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The Prime Ministers Who Never Were
Each of these chapters in this book of political counterfactuals describes a premiership that never happened, but might easily have done had the chips fallen slightly differently. The contributors, each of them experts in political history, have asked themselves questions what shape would the welfare state and the cold war have taken if the Prime Minister had been Herbert Morrison instead of Clement Attlee? What would have been consequences for Northern Ireland had Norman Tebbit succeeded Margaret Thatcher? How would our present life be different without New Labour - a name we would never have heard if either Kinnock or Smith had become Prime Minister and not Tony Blair? Each of the chapters in this book describes events that really might have happened. And almost did.
- GenresPolitics
243 pages, Hardcover
First published March 28, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
February 25, 2023
A fair few of these counterfactuals seem to have quite a lot of wishful thinking involved, but nonetheless entertaining and (insofar as a counterfactuals book can be) educational. You can really tell it's from 2011 though with the obsession with electoral reform and AV!
August 4, 2013
An intriguing book that appealed to my political interests, fourteen short essays describing the fictional terms of a number of Prime Ministerial terms of office that did not happen but easily could have done .
There are a mixture of both Labour and Tory politicians and there were interesting ideas floated in a number of the essays, though some suffered from appearing to have been edited down for space and felt rushed as a consequence.
I particularly enjoyed Phil Wollas’ contribution on John Clynes, a politician I was not aware of previously but was clearly hugely influential in the early days of the Labour movement and could easily have been the first Labour Prime Minister. The pieces on Herbert Morrison & Hugh Gaitskell were also interesting, the one on Rab Butler one of the more radical and Paul Routledge’s piece on George Brown impassioned and one infused with personal contact with the subject.
The piece on Dennis Healy could and should have been my favourite of the work but seemed to meander away toward the end.
An interesting idea for a book and worth reading though inevitably when collating the work of fourteen different authors the quality and flow of the chapters is a little uneven. This does not detract from the interest and novelty of this book though for anyone with an interest in the British political scene.
There are a mixture of both Labour and Tory politicians and there were interesting ideas floated in a number of the essays, though some suffered from appearing to have been edited down for space and felt rushed as a consequence.
I particularly enjoyed Phil Wollas’ contribution on John Clynes, a politician I was not aware of previously but was clearly hugely influential in the early days of the Labour movement and could easily have been the first Labour Prime Minister. The pieces on Herbert Morrison & Hugh Gaitskell were also interesting, the one on Rab Butler one of the more radical and Paul Routledge’s piece on George Brown impassioned and one infused with personal contact with the subject.
The piece on Dennis Healy could and should have been my favourite of the work but seemed to meander away toward the end.
An interesting idea for a book and worth reading though inevitably when collating the work of fourteen different authors the quality and flow of the chapters is a little uneven. This does not detract from the interest and novelty of this book though for anyone with an interest in the British political scene.
January 17, 2012
good, but some are very very odd.
January 1, 2022
Some ‘if only’ moments and some ‘thank G*d’ moments. Interesting but slightly distasteful in parts. 🤨
September 18, 2018
The book has a great premise; experts speculating what the premiership of “almost” men might have been. The format of a chapter per person gives them little space for writing and development of their theme.
Often it feels like the authors simply have enough time to project their hopes and ideology onto the subject, particular those eulogising Labour politicians. Each seems to present a handful of policy triumphs and then a scenario where they go off into the sunset with some modicum of glory.
The fact that these individuals never reached the step of Number 10 means they were flawed either through indecision or some other personality trait such as not able to create alliances. These traits are glossed over and as such many of the chapters conclude that the person would have been a great prime minister leaving a lasting legacy.
On the whole an interesting read even if the content didn’t quite have the scale needed match the premise.
Often it feels like the authors simply have enough time to project their hopes and ideology onto the subject, particular those eulogising Labour politicians. Each seems to present a handful of policy triumphs and then a scenario where they go off into the sunset with some modicum of glory.
The fact that these individuals never reached the step of Number 10 means they were flawed either through indecision or some other personality trait such as not able to create alliances. These traits are glossed over and as such many of the chapters conclude that the person would have been a great prime minister leaving a lasting legacy.
On the whole an interesting read even if the content didn’t quite have the scale needed match the premise.
March 3, 2013
Decent enough counterfactual, even though it is subject to a fair bit of revisionist thinking and doesn't expand beyond a capitalist viewpoint for most of the book. Good ideas though, and Michael Foot's premiership was ingeniously devised.
February 18, 2013
Excellent what might have been if other Prime Ministers had been in power. Especially liked the Rab Butler chapter
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews