Get ready for another wild ride at the top of British politics. Much is hazy about how the new political year will play out, but one noisy theme will be a constant. There will be feverish speculation about the fragility of Boris Johnson’s position as prime minister. Will he fall at some point soon? Who might replace him? What’s Rishi Sunak up to? Might Tory rebels strike?
It’s not because of Johnson’s latest blunders or Sunak’s social media stardom—or his recent thrice-repeated refusal to decline interest in moving next door—that we can be sure these questions will rage. No, it’s because they always do. The perennial frenzy is based on the seemingly precarious positions of most prime ministers. Indeed, one of the reasons why prime ministers find leadership so hellish a lot of the time is that they themselves fear they are about to be forced out. Johnson poses as nonchalant, but the truth—revealed, for example, in recent whispers about demoting Sunak to health secretary—is that he is neurotic. But he is by no means unique in his fear. His predecessors felt similarly vulnerable.
Prime ministers constantly fear a rival is about to topple them. The potential challenger and their ardent followers dare to hope that they will. The media bubbles with volcanic possibilities. And yet…
At a rally in 1969, Harold Wilson, who had won a landslide just three years earlier, felt the need to address rumours that his leadership was in trouble—with his then more-popular chancellor, Roy Jenkins, waiting in the wings. During a wider speech Wilson paused to note: “May I say, for the benefit of those who have been carried away by the gossip of the last few days, that I know what’s going on… [pointed pause]… I’m going on.”
Wilson learnt to use wit as a political weapon, but his need to deploy it here to place a protective shield around his leadership was on one level incredible. Not so long before he had been the new star of British politics, with even Conservative newspapers paying homage. He had been seen as a great election winner, and his government went on to preside over some sweeping social reforms. But by the time of that speech, there was at least as much speculation about Wilson and his chancellor as there is now in relation to Johnson and Sunak.
Fast forward to the troubled leadership of John Major. In spite of winning a historic—and unexpected—fourth successive election for the Conservatives in 1992, he was burdened by constant reports about his precariousness. Who might wield the dagger? For a time, Michael Portillo was the great hope of the Thatcherites, including the Lady herself, who effectively anointed Portillo as her successor: “We have great hopes for Michael,” Thatcher declared, to the fuming despair of Major. The wary incumbent was also worried about the ambitions of Michael Heseltine—so much so that he made him deputy PM, binding him to the fate of the seemingly tottering Major government. There was continual talk that a popular chancellor, like Ken Clarke, might take over. The questions about Major’s future were more intense than those beginning to surface over Johnson. And the ambition of Portillo and Heseltine seemed to more than match Sunak’s hunger to wear the crown.
Yet the seething conjecture around Major was nothing compared with the turmoil that erupted around Theresa May after she mislaid the Tory majority in her misfiring 2017 election. Days after that vote, former chancellor George Osborne described May as a “dead woman walking.” I was on Andrew Neil’s Sunday Politics BBC panel in the aftermath: we all agreed May would struggle to make it to the party conference that October. So who would topple her that summer? David Davis? Boris Johnson? Michael Gove? Over the months that followed, the questions kept whirling around her. Would there be a vote of confidence? Could she win it if so?
Such questions are the norm in British politics. There is, though, a twist. Prime ministers are almost always in a stronger position than it appears, or than they themselves feel. At the same time, their supposedly daunting and ambitious challengers are not in anywhere near as formidable a place as they appear to be. This twist in the eternal leadership plot against incumbents carries big lessons about how parties pick their leaders, who they pick, who they don’t—and the way the media reports politics.
Let us return briefly to the dramas erupting around Wilson, Major and May.
After his 1969 speech, Wilson remained Labour leader for another seven years—surviving a loss in one election to fight and win two more, and then prevail in a referendum on Europe. He eventually left Downing Street in 1976, at a time of his own choosing. The rivals who drove him crazy never got close to the job: Roy Jenkins ran in that year’s leadership contest and fared poorly. Hopelessly at odds with the Labour Party over Europe and other areas, he eventually left and duly became the first leader of the SDP, which turned out to take him further away than ever from No 10.
“Theresa May kept going for over two years after her 2017 humiliation. Quite a feat for a ‘dead woman walking’”
Meanwhile, Major carried on up to the 1997 election. He was prime minister continuously for nearly seven years. At one point in 1995 he felt compelled to trigger a Tory leadership contest himself, by resigning as party leader while remaining as PM. Neither of the great pretenders, Portillo or Heseltine, stood in that eccentric battle. Indeed, each only ever stood once. Heseltine challenged Thatcher in 1990 and, although he precipitated her downfall, he did not win. Portillo had moved on ideologically and was no longer quite the Thatcherite darling he once was when he finally got round to contesting the leadership in 2001, somewhat half-heartedly, and duly lost. He announced on the evening of his defeat that he would be leaving British politics. Ken Clarke, by contrast—already a retread in that contest—would try for the crown once again. Eventually Clarke came to joke that one of his hobbies was losing Tory leadership contests.
As for Theresa May, she kept going for just over another two years after her June 2017 humiliation, quite a feat for a “dead woman.” It took the noisy malcontents in her party a full 18 months to force a no-confidence vote which she then sailed through, with 63 per cent of her own MPs’ secret ballots. A month later, she might have looked “deader” still, after her Brexit policy went down to the biggest Commons defeat in history. And yet when the House as a whole moved on to debate whether to call time on her minority government, they flinched and she marched on yet again.
Plotting comes naturally to the corridors of Westminster, where all the MPs rub shoulders and the thought of one of them displacing another can be relied on to electrify the mood. With its insatiable appetite for drama and personalities, the media can also be relied on to lap up the gossip. But it is nearly always wide of the mark. For the brute power of incumbency—and the wilful stamina and ruthlessness of the incumbents—are underestimated by all sides.
The diaries of politicians and journalists are punctuated by endless talk about potential prime ministers taking over. Here is a revealing exchange recorded by the author and Daily Telegraph diarist Kenneth Rose, who had been in conversation with the historian John Grigg on a familiar topic: how might the intensely ambitious Heseltine have seized the crown? The irony is that the entry is from 3rd February 1999, several years after Heseltine himself knew that his moment had passed: “John Grigg asks me a political conundrum. When did Michael Heseltine come closest to becoming prime minister? Not at one of the elections for the leadership, but when [in 1991] the IRA launched a mortar bomb at No 10 from Whitehall during a Cabinet meeting. Had the entire Cabinet been wiped out, Heseltine would have become PM, as he was not present for some reason.”
The conversation had it both ways. They were gossiping retrospectively about Heseltine’s leadership, while concluding he never had a chance—unless the entire Cabinet had been wiped out! Yet Heseltine was seen by such gossipers as a potential leader for years, waiting to strike from the backbenches after his dramatic cabinet resignation in 1986. He was always burdened, however, by the perception of the very ambition that made him a pretender. Perhaps his only chance really was the destruction of an entire Cabinet. Irrespective of failed mortar bomb attacks, prime ministers keep going and challengers, or potential challengers, get nowhere.
The most immediate question this raises is, why is there so much misplaced energy and focus on potential leaders who never make it to the top? While the deeper question is how concerned we should be that those considered to have epic leadership qualities never actually lead.
The first question is easy to answer. Although the UK is ultimately a party-based parliamentary democracy, the media and even political culture is presidential. The personal focus on leaders is relentless. Yet for a challenger to replace a prime minister or opposition leader, they must be at one with their party. Quite often they are not—a discordance that blocked the likes of externally popular “moderates” like Rab Butler, Denis Healey, Shirley Williams and Ken Clarke, as well as Heseltine, Jenkins and the final version of Portillo.
Would the UK have been better served if some of these big figures had managed to become prime minster? This is a more complex question, and answers are inescapably subjective. To make a case for the “best” prime ministers we never had may be a pleasurable parlour game, but in the end it has no more purpose than listing the “best” albums that did not make it to number one. And seeing as you never quite know how someone will lead until they have the chance, it might be more akin to arguing about albums your favourite band should have made but never did.
“MPs’ judgment of leaders is not necessarily wiser than anyone else’s, but it is more consequential”
There is, however, probably a degree of consensus across the spectrum that some of these figures could have been formidable in No 10. To take examples from the immediate context, given their range of responses since the summer of 2019, Rory Stewart or Jeremy Hunt would almost certainly have been far more effective in dealing with the pandemic, Afghanistan and Brexit than Boris Johnson. Both were candidates in the last Tory leadership contest. Yet it was Johnson who played the tune that his party wanted to hear on Brexit when the vacancy for the top job arose—and today, that is what counts in Britain.
In countries with presidential governance, there tends to be a much looser relationship between party and president. Given that the British prime minister is regarded almost as a president, some might ask, why not adopt a presidential hierarchy in order that big figures detached from their parties have the chance to rule? One obvious answer is to look at those countries ruled by presidents. Has the US been well served in recent times? President Macron was the hero of many self-proclaimed “centrists” in the UK, but it didn’t take long for an illiberal turn, street protests and Covid-19 bungles to see his glitter fade. There is actually a strong case to be made that Macron would have been more formidable if he had been anchored more closely to a party with clearly defined values.
A search for a new relationship between party and leader also ignores the more personal reasons why many seen as potential prime ministers fail to make the leap. Most of them did not possess the ruthlessness when their moment might have come. In his autobiography, Roy Jenkins notes that “Wilson became needlessly worried about a challenge from me to his leadership. It was needless because I probably would not have had the deadliness to stand and would not in any event have won.” He notes a much greater steeliness in Thatcher—who became a serious candidate for Tory leader only after, maybe even because, she didn’t hesitate to pounce on Ted Heath—and Lloyd George, who dispatched Asquith with few scruples.
David Miliband was ultimately as hesitant as Jenkins between 2007-2010 when his allies, sometimes encouraged by his own winks and nods, repeatedly hoped and assumed he was about to challenge Gordon Brown. Portillo did not challenge even when Major gave him the opportunity by formally declaring that 1995 leadership contest.
Note too, however, another of Jenkins’s observations: if he had challenged Wilson, he reflected, he would have lost. The same may well have applied to Miliband and Portillo. Think about rallying support for a challenge, and you’ll soon realise that discontent with the failings of the current regime is bound to go further than agreement about exactly what should replace it. Conversely, the patronage that only comes with power gives sitting PMs the edge: nobody knows what a pretender’s promise might be worth, but every politician who has landed a real job knows for sure that it could be at risk if the leader who gifted it were to fall. So reasoning, as well as character, explains such tentativeness.
In truth, then, most of the “prime ministers we never had” never stood much of a chance, because of prime ministerial might, party and character, with the latter being the least significant factor. For Labour prime minsters we never had there is an additional issue: winning general elections, something the party has historically only rarely done. Some pass the first barrier triumphantly—they become leader of the opposition—but then fall at the second when it comes to persuading the country. And the disdain of their immediate colleagues is often revealing as to why.
There are important differences between Neil Kinnock, Ed Miliband and then more obviously Jeremy Corbyn. But this diverse trio were all seen at different times as possible prime ministers, Kinnock and Miliband on the nights of the 1992 and 2015 elections respectively, and Corbyn for a brief period after the 2017 election. One of the few common factors was that all three began their leaderships with doubting parliamentary parties. To varying degrees they each won leadership contests with stronger support from trade unions and party members than among MPs. As a result, all three sometimes faced an awkward or even dire relationship with colleagues in their own parliamentary party. The judgment of MPs on leaders is not necessarily wiser than that of anyone else, but it is more consequential: if they are unhappy, they start to behave treacherously, and the country forms a dim view of a party it can see fighting like rats in a sack.
“Most potential prime ministers are fated to remain just that: might have beens”
This is a particular problem for Labour, especially since majority say on the leadership passed from Westminster to the broader Labour movement in the early 1980s. Barring the unhappy example of Iain Duncan Smith, the Conservatives have not elected a leader who did not also come out ahead among their MPs. And despite the claim that Tory Party members now enjoy the “final say,” MPs alone can force a leader out—as they ultimately did with Duncan Smith.
There is a mechanical difference between the parties here: Labour MPs passed a crushing no-confidence vote in Jeremy Corbyn, but that did not trigger his departure, and he survived. But it is a myth that the Labour Party is more sentimental in its tolerance of failing leaders: the public and private denunciations of Labour leaders from MPs and others can be as brutally scathing as equivalent Conservative outbursts. Sticking with struggling leaders is generally calculated rather than sentimental.
If Labour MPs rightly doubt their ability to kill under the rules, then what purpose is served by wounding? Sometimes a leader remains in place because their removal would trigger a ruinous party civil war—an inevitable consequence if Denis Healey had replaced Michael Foot in the build-up to the 1983 election. More often, Labour sticks with leaders because there is a chance that those leaders will win a general election: both Kinnock and Miliband were seen as likely prime ministers in hung parliaments. But arguably Labour does elect leaders doomed to a life of hell if they cannot rely on substantial support among MPs. Keir Starmer’s controversial reforms focused on the parliamentary nominations needed to make a leadership ballot. But there is a case for returning to tradition and giving MPs a clear, final say on the leadership, if only because of the trouble that looms when they don’t buy into it. Such a change might enable certain “prime ministers we never had” to become prime minister.
But there is a bigger lesson for all of us. Once prime ministers are in place, they are hard to dislodge. So how does Rishi Sunak make it to No 10? Obviously, if Johnson makes a Wilson-like planned departure while Sunak is still popular, the path becomes blissfully clear. But Johnson, although in many ways ill-suited for leadership, shows stamina, resilience, a lifelong love of the limelight and a competitive appetite for electoral success. It would be out of character for him to take a bow any time soon. Is Sunak going to make a challenge, suddenly undermining his standing as conscientious public figure, to become a disloyal senior Cabinet minister seeking to bring down a prime minister?
No ambitious chancellor risks such a metamorphosis. Harold Macmillan was merciless during the Suez Crisis, when as chancellor he deftly became a critic of the invasion, having been a supporter. But it took Eden’s resignation to create the vacancy: there was no act of regicide. Yes, Thatcher challenged Heath in opposition, but Heath had just lost two elections. For Sunak to stand against a sitting prime minister who wants to stay on and who recently won a handsome victory would be quite a move, and would surely change how you were seen. The alternative is to wait, as Heseltine and so many others have waited. Waited and waited and waited.
This is not a firm prediction. Perhaps Sunak will be prime minister by this time next year, or before Christmas. But on the basis of the recent past such a speedy elevation—or a taking of the reins before the next election—is unlikely. In a way that even they do not realise, it is the incumbents in No 10 who hold most of the cards. Some of them may be more charismatic. Many might convey an energetic authority untested by the draining stress of being a PM. But the potential prime ministers are overwhelmingly destined to remain as just that: might have beens.
