In December 2019 Britain elected its Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. He joined the ranks of statesmen and women going back to the formation of Great Britain in 1707. The General Election of 2019 was dubbed “the Brexit Election”. The Conservatives stood for “Getting Brexit Done”, along with Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party, while the Greens, the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party championed a second referendum.
The Conservatives won a landslide victory, receiving 43% of the vote, with the “Remain” vote getting 53% but spread between several parties. The new Government had a majority of 80 seats, meaning that Boris Johnson had the largest majority since the days of Margaret Thatcher. Meanwhile, the Labour party had its worst election result since 1935.
If you are a political buff, like me, then you’ll know your Prime Ministers – but how far back can you go? This quiz will test you on ten of the most memorable Prime Ministers – some remembered for the wrong reasons!
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He was only 24 years old when he came to power. His father, William Pitt the Elder, also served as P.M., an office he shared with Thomas Pelham-Holles from 1757 to 1761
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Perceval had a hard time in office. The “mad” King George III was on the throne, the country faced economic depression, and the Luddites were rioting in protest to the Industrial Revolution
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He became Prime Minister in 1827 when George IV chose him to replace the outgoing P.M. Robert Jenkinson. However, he died less than four months after taking his post.
The record was broken by Liz Truss in 2022. She was in power for just 50 days |
He actually founded the Metropolitan Police when he was Home Secretary in 1829. The police are affectionately known as “Bobbies” after their founder
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He won the general elections in 1868, 1880, 1886, and 1892 after losing the ones in between
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Disraeli is credited with modernising the Conservative Party, and for introducing “One-Nation Conservatism”, whose policies claim to be for the working class as well as for the wealthy
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Neville Chamberlain was P.M. at the beginning of the war, but he resigned in 1940. Churchill was chosen as a person who could unite all parties in the House of Commons, seeing as he was a Conservative but a former Liberal M.P.
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Heath was P.M. from 1970 to 1974. However, he was replaced as leader of the Conservatives by the more right-wing Margaret Thatcher
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Prime Minister from 1976 to 1979, Callaghan is best remembered for the “Winter of Discontent”, when public servants' wages were capped, and strikes were common
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Thatcher, known by the nickname, “The Iron Lady”, was the first female P.M. in the U.K.
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