British Conservative Leaders

A comprehensively updated new edition of the essential guideto the qualities and vulnerabilities of political leaders.

As the party that has won wars, reversed recessions and heldprime ministerial power more times than any other, the Conservatives haveplayed an undoubtedly crucial role in the shaping of contemporary Britishsociety. And yet the leaders who have stood at its helm – from Sir Robert Peelto Rishi Sunak, via Benjamin Disraeli, Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher– have steered the party vessel with enormously varying degrees of success,particularly latterly, when the short but destructive tenures of Boris Johnsonand Liz Truss did much to damage the party’s reputation for competence.

With the widening of the franchise, revolutionary changes tosocial values and the growing ubiquity of the media, the requirements,techniques and goals of Conservative leadership since the party’snineteenth-century factional breakaway have been forced to evolve almost beyondrecognition – and not all its leaders have managed to keep up.

This comprehensive and enlightening book considers theattributes and achievements of each leader in the context of their respectivetime and diplomatic landscape, offering a compelling analytical framework bywhich they may be judged, alongside detailed personal biographies from some ofthe country’s foremost political critics, and exclusive interviews with formerleaders themselves.