghan	Labour	1976–1979	27	31	24	27
49	71	Margaret Thatcher	Conservative	1979–1990	05	03	04	10
50	72	John Major	Conservative	1990–1997	28	16	23	28
51	73	Tony Blair	Labour	1997–2007	16	34	15	12
52	74	Gordon Brown	Labour	2007–2010	36	52	25	45
53	75	David Cameron	Conservative	2010—	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

See also

• Historical rankings of Canadian prime ministers
• Historical rankings of Presidents of the United States
• Historical rankings of Prime Ministers of Australia
• Historical rankings of Prime Ministers of the Netherlands
• 100 Greatest Britons

References

1. "Academics rate Brown one of the worst post 1945 PMs - University of Leeds". Leeds.ac.uk. Retrieved 9 January 2011.
2. "Gordon Brown 'third worst PM since 1945', poll of historians finds". Telegraph. 3 August 2010. Retrieved 9 January 2011.
3. Rating British Prime Ministers Ipsos MORI. Retrieved November 24, 2015.
4. Churchill, 'Greatest' PM of 20th Century BBC Politics. Retrieved January 4, 2000.
5. Thatcher and Attlee top PM list, BBC News website, 29 August 2006.
6. BBC Newsnight poll
7. 100 Great Britons BBC History, accessed 23 May 2007
8. Your Favourite Prime Minister, 13 June 2007.
9. The Times's Top 50 Prime Ministers
10. Matthew Parris: my top 50 Prime Ministers
11. Peter Riddell: my top 50 Prime Ministers
12. Ben Macintyre: My top 50 Prime Ministers

Further reading

• Buller, Jim, and Toby S. James. "Statecraft and the Assessment of National Political Leaders: The Case of New Labour and Tony Blair." British Journal of Politics & International Relations (2012) 14#4 pp: 534-555.
• Kaarbo, Juliet, and Margaret G. Hermann. "Leadership styles of prime ministers: How individual differences affect the foreign policymaking process." The Leadership Quarterly (1998) 9#3 pp: 243-263.
• Strangio, Paul; et al. (2013). Understanding Prime-Ministerial Performance: Comparative Perspectives. Oxford UP. pp. 224, 226. ISBN 978-0-19-966642-3.
• Theakston, Kevin, and Mark Gill. "Rating 20th‐Century British Prime Ministers." British Journal of Politics & International Relations (2006) 8#2 pp: 193-213.
• Theakston, Kevin, and Mark Gill. "The postwar premiership league." Political Quarterly (2011) 82#1 pp: 67-80. Online

External links

• British Politics group