Conclusion

Abstract

In recent years, serious attempts have been made by scholars to evaluate comparative Prime Ministerial performance and place Britain’s premiers in rank order (Theakston and Gill 2011). Unlike government-inspired attempts to produce ‘league tables’, such exercises are informative since they prompt re-assessments of half-forgotten figures as well as producing new insights into the records of the best-known holders of the office. They are also understandable, since academics who write about political leaders (and governments) almost invariably end up by assessing whether or not their subject should be judged a success or a failure.