What Makes for an Effective British Prime Minister?

WHAT MAKES FOR AN EFFECTIVE BRITISH PRIME MINISTER?

by Kevin Theakston

Harold Wilson always used to say that the ability to sleep soundlyand a sense of history were the main essentials of a successful primeminister. Edward Heath thought that the ability to keep your head in acrisis was the key quality. Clement Attlee’s list of the qualities requiredin the occupant of Number 10 included: toleration, an absence of ego-centricity, the ability to be a good chairman able to get others to workand to get the Cabinet to take decisions, keeping a ‘hand on the pulse’while letting ministers get on with their jobs, the ‘architectonic sense’(seeing the whole building not only the bricks), a sense of timing, and asense of proportion. It wasn’t really ‘intellectual power’ that was need-ed, he maintained: being prime minister was about judgment not clever-ness. It is not surprising that the uncharismatic Attlee thought that a‘charming personality’ might help but was not absolutely necessary in aprime minister. In his memoirs, James Callaghan quoted with evidentapproval the novelist Anthony Trollope’s description: «One wants in aPrime Minister a good many things, but not very great things. He shouldbe clever but need not be a genius; he should be conscientious but by nomeans straight-laced; he should be cautious but never timid, bold butnever venturesome; he should have a good digestion, genial manners,and, above all, a thick skin» (1).

Political scientist Simon James suggested that successful prime min-isters needed «the combined skills of prophet, conciliator, tactician andsheepdog». The historian Peter Hennessy conjured up the ‘model of amodern prime minister’ as «a kind of grotesque composite freak – some-one with the dedication to duty of a Peel, the physical energy of aGladstone, the detachment of a Salisbury, the brains of an Asquith, the

(1) Harold WILSON, The Governance of Britain, London, Sphere, 1977, pp. 133-34;Francis WILLIAMS, A Prime Minister Remembers, London, Heinemann, 1961, p. 83; HowTo Be Prime Minister, BBC2 television (1996); James CALLAGHAN, Time and Chance,London, Collins, 1987, p. 395.

balls of a Lloyd George, the word-power of a Churchill, the adminis-trative gifts of an Attlee, the style of a Macmillan, the managerialism ofa Heath, and the sleep requirements of a Thatcher». Human beings, heconcluded, «do not come like that». Robert Blake’s checklist of prime-ministerial qualities included: courage, tenacity, determination, firmnerves, clarity of mind, a thick skin («or at least the lack of great sensi-tivity»), not being worried too much by ‘scruples and doubts’, tact, the‘power to manage men’, and the absence of an original mind. Widelyacknowledged is the need for physical stamina or an iron constitution, tocope with the relentless demands of the job and the burden of responsi-bility. But as Ivor Jennings long ago pointed out, «none of our recentPrime Ministers has had all the required qualities and it is unlikely thatall of them will ever be concentrated in one person» (2).

The Greenstein model

What aspects of prime-ministerial personality, performance, skill orstyle matter and make a difference to politics and government? What qual-ities have served well or poorly in Number 10 Downing Street? Answersso far to these questions have been strong on sweeping generalisation oranecdote and weak in terms of systematic comparison and evaluation.

A way forward is offered by Fred Greenstein’s book The PresidentialDifference (3). Greenstein examines presidential performance and evalu-ates the strengths and weaknesses of individual U.S. presidents under sixheadings relating to the leadership style, character, and political and per-sonal skills of the occupants of the White House: (1) proficiency as a pub-lic communicator, (2) organisational capacity, (3) political skill, (4) poli-cy vision, (5) cognitive style and (6) emotional intelligence. Greensteincriticises ‘rating’ or ‘ranking’ exercises on the grounds that the perform-ance of presidents usually being mixed, there is at least as much to be

(2) Simon JAMES, British Cabinet Government, London, Routledge, 1999, 2nd edition,p. 90; Peter HENNESSY, The Hidden Wiring, London, Gollancz, 1995, p. 92; RobertBLAKE, The Office of Prime Minister, London, Oxford University Press, 1975, pp. 19-22; Sir Ivor JENNINGS, Cabinet Government, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press,1961, 3rd edition, p. 174.(3) Fred GREENSTEIN, The Presidential Difference: Leadership Style from FDR to

Clinton (with a new afterword on George W. Bush, Princeton (N.J.), PrincetonUniversity Press, 2001.

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learned from their failures and limitations in these terms as from their suc-cesses and strengths. (The same goes for British prime ministers.) Theargument here is that Greenstein’s analytical framework can be appliedcomparatively and can help in trying to assess prime-ministerial perform-ance. It must be admitted that Greenstein suggests that in Britain, with its«tradition of collective leadership», the personal effectiveness of the primeminister is almost beside the point: «the rare Winston Churchill, MargaretThatcher, or Tony Blair is far outnumbered by the many StanleyBaldwins, Harold Wilsons and John Majors, whose personal impact ongovernmental actions is at best limited» (4).

Constitutionally and institutionally, a British prime minister is not apresident, and the British executive and the Cabinet system works in dif-ferent ways from the U.S. system – prime ministers have to be assessedwithin the context of the British system and in relation to the powers, con-straints and opportunities of the office they hold. Detailed historical analy-sis of different governments would arguably yield a more nuanced verdicton the impact of prime ministers like Baldwin, Wilson or Major thanGreenstein claims. But the analytical point is that it would be wrong towrite off the ‘ordinary’ prime ministers, as it were, and focus only on asmall number of exceptional or remarkable figures. In this article, thevariation and comparisons possible between the different prime ministersfrom Attlee to Blair across a 60 year period – evaluating their strengthsand weaknesses in terms of Greenstein’s model – provide insights into thereasons for success and failure in prime ministerial leadership in Britain.

Effectiveness as a communicator

«Although a role in the mobilisation of popular opinion is not as impor-tant in the job description of a prime minister as in that of an American pres-ident – says Colin Seymour-Ure – the prime minister has a need and anunequalled opportunity, to use the “power to persuade”». He adds that «goodmedia management may make a crucial difference to success» (5). Just asGreenstein picks out only a handful of the modern presidents as outstanding

(4) Fred GREENSTEIN, The Presidential Difference, p. 3.(5) Colin SEYMOUR-URE, Prime minister and the public: managing media relations, in

Donald SHELL and Richard HODDER-WILLIAMS (eds.), Churchill to Major: the Britishprime ministership since 1945, London, Hurst, 1995, p. 171.

WHAT MAKES FOR AN EFFECTIVE BRITISH PRIME MINISTER? 41

public communicators (Roosevelt, Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton at hisbest), so there have been only a few real communication ‘stars’ in Number10 since 1945 and more whose performance has been poor and ineffective.

The limitations of Clement Attlee, Alec-Douglas Home, EdwardHeath and John Major as communicators are obvious. Each disliked theidea of ‘selling’ or promoting themselves and their policies. Attlee wasa naturally poor speaker but worked hard to make himself a competentCommons performer, and one whose matter-of-fact style and sharp one-liners could sometime help him get the better of the more verbose andwindy Churchill. But he described himself as «allergic to the press», andPeter Hennessey argues that, even by the standards of that period and ina very different media environment to that of today, his approach to themedia was «pre-modern – he was far less adept or PR-minded thanBaldwin» (6). His government paid a price for neglecting public relations.Douglas-Home was inept and gaffe-prone on television, struggled in therough-and-tumble of public meetings during the 1964 election campaign,and did not find it easy to hold his own on the floor of the House ofCommons against the confident and fluent Opposition leader HaroldWilson. Heath could be effective in the Commons (though too serious-minded to be good at parliamentary knock about and point-scoring), buthe was wooden and uninspiring on the public platform and on television.He came across as a dry technocratic manager, with no feel for languageor for inspirational rhetoric. He deliberately spurned public relations andimage-building, and kept his distance from the media. John Major couldbe effective in parliament, but he was a stilted and indifferent public andtelevision performer, and he hated the ‘packaging’ of modern media-driven politics. In contrast to Thatcher and Blair, with their tough, cen-tralising and highly ‘political’ press secretaries, Major’s approach to theorganisation of the media management operation in Downing Street andgovernment was also arguably ineffective (7).

Anthony Eden, James Callaghan, Harold Macmillan and MargaretThatcher were more effective communicators than this first group of primeministers. From Eden’s time onwards, television was an inescapable part

(6) Peter HENNESSY, The Prime Minister: the office and its holders since 1945, London,Allen Lane Penguin, 2000, p. 170.(7) Tim BALE and Karen SANDERS, “Playing by the book”: success and failure in John

Major’s approach to prime ministerial media management, in «Contemporary BritishHistory», XV, 2001, no. 4, pp. 93-110.

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of a prime minister’s political world. Eden «took naturally to the camera»and was actually the first PM to address the nation face-to-face on camera,with his TV broadcasts during the 1955 election being highly rated. «Edennever makes a really remarkable speech, since he never says anythingmemorable. But he never makes a bad speech», was Harold Macmillan’srather catty view. «If he never says anything very striking, he is neverguilty of a “gaffe” or even of an indiscretion» (8). Callaghan had a «strongand commanding style» in the Commons, dominating at Question Time,and was «good on television in a solid, reassuring and old-fashioned way»,dealing well with interviewers (9). Harold Macmillan was «highly skilled asa television performer and extremely adept at presenting the cameras withfavourable images of himself and his government». But the ‘actor-manag-er’s’ strengths were arguably at the level of image-making, ‘showmanship’and eye-catching stunts rather than inspiring rhetoric. «Formidable at ques-tion time and dealing with interruptions», he seems otherwise to have beena mostly dull orator and parliamentary speaker (10). Always well-briefed,Thatcher regularly made mincemeat of her opponents at Question Time(though she had not done well at PMQs when in Opposition), but she wasnot in general a good parliamentary speaker (and made as few speeches aspossible). «Her combative belief in her own rightness ensures that she israrely discomforted and never overwhelmed – said Roy Jenkins – [b]ut shebrings no special qualities of persuasiveness or debating skill which enableher to move minds». On the other hand, she regularly wiped the floor withtelevision interviewers and was «an extremely effective screen figure»,working hard to develop her TV skills and image with the aid of her mediaadvisers. In television terms, she certainly appreciated the communicativepower of images and actions as alternatives to words (11).

(8) David DUTTON, Anthony Eden: a life and reputation, London, Hodder andStoughton, 1997, p. 478; Peter CATTERALL (ed.), The Macmillan Diaries: the CabinetYears 1950-1957, London, Pan Books, 2003, pp. 53, 491.(9) Bernard DONOUGHUE, The Heat of the Kitchen, London, Politico’s, 2003, pp. 236-

37; Kenneth O. MORGAN, Callaghan: A Life, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997, pp.516-17.(10) Michael COCKERELL, Live from Number 10, London, Faber and Faber, 1988, pp.

52, 253, 255; Alistair HORNE, Macmillan 1957-1986, London, Macmillan, 1989, pp.149, 265; Richard DAVENPORT-HINES, The Macmillans, London, Heinemann, 1992, pp.274, 288-89.(11) John CAMPBELL, Margaret Thatcher: vol. 2 The Iron Lady, London, Cape, 2003,

pp. 452-53, 477-78.


Churchill would have to be ranked as one of the great political com-municators for the powerful and majestic oratory of his famous wartimespeeches. He had a feel for words and great artistry in their use, but alsoworked extremely hard at his speech-making. However, he was not agood impromptu speaker and was somewhat inflexible and ponderous inhis debating style. He lacked the low-key, conversational style of thepoliticians who were effective radio broadcasters (like Baldwin). Asprime minister 1951-55, he could sometimes still rise to the occasion butas a platform and parliamentary performer was uneven and past his best.

Harold Wilson and Tony Blair have been the two most effective pub-lic communicators among recent prime ministers. It has been said thatWilson deliberately acquired a sense of humour in the 1950s, and he cer-tainly transformed himself from a dull and boring speaker into one who,at his best, was devastatingly sharp, lucid and witty and a brilliant par-liamentary debater. In his time, he was also «the best television com-municator in politics», a complete professional who mastered all thetricks of the media and took great pains, in his early years as PM atleast, to cultivate the press (though relations turned sour after awhile). (12) It is inconceivable that Blair could ever echo Alec Douglas-Home’s distaste for the idea that a political leader had to be «an actor onthe screen». William Hague often worsted Blair at Question Time (1997-2001) but Blair has usually shown enough skill to perform adequately inparliament, which he does not anyway see as the most important politi-cal stage. Anthony Seldon has pointed to Blair’s «thespian skills» and his«extraordinary persuasive and presentational skills». Being telegenic,persuasive and able to project sincerity helped Blair to win his party’sleadership in the first place. «More than any recent prime minister – sayKavanagh and Seldon – Blair is aware of the importance of presentationto promote policy and himself». Kavanagh’s verdict at the end of his sec-ond term of office was that he was a populist who «has shown a remark-able capacity to communicate with the electorate, to demonstrate empa-thy at key moments and present himself as a “regular sort of guy”».However, on the negative side, controversies over ‘spin’, a perceivedmismatch between rhetoric and substance in policy achievement, anddivisions over Iraq produced a haemorrhaging of trust. If Blair’s media

(12) Philip ZIEGLER, Harold Wilson, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1993, pp. 110-111, 162; Ben PIMLOTT, Harold Wilson, London, HarperCollins, 1992, p. 567.

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machine has been more effective at the short-term battle of the headlinesthan the longer-term winning of hearts and minds, the final responsibil-ity for that approach to political communications is his (13).

Organisational Capacity

Greenstein is concerned here with a president’s ability to forge ateam of White House aides and advisers and get the most out of it, andalso with the ability to design «effective institutional arrangements» (14).In the British context, the relevant issues relate to the prime minister’simmediate team of advisers in Number 10, the prime minister’s interestin the machinery of government and the wider Whitehall system, and theway in which the prime minister organises and uses the Cabinet system.

The prime minister’s staff has increased in size over the period consid-ered here, and there has been the importation of more politically-appointedstaff and the creation of new units and offices alongside the original ‘core’of the private office of civil servants. Numbers alone are not the point,though: it is an open question whether Blair, with more than 200 staff work-ing for him in Downing Street has a more effective advisory system than,say, Wilson or Heath in the 1960s and 1970s with 60 to 70 staff (double thepre-1964 number). The issues are more about the prime minister’s abilityor willingness to be open to a range of points of view and variety of argu-ments and the quality of advice on policy and politics reaching him or her.Echoing a point made by Greenstein, two of Major’s close advisers alsonoted the need to overcome the problem «that people [the prime minister]meets tend to tell him what they think he wants to hear» (15).

Macmillan can perhaps be thought of as scoring high marks for theright sort of attitude in this respect, being described as «a master of acquir-ing ideas» and «receptive to the suggestions of others», keeping his (small)private office staff fully «in the picture» of all that was going on, andencouraging them to give their views: «he liked to throw out ideas and pro-

(13) Anthony SELDON, Blair, London, Free Press, 2004, p. 58; Dennis KAVANAGH andAnthony SELDON, The Powers Behind the Prime Minister, London, HarperCollins, 2000,pp. 282-83; Anthony SELDON and Dennis KAVANAGH (eds.), The Blair Effect 2001-5,Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 17, 426. (14) Fred GREENSTEIN, The Presidential Difference, pp. 195-97.(15) Sarah HOGG and Jonathan HILL, Too Close to Call, London, Little, Brown, 1995, p. 32.


voke ideas» (16). Heath’s creation of the Central Policy Review Staff (CPRS)think-tank in 1970, with a mixed staff of civil servants and ‘outsiders’ andgiven the job of «thinking the unthinkable» on a non-party-political basis, car-rying out policy analysis, challenging departmental views and looking to thelong-term, also betokens an attitude to policy advice (perhaps an open-mind-edness) not shared by Thatcher, who abolished the CPRS in 1983. Wilsonwas an innovator in Downing Street, creating the Political Office in 1964 andthe Policy Unit in 1974, both retained in one form or another by his succes-sors. Bernard Donoughue, his head of policy, noticed how Wilson’s twochief advisers in 1974-76, Joe Haines (press secretary) and Marcia Williams(political secretary) were both «fiercely independent and very ready toexpress firm disagreement with Harold Wilson… Both said to Wilson exact-ly what they thought and believed, however critical. Wilson in turn wasalmost masochistic in inviting contradiction and in accepting dissent fromthose who worked for him». Callaghan is also said to have «welcomed cre-ative tension within the ranks of his advisers, even if he never followedFranklin Roosevelt’s approach of encouraging antithetical viewpoints fromideologically opposed groups and then “weaving the two together”» (17).

It is arguable that Thatcher’s and Blair’s methods in this respect havebeen less effective. To be sure, Thatcher did reach out for advice andinformation, appointing at different times high-powered special advisersinside Number 10 on economic policy, foreign policy and efficiency ingovernment. She also tapped a private network of informal advisers fromdifferent walks of life – including academics and businessmen – thoughthe problem was that they tended to be committed Thatcherites who rein-forced her opinions. It was ultimately to her disadvantage that her twomost powerful advisers – Bernard Ingham (press secretary) and CharlesPowell (Whitehall private secretary) – became over-identified with her.There are suggestions that «in private [Powell] would argue vigorouslywith her and sometimes she would concede», but the dominant view (asexpressed by Nigel Lawson, Thatcher’s Chancellor of the Exchequer1983-89) was that Powell «never saw it as his role to question her preju-dices, merely to refine the language in which they were expressed». Thishelped to make her Number 10 «court» something of an echo chamber,

(16) Richard DAVENPORT-HINES, The Macmillans, p. 289; Alistair HORNE, Macmillan1957-1986, pp. 160-61.(17) Bernard DONOUGHUE, The Heat of the Kitchen, p. 106; Kenneth O. MORGAN,

Callaghan, p. 495.

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contributed to the creation of a «bunker mentality» and fatally cut her offfrom her Cabinet and senior ministers (18). Blair’s problem was partly that«most of the key figures in [his] Number 10… were intensely focusedmore on presentation than policy». Nor, as Seldon points out, «did he lis-ten to powerful, independent-minded intellects who offered alternativesolutions and who were able to convince him of unpalatable truths». Ashis premiership went on, he increasingly relied on a small group of closeaides at Number 10. Seldon terms this group the «denocracy» – damag-ingly, they «rarely asserted countervailing advice or opinions on foreignpolicy, but tended to affirm Blair’s own positions, either because they didnot think it their job to question policy… or because they often agreedwith him» (19). This is the opposite approach to the studies of effectiveleadership which enjoin the need to be open to fresh ideas, conflictingpoints of view and constructive dissent and to avoid ‘groupthink’.

Prime ministers rarely have much interest in issues of governmentmachinery and management, crucial though these may be to the imple-mentation of their policies. «Your problem is that neither you nor any-one else in Number 10 has ever managed anything», an exasperatedCabinet Secretary once told Tony Blair. When Blair retorted that he’dmanaged the Labour Party he was told: «you led them – there’s a bigdifference». Thatcher, too, provided political leadership to the countrybut not effective management leadership to the government, complainedone aide. It may be that prime ministers (like other politicians) tend to«see politics through speeches» rather than in terms of managing institu-tions, people and systems to achieve results (20).

Heath and Attlee were perhaps the two most managerially-mindedpremiers of this group. Wilson in the 1960s had been very active onmachinery of government issues but his constant tinkering with thedepartmental architecture of Whitehall had showed little evidence ofstrategic purpose or design, often being prompted by presentational,political or ‘divide-and-rule’ motives (Hennessy calls him «the untidiestof all the postwar premiers in administrative terms»). Heath was fasci-

(18) John CAMPBELL, Margaret Thatcher, vol. 2 The Iron Lady, pp. 34-35, 257-58, 451-52; Dennis KAVANAGH and Anthony SELDON, The Powers Behind the Prime Minister, p.182; Nigel LAWSON, The View from No. 11, London, Bantam Press, 1992, pp. 467, 680.(19) Anthony SELDON, Blair, pp. 437, 692.(20) Ibid., p. 629; John HOSKYNS, Just in Time: Inside the Thatcher Revolution, London,

Aurum Press, 2000, p. 326; Bernard DONOUGHUE, Downing Street Diary: with HaroldWilson in No. 10, London, Cape, 2005, p. 586.


nated by government machinery and favoured ‘giant’ departments, sharp-er policy analysis and a more strategic approach through the CPRS, ‘hiv-ing-off’, and the importation of businessmen and business practices intoWhitehall. He also made clear his dislike of the compromise-creating,lowest-common-denominator, slow ‘grind through the committee system’methods of government. But he perhaps exaggerated what could beachieved by reforms of the official machine and was in office for tooshort a time to embed the ‘new style of government’ he wanted (21).

Before becoming prime minister, Attlee had thought a great deal aboutthe working of the Cabinet system and Whitehall and had some radical ideasabout coordinating ministers and the need for a smaller Cabinet. But inpractice, his methods were not in all ways a model to copy: in particularthe proliferation of Cabinet committees (148 standing committees and 313ad hoc over 6 years of his government) did more for ‘indecision and over-load all round’ than for effectiveness in government (22). Both Thatcher andBlair shied away from the idea of government-by-committee. Thatcher’spreferred mode of operation was through small ad hoc groups and ‘bilater-als’. This maximised her influence and leverage and also had the advantageof cutting through the Gordian knot of the growing problem of govern-mental ‘overload’, but a cost was paid in terms of diminishing the sense ofcollective ministerial responsibility and fragmenting the Cabinet. Blair hasbeen even more averse to collective Cabinet decision-making and has hadlittle time for the paraphernalia of committees, formal written papers, andthe apparatus of the Cabinet Secretariat, preferring a more fluid, unstruc-tured, informal and personalised approach. Like Thatcher, he has been peo-ple-centred rather than organisation-centred. However, the Butler Reportstarkly exposed the drawbacks and dangers of the Blair approach.

Political Skill

Greenstein’s heading here relates to assessing presidents as politicaloperators, including their ability to work through the Washington systemand their skills in relation to political persuasion, negotiation and deal-making, their sensitivity to power relations and their sense of timing.

(21) Peter HENNESSY, The Prime Minister, p. 310; The National Archives, PRO, PREM15/940.(22) Peter HENNESSY, The Prime Minister, pp. 155, 164-65.

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Some British prime ministers have been very accomplished politicaloperators. We know that Macmillan was reading studies of Machiavelliduring the Suez crisis and before he seized the premiership, but in someways he did not need to. Combining charm, cunning and ruthlessness,Macmillan was a master of ‘the oblique approach’ or operating bystealth to outflank opposition and manoeuvre through his policies,whether on Europe or decolonisation. He was guileful in handling hisparty and parliament, and patient, determined and subtle in managing hisCabinet. Callaghan was a skilled fixer and wheeler-dealer, showinggreat skills in tactical political management and deal-making, whether inholding his Cabinet together during the IMF crisis or stitching togethermajorities and buying support for his minority government in parlia-ment. As his biographer put it: «he never neglected a detail, never mis-calculated the votes, never forgot a face». Political manipulation wassecond nature to Wilson, someone who «thought four moves ahead» inthe political game. To him, any amount of fudging, trimming or devi-ousness was justified if it served the overriding end of keeping the partytogether, bridging political differences, and avoiding splits or resigna-tions. His political agility and skills were seen to best effect when he hada knife-edge majority in 1964-66 and (maybe more cynically) whenfinessing the Common Market issue in the 1970s. He showed remark-able skill in handling his Cabinet: «knowing when to press and when toease off, when to defer a decision, when to take a vote and when to sumup in a way patently at variance with the drift of the discussion… [or] toallow the argument to drift on interminably until he got his way throughthe confusion and frustration of his opponents». His techniques were notheroic but they worked – the problem was that these skills were not har-nessed to a strong policy vision (23).

It is easy to underestimate the political skills of someone like Attlee,who was able to get a team of top ministers with strong and discordantpersonalities to work together and who had an acute sense of the balanceof party opinion. A 1949 profile of him noted that «a politician, tomanoeuvre… needs tactical skill and a quiet nimbleness. Here… Attleeis surprisingly well-equipped. He has successfully ridden every revolt inhis party, chiefly by remarkable timing – by knowing when to remain

(23) Richard DAVENPORT-HINES, The Macmillans, pp. 259, 262, 273-74, 279, 282, 287;Kenneth O. MORGAN, Callaghan, p. 756; Ben PIMLOTT, Harold Wilson, p. 521; PhilipZIEGLER, Wilson, pp. 43, 187, 189, 272.


quiescent and when to bring the issue to a climax. Those who have chal-lenged him are never quite sure just how they were defeated» (24). Forhis part, John Major showed great dexterity in ‘micro’ politics, one-to-one negotiation, conciliation and man-management, drawing on hisexperience and skills as a former whip. He excelled at networking, thedeployment of charm and cultivating personal relationships. What hadbeen strengths when a desperate party turned to him in 1990 laterappeared to be weaknesses, however, during the Tory descent into fac-tion-fighting and virtual civil war on the European issue, when Majorseemed to be at the mercy of events and of party rebels rather than beingable to impose himself on both.

The importance of political skills in a prime minister is seen whenthey are absent or decay. Heath, for instance, was more interested in andbetter at government and administration than at politics. Although hehad been an effective Chief Whip in the 1950s, he came to «despise thepolitical arts». He forged good working relations with his Cabinet, build-ing a loyal and united team. But he neglected his backbenchers, beingfrequently rude, impatient and high-handed with MPs, spurning theCommons tea-room or smoking-room skills and the canny use of patron-age of a Macmillan or a Callaghan. He could just about get away withthis while he was prime minister but the knives were out after electoraldefeat in 1974. At first, Thatcher – aware of Heath’s failings – workedhard to keep in touch with her MPs but as time went on she got moreand more remote from them, wouldn’t listen and sometimes showed lit-tle respect. It is true that she showed considerable skill in using her sexas a political weapon, often wrong footing the men she was dealing witheither in her own government or in international meetings. But morethan any other prime minister she seems to have used fear as a politicaltool – Anthony King called her «the Lyndon Johnson of modern Britishpolitics» for her «hectoring, cajoling, threatening… bullying» style andher willingness to humiliate ministers and officials. She got away with itfor a long time but these methods were costly in the end (25).

(24) Kenneth HARRIS, Attlee, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1982, p. 428.(25) John CAMPBELL, Edward Heath, London, Cape, 1993, pp. 104, 259, 484, 487, 518-

20; John CAMPBELL, Margaret Thatcher, vol. 2 The Iron Lady, pp. 21, 447, 473, 679-81; Anthony KING, Margaret Thatcher as a Political Leader, in Robert SKIDELSKY (ed.),Thatcherism, London, Chatto & Windus, 1988, pp. 57-8.

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Policy Vision

The ‘vision thing’ relates mainly to the possession of clear long-termor overarching goals and a strong sense of direction. It may also includedealing with policy problems analytically rather than just in partisan ortactical terms. Most of the modern U.S. presidents, says Greenstein, arepragmatists of one sort or another. Vision-driven prime ministers arealso the exception, not the rule, in Britain.

The tradition of collective and party-based government is an impor-tant factor here. «Most Prime Ministers, most of the time… have not hadpolicy goals and agendas of their own distinct from those of their partyor their Cabinet colleagues», Anthony King has noted. «They have not…had anywhere distinctive that they wanted to go… Most of the time, theirown objectives were the objectives of their party or government, and…they regarded themselves principally as the managers of their govern-ment’s and their party’s political business: maintaining party unity, pre-venting Cabinet resignations, winning the next election». Prime minis-ters «do not in the majority of cases, have important policy aims pecu-liar to themselves» (26).

Thatcher was different in this respect: an opinionated and crusading‘conviction politician’, with a radical vision and a driving sense of mis-sion, leading from the front and battling to impose her views on party,government and society. ‘Thatcherism’ was, to be sure, often a matterof gut instinct rather than an ideologically consistent or coherentapproach, but she was able to impart a sense of purpose and directionand to innovate in government. Crucial to her success (at least up to herthird term), however, was the way in which, while always keeping sightof her strategic goals, she tended to work to achieve them in a cautious,tactically flexible, and step-by-step way. Things started to fall apartwhen, as John Major put it, she could no longer keep these two sides ofher personality bolted together (27).

Blair has been described by one ‘insider’ as «very good at the widesky – the big picture – and very good at handling tomorrow. It’s the bitin between that’s the problem». His ‘Third Way’ slogan did not give

(26) Anthony KING, Margaret Thatcher as a Political Leader, p. 55; Anthony KING,Margaret Thatcher: the style of a prime minister, in Anthony KING (ed.), The BritishPrime Minister, London, Macmillan, 1985, 2nd edition, p. 98.(27) John MAJOR, The Autobiography, London, HarperCollins, 1999, p. 175.


clarity or consistency to government, boiling down to a pragmaticapproach to choosing ‘what works’ and makes or keeps you popular.Similarly, the ‘modernisation’ mantra does not give a clear policy-steeror sense of direction. Many of Blair’s problems in achieving the reformshe has wanted can be traced back to the failure to provide a strategicsense of direction or a broad philosophical coherence for his govern-ment, and to a tendency towards ‘waffle and cliché’. To the extent thathe did begin to shape and articulate a domestic policy agenda from 2001-02, it owed more to the legacy of Thatcher and Major than it was com-fortable to admit, and there has been resistance to his ideas within thegovernment and the Labour Party (28).

Heath set out with a broad vision of what he wanted to achieve andwith detailed policy commitments planned in Opposition, but withoutstrong underpinnings in terms of political philosophy or economic theo-ry (in which he had no interest). With basically a practical and manage-rial cast of mind, he then responded pragmatically to events, overseeingsome damaging policy reversals and U-turns. All the same, Heath had aclearer vision of the sort of Britain he wanted to see than did Wilson. Amaster political tactician, not a strategist, Wilson practised a short-term,‘keep-the-show-on-the-road’ style of politics. Crossman described himas «an opportunist, always moving in zig-zags, darting with no sense ofdirection but making the best of each position he adopts». Pragmatismand opportunism are not quite the same thing. Callaghan, for instance,may not have had a strong interest in ideas or a vision of the future, buthas been described as «often more seriously interested in getting the rightpolicy approach than Wilson had been» (29). The example of Attleeshows that a prime minister does not necessarily have to give a strongpolicy lead or provide ideas and a vision for a government to be suc-cessful, provided that the Cabinet and the party have a sense of purposeand remain united. The example of Major shows what can happen withthat style of leadership in the absence of those conditions.

(28) Peter HENNESSY, The Prime Minister, p. 8; Richard ROSE, The Prime Minister in aShrinking World, Cambridge, Polity Press, 2001, pp. 228-30; Anthony SELDON, Blair,pp. 148, 439, 463, 633, 653, 690.(29) John CAMPBELL, Edward Heath, pp. 193-94, 263; Richard CROSSMAN, The Diaries

of a Cabinet Minister: vol. 2 Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House ofCommons 1966-6, London, Hamish Hamilton and Jonathan Cape, 1976, p. 159; BernardDONOUGHUE, The Heat of the Kitchen, p. 237 (emphasis in original).

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Cognitive Style

Here Greenstein is concerned with the way in which presidents pro-cess advice and information and with their intellectual styles, strengthsand weaknesses. Presidents and prime ministers have varied greatly inthese terms.

Formal educational achievement is not the point. Of the eleven primeministers since 1945, three (Churchill, Callaghan and Major) were notuniversity graduates, the rest all attending Oxford, where three of themgained first class degrees (Eden, Macmillan and Wilson) and one a third(Douglas-Home). The major accomplishments of the Attlee andThatcher governments may suggest that the most effective leadershipcomes from those with second class degrees. Callaghan had left schoolat age 16 but those who worked with him testify to his clear mind andpowerful intelligence. Rab Butler felt that Douglas-Home did not havethe brains to be prime minister but it perhaps suited him to seem lessintelligent than he actually was (as it had Baldwin earlier). Experienceseems to bear out Robert Blake’s comment that «originality is mistrust-ed in politics». Only two men of strikingly original mind got to the topof the ‘greasy pole’ in twentieth century Britain – Lloyd George andChurchill – and it took in each case the exceptional circumstances of aworld war to put them there (30).

Churchill’s limitations during his post-war premiership were obvious,at least to ‘insiders’ at the time. Reluctant to deal with his paper-work,slow in transacting ordinary routine business, and often ignorant or hazyabout the details of policy (particularly economic policy), he struck oneminister as «turn[ing] avidly to minor problems… because he cannotgrasp – or at any rate sees no way out of – the big ones». After his seri-ous stroke in 1953, he was increasingly ineffective. At his best, duringthe war, he had ranged energetically between geo-politics and grand strat-egy at one end of the spectrum and trifling administrative details at theother. «His mind worked through a process of rapid intuition nourishedby a fertile imagination», says Paul Addison. His was not a calm, calcu-lating approach: «his decisions are never founded on exact knowledge,nor even on careful or prolonged consideration of the pros and cons»,

(30) D. R. THORPE, Alec Douglas-Home, London, Sinclair-Stevenson, 1996, p. 320;Robert BLAKE, The Office of Prime Minister, pp. 19-20.


wrote a political colleague. «He seeks instinctively for the large andpreferably novel idea». Impulsive and amazingly fertile in ideas, he need-ed ministers, officials and advisers around him to argue him out of thebad or impractical ones and to take the good ones forward (31).

For his part, Eden’s «mental processes… seemed heavily dependenton intuition and quickness of perception». «His approach to problemsoften strikes one as instinctive rather than based on long, intellectualprocess», thought one adviser. Not a man of ideas or ‘great leaps of imag-ination’, he had a big appetite for detail – perhaps too much so, some-times being criticised for not being able to ‘see the wood for the trees’.Some advisers felt that he was not open to unpalatable advice or alterna-tive ideas unless he had asked for them, tending to make his own deci-sion and then consult others, without revealing what he had decided (32).

The contrasting styles of Major and Thatcher are revealing. Major –the consolidator, the balancer, the political manager – was not a con-ceptual or strategic thinker, but a reactive problem-solver, able to soakup and exploit his command of the details. He would make decisions bylisting the pros and cons in two columns on a sheet of paper – not theapproach of someone with a clear agenda of his own. An earlierConservative leader, Arthur Balfour, had written a book called ADefence of Philosophic Doubt. Such subtleties were not part ofThatcher’s style. She had a «rigid cast of mind», says John Campbell,that «dealt in facts and moral certainties» and was «intolerant of ambi-guity and equivocation». This was both a source of strength and – ulti-mately – a limitation. As prime minister, her style was aggressivelyargumentative not calmly analytical. She had «a phenomenal recall ofdetail» and could always find the weak point in a proposal. She had«instant certainty» but could be a good listener, though it requiredexpertise, an equal command of detail, and courage to get a case acrossto her. Thatcher argued «not merely to clear her mind, but to win». Oneafter another ‘insider’ or minister describes her approach as ‘unstruc-tured’, ‘abrasive’, ‘illogical’ or ‘outrageous’. Initially, this style mayhave been necessary and effective as she struggled to assert her author-ity and force through radical policies. It was a brutal way of testing poli-

(31) Peter CATTERALL (ed.), The Macmillan Diaries, p. 162; Paul ADDISON, Churchill:the unexpected hero, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 123, 182, 247.(32) David DUTTON, Anthony Eden, pp. 463-66.

KEVIN THEAKSTON54

cies and testing ministers. But it became counter-productive as her pre-miership went on and as ‘insiders’ felt that she became increasingly irra-tional, harder to deal with and less interested in hearing things that didnot support her convictions (33).

It was a quieter life under Attlee. He was described as «orderly, reg-ular, efficient and methodical to a degree that put him in a different classfrom any of the prime ministers who followed him». His mind, it is said,«however, unadventurous, was usually open and unprejudiced; a casepresented with close argument and detailed facts had a good chance ofwinning on its merits». He worked through paper rather than through lis-tening to people, and notoriously taciturn he was not good at thinkingout loud or exchanging embryonic views. Heath shared this last charac-teristic. He was very intelligent, but no intellectual, noted a 1960s pro-file: «it is the computer mind at work». His approach was rational andproblem-solving: there was almost an aversion from big ideas and apreference for hard facts and concrete recommendations. Typically, hewould gather together his advisers, listen in silence to them arguingthrough the issues and then suddenly make up his mind and announce hisdecision. His critics felt that his approach was not ‘political’ enough andthat he relied unduly on civil service advisers (34).

Wilson’s mind was, at his peak, razor-sharp, fast and described asbeing of ‘Rolls Royce’ calibre. «But he was not an intellectual in the con-ventional sense, with little interest in theories, concepts or high-flownideas». The manipulation of political power and solving definable prob-lems were what fascinated him, not abstractions. He liked «verbal adviceand a lot of gossip», jumping from topic to topic and welcoming advis-ers popping in and out for quick discussions. In his second term (1974-76), there was visibly less energy and spark. «The trouble is when theold problems reappear I reach for the old solution», he confessed. ANumber 10 official compared him to a player of Space Invaders: «hewould take the first blip to cross the screen whether it was important ornot». His Labour successor, Callaghan, had «an analytical rather than a

(33) Anthony SELDON, Major: a political life, London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997, pp.94-5, 133; John MAJOR, The Autobiography, p. 32; John CAMPBELL, Margaret Thatcher,vol. 1 The Grocer’s Daughter, Cape, 2000, p. 64; John CAMPBELL, Margaret Thatcher, vol.2 The Iron Lady, pp. 16-19, 445-46; Peter HENNESSY, The Prime Minister, p. 404.(34) Kenneth HARRIS, Attlee, pp. 405-6, 409; Francis BECKETT, Clem Attlee, London,

Politico’s, 2000, p. 251; John CAMPBELL, Edward Heath, pp. 190, 239.


creative or truly innovative mind». He paced himself, took his time, didnot like to be rushed, and carefully assessed the problems. He preferredto see advisers by appointment and one-by-one, and only after submit-ting papers in advance. In contrast to the «intellectually more agile»Wilson, he wanted to concentrate on issues one at a time. He was aneffective executive decision-maker. But when there was an avalanche ofproblems all at the same time, during the ‘Winter of Discontent’, a closeadviser thought that he was «overwhelmed» (35).

Emotional Intelligence

Under this heading, Greenstein is concerned with «the president’sability to manage his emotions and turn them to constructive purposes,rather than being dominated by them and allowing them to diminish hisleadership» (36). The famous remark about Roosevelt having a ‘second-class intellect’ but a ‘first-class temperament’ is relevant to the occu-pants of Number 10 too. We are dealing with personalities that are usu-ally complex and multi-layered. The key question is how far emotionalor temperamental flaws impede effective prime-ministerial performance.

With a premier like Douglas-Home there does not seem much of aproblem. Amiable, approachable, courteous, understanding human natureand able to get on with people, he also had the necessary toughness: «steelpainted as wood», Macmillan said of him. Callaghan projected a relaxed,confident and avuncular image but in private could be bad-tempered – «aterrifyingly hard man» – insecure, touchy and self-critical. At times dur-ing the crisis of the ‘Winter of Discontent’ he seemed to sink into depres-sion, but the key mistakes and miscalculations over 1978-79 were surelypolitical ones rather than down to any emotional limitations. Thatcher’sdisplays of anger, triumphalism, contempt and determination to dominatecertainly suggest a figure operating at a high emotional temperature. Bythe end she has been described as «increasingly wilful and tempestuous»and (by one of her ministers) as «increasingly and damagingly erratic in

(35) Bernard DONOUGHUE, Downing Street Diary, p. 12; Philip ZIEGLER, Wilson, p. 42;Bernard DONOUGHUE, Prime Minister: the conduct of policy under Harold Wilson andJames Callaghan, London, Cape, 1987, pp. 12-13; Kenneth O. MORGAN, Callaghan, pp.518, 754; Bernard DONOUGHUE, The Heat of the Kitchen, p. 235. (36) Fred GREENSTEIN, The Presidential Difference, p. 6.

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her behaviour», with questions being asked about her emotional and men-tal stability. After 1987 a «bunker mentality» developed and what had beenstrengths turned into flaws, with growing authoritarianism, intolerance,inflexibility, recklessness and self-righteousness. The balance between thequalities of ‘passion’, ‘detachment’ and ‘proportion’ that Max Webertalked about in the make-up of a professional politician seemed to havegone awry, with fatal consequences for her premiership (37).

Churchill is known to have been mercurial and have experiencedgreat mood swings: «either on the crest of the wave or in the trough,either highly laudatory or bitterly condemnatory; either in an angelictemper or a hell of a rage». This helped to make him a difficult boss andcolleague to work with. He was a sentimentalist and openly exhibited hisfeelings: «I blub an awful lot», he once admitted. Frenetic activity wasa way of holding off his ‘black dog’ of depression, and this factor mayhave made him reluctant to give up office in the 1950s, even when hewas no longer up to the job. Macmillan also had to fight depression,struggling to conceal his nerves and emotions behind a show of ‘unflap-pability’ which he never really felt. A family member thought that hemay have been in «one of his depressive cycles» during the ‘Night of theLong Knives’ – the panicky sacking of a third of his Cabinet in 1962which badly damaged his political standing and reputation (38).

Attlee’s patience, stability, self-control and self-effacement helped himto manage the personality clashes and political infighting in his party andCabinet. He was once called a «desiccated calculating machine», appear-ing remote, self-contained, impersonal and unemotional. His shyness wascertainly impenetrable, but beneath it Attlee had plenty of intellectual self-confidence and could be cunning, ruthless and tough. It was one ofAttlee’s great strengths, Hugh Gaitskell wrote in his diary, «that he did notmind whether people liked him». («Eden minds terribly», he added) (39).

(37) Peter HENNESSY, The Prime Minister, p. 278; John CAMPBELL, Margaret Thatcher,vol. 2 The Iron Lady, pp. 452, 682; Chris PATTEN, Not Quite the Diplomat, London,Allen Lane, 2005, p. 76; Max WEBER, Politics as Vocation (1918), in Hans H. GERTHand Charles WRIGHT MILLS (eds.), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, New York,Oxford University Press, 1946, pp. 115-16.(38) Hugh L’ETANG, Fit to Lead?, London, Heinemann Medical Books, 1980, p. 32;

Andrew ROBERTS, Hitler & Churchill: Secrets of Leadership, London, Weidenfeld andNicolson, 2003, pp. 7-8, 56-57; Richard DAVENPORT-HINES, The Macmillans, pp. 302-3.(39) Philip M. WILLIAMS (ed.), The Diary of Hugh Gaitskell 1945-1956, London, Cape,

1983, p. 422.


Unlike Attlee, Wilson was thin-skinned, did want to be liked and waseager for approval. The emotional balance-sheet is mixed in his case:some of his qualities helped him succeed as a leader, others limited hisachievements. On the positive side he was someone who took trouble overpersonal relations, being unassuming, unpretentious, kindly, amiable andconsiderate to people (even if not truly warm). He was equable, calm andkept his head in a crisis. He had an ‘india-rubber self-confidence’ andcould bounce back, putting things behind him. More problematic was theway in which he shied away from confrontations (disliking having to say‘no’ to people or having to sack them) and his bouts of paranoia and sus-picion about plots and real or imagined enemies. There was also hisstrange dependence on Marcia Williams, whose tantrums drained him ofenergy in 1974-76 and weakened his capacity for governing. To the extentthat realism is a virtue in leaders, that Wilson’s optimism could tilt overinto Walter Mitty-like self-delusion was another problem.

«Emotionally stunted» is how John Campbell describes Heath: a soli-tary man, withdrawn, defensive, introverted, inhibited, prickly, aloof,awkward in social and personal relations, both insecure and arrogant.This ‘buttoned-up’ personality seems to have affected his approach to thepremiership and his conduct or style of operation in that office, being afactor in his failures of political touch and as a communicator (40).

Wilson, Douglas-Home and Major were arguably the nicest peopleamong this group of prime ministers. But Major found that niceness is notenough. His background seems to have left him with deep personal insecu-rities. A man with strong emotions and vulnerabilities, he was overly-sen-sitive to criticism (media attacks knocked him off-balance) and lacked theinner resources and confidence to provide steely leadership when his gov-ernment ran into difficulties after 1992. If self-confidence is necessary to bea successful prime minister, the example of Tony Blair perhaps shows thedangers of an excess of that quality. Seldon argues that his «exceptional self-belief» was originally a strength but «ultimately his undoing». He depictshim as a tragic hero who over-estimated his powers of persuasion and therole he could play post-9/11, his character flaws and a hubristic convictionthat he was right driving him to scorn caution over his ties with Bush andover Iraq, damaging him, his government and his party in the process (41).

(40) John CAMPBELL, Edward Heath, pp. 7-8, 200-1, 286.(41) Anthony SELDON, Blair, pp.3, 498, 692, 694-95.

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Eden stands out as someone not emotionally well-equipped for the high-est office. The outside world saw the urbane exterior; ‘insiders’ saw that hewas highly-strung, volatile, sensitive to criticism, lacking self-confidence,bad-tempered and petulant, easily upset and annoyed, prone to jealousy anda great fusser. A prima donna who lacked the necessary inner toughness,there were doubts about his character, temperament and ability to do the jobbefore he became prime minister, and before Suez. The strains of that cri-sis, compounded by serious illness and the effects of the drugs used to treathim, made a crack-up inevitable. (David Owen, a former Foreign Secretaryand himself a medic, believes that a fit and well Eden would not have madethe mistakes of judgement and decision-making he did in 1956, but even ifthat view is accepted – and it cannot ultimately be proven either way – hisweaknesses in terms of emotional intelligence are still striking) (42).

Conclusion

Greenstein presents his model as a way of understanding the strengthsand weaknesses of past U.S. presidents and as having the potential to helpto inform the selection of future presidents («what to look for…»). Therewill never be the perfect president, he suggests: one who combines giftsas a public communicator, the ability to organise the White House and theinstitutions of the executive effectively, is a skilled political operator, hasexceptional political vision, together with cognitive strength and emotion-al intelligence. Some imperfections or deficiencies are more problematicthan others, however, and when it comes to rank-ordering the skills,Greenstein places the most emphasis on the possession of emotional intel-ligence. Other attributes or skill-gaps can be compensated for, but not adefective temperament. Some of his critics, however, argue that policyvision – a sense of direction and the values that a president stands for – isat least as important, suggesting that performance in the White House can-not be judged by considering form in isolation from content.

In terms of Greenstein’s categories, the ‘perfect’ British prime min-ister would also possess an unlikely combination of skills and attributes:the communications flair of a Churchill, Wilson or Blair; the organisa-tional abilities of a Heath or Attlee; skills as a political operator to match

(42) Lord OWEN, The effect of Prime Minister Anthony Eden’s illness on his decision-making during the Suez crisis, in «Q J Med», XCIII, 2005, pp. 387-402.


a Macmillan or Callaghan; the policy vision and drive of a Thatcher; thebrain power of a Wilson; the emotional stability of an Attlee. The diffi-culty with prioritising emotional intelligence in the occupants of Number10 is that prime ministers can be successful while being not entirely sta-ble or balanced in terms of that attribute if they have exceptionalstrengths or qualities in other respects (Churchill, Thatcher), thoughmajor problems under that heading – in the absence of compensation inother areas – can obviously be fatal (Eden).

Greenstein’s original formulation of his model was open to the criticismthat he neglected the importance of context: «What do the times demand?What do the times permit?». The inheritance of an incoming leader, the cir-cumstances faced, and the problems on the political agenda all needed tobe factored in. Perhaps some of the qualities or skills Greenstein notedwere more important in some times or situations than others. In some laterpresentations of his model, however, Greenstein did acknowledge theimportance of context, and that the nexus between the personal qualities ofpresidents and the demands of the times was «central to their effectiveness».«The capacity of the president to make a difference – he now said – is afunction not only of his personal attributes, but also the political environ-ment in which they are brought to bear. A president who is well suited toserve in one setting may be ill suited for another» (43).

Musing on the leadership of Clement Attlee in 1950, Hugh Gaitskellthought that «it is one of the interesting features of our history, and perhapsthat of other countries as well, that the qualities needed for success in peace-time are by no means the ones usually associated with greatness» (44). Morerecently, Anthony Sampson, also argued that while the demands of wartimerequired charismatic leaders (like Churchill or Lloyd George), «peacetime,in many ways, requires more subtle leadership and judgement» – going onto suggest that Blair shows few of the qualities that made Attlee a success-ful peacetime leader (such as the ability to delegate, manage a team of min-isters, and master the Whitehall machine to get things done) (45).

(43) Fred GREENSTEIN, The leadership qualities of effective presidents: FDR to GeorgeW. Bush, Kennedy School of Government, Center for Public Leadership: ‘Conversationson Leadership 2000-2001’, roundtable 6 (http://www.ksg.Harvard.edu/leadership/the_leadership_of_effective_presidents.htm) (accessed: 13.12.2005); Fred GREENSTEIN,Presidents, their styles and their leadership, Kennedy School of Government, Center forPublic Leadership, Working Paper (August 2005), p. 228.(44) Philip M. WILLIAMS (ed.), The Diary of Hugh Gaitskell 1945-1956, p. 189.(45) See «The Independent», 4.12.04.

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The wartime/peacetime distinction is a clear contextual factor, butthere is a wide range of other factors, including the economic situation,international constraints, media pressures, electoral and public opiniontrends, the parliamentary arithmetic, the pressure of events, and so on.Understanding the nature, demands, constraints and opportunities of thepolitical environment they face in a wide sense is a quality that primeministers need. Thus, in relation to Heath, for example, it has beenargued that «he had the misfortune to be a visionary when the UnitedKingdom was going through a very difficult period of transition. It mighthave been wiser simply to keep the ship of state afloat rather thanattempt a major overhaul» (46). Equally, given his economic and politicalinheritance and context, Callaghan was a better prime minister than hewas given credit for in the aftermath of Labour’s defeat in 1979. The sit-uation Major was in provided few opportunities or resources for heroicor decisive leadership and offered little scope for much beyond crisismanagement and fire-fighting – in some ways, his skills were exactlywhat was required for the times (47). Greenstein’s model identifies keyleadership abilities, characteristics and skills, but the context in whichthose skills and abilities are displayed cannot be neglected when assess-ing prime-ministerial effectiveness.

(46) Paul ARTHUR, The Heath government and Northern Ireland, in Stuart BALL andAnthony SELDON (eds.), The Heath Government 1970-74, London, Longman, 1996, p. 257. (47) Kevin THEAKSTON, Political skills and context in prime ministerial leadership in

Britain, in Erwin C. HARGROVE and John E. OWENS (eds.), Leadership in Context,Lanham, Rowman & Littlefield, 2003, pp. 89-129.


What Makes for an Effective British Prime Minister?

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