The Rest Is History - 193. How Prime Ministers Fall

Episode Date: June 7, 2022

As British PM Boris Johnson survives a no confidence vote, Tom and Dominic record a special episode on the history of bringing down Prime Ministers. Prominent victims include Asquith, Chamberlain, Thatcher and Blair. Join The Rest Is History Club for ad-free listening to the full archive, weekly bonus episodes, live streamed shows and access to an exclusive chatroom community. Producer: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. His deepest need was that people should like him. An admirable trait that, in a spaniel or a whore, not, I think, in a prime minister. And we've done him a favour too, if he did but know it. He was in the trap and screaming from the moment he took office. We've simply put the poor bastard out of his agony. After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well. So let's not involve ourselves in any squeamishness, all right? Because this is just the start.

That, Dominic Sandbrook, was Francis Urquhart, Chief Whip. That was chilling. That was absolutely chilling. As played by Ian Richardson in the BBC 1990 drama House of Cards, which was screened at exactly the moment that Mrs Thatcher was being defenestrated by the Tory party. And the reason that I've used that as an introduction, and the reason that we're doing this special Restless History episode is because the Tory party is engaged, it seems, in another process of regicide. So we are recording this at quarter past nine on Monday, the 6th of June, and 15 minutes ago, the results of a vote of confidence on the Prime Minister Boris Johnson were announced. And he won it, but kind of not brilliantly.

Yeah, 2-1-1. He won 2-1-1, 211 votes, and 148 Tory MPs said they had no confidence in him. So that's 41% of his parliamentary party said they didn't have confidence in him. And for context, that's the worst performance, I think, by a conservative leader in a confidence vote in my lifetime. So it's worse, crucially, than Theresa May, his predecessor in 2019, because she won 200 votes with 117 against. So the percentages were in her favor relative to boris johnson so he is you know with with four out of ten tory mps lacking confidence in him he is shall we say at the very least grievously wounded well dominic i i have a metaphor here drawn from the world of

natural history which i know you're a big fan of big fan so komodo dragons the world's largest kind the world's largest lizard um they have incredibly toxic um teeth and breath and tongues and all they have to do is give uh you know a passing mammal a deer or whatever a little nip and all the bacteria get to work and then the komodo just kind of follows the deer the deer slowly gets more and more sick and it collapses, and then the Komodo dragon eats it. Who's the Komodo dragon? Jeremy Hunt, in this analogy. I suppose the Tory party, I guess. Yes. So I think this result does justify perhaps looking at the history of prime ministerial downfalls. Definitely. Definitely. And you, I've been in the library all day looking at the murder of Caesars and things,

but British prime minister as well very appropriate very appropriate but you have been drawing up your your list of the top 10 prime ministerial yes defenestrations because obviously most prime ministers by and large resign because they've lost an election exactly or they retire or they retire sort of stanley baldwin style um but be right there so there are there are two ways that people normally go either they go like stanley baldwin's they retire at the time of their own choosing that's pretty rare that gladstone as well i suppose you would say or they uh are defeated they lose an election and then that's the end of their premierships that's what you might call the jim callahan model or the John Major or Gordon Brown. But obviously the most enjoyable

ones, as your House of Cards analogy suggests, the most enjoyable ones are the regicides, the internal party coups. And anybody who was alive in 1990, who remembers that amazing symbiosis with the Thatcher downfall on the news and House of Cards playing at exactly that point. I just watched the opening again yeah and it opens with francis urquhart sitting in the whips office looking at a picture of mrs thatcher and then kind of saying all careers must end and laying it flat on the table and this went out exactly the time she was extraordinary timing extraordinary serendipity although although it's not serendipity though that's the thing, because there was a sense at the end of the 1980s that Mrs. Thatcher's race was run.

And I think there's that sense of gathering momentum. There's that sense that in Westminster, the tide has turned against you. You see it reflected in the pages of the newspapers day after day. And everybody knows. It's like the end of the end of you know a season of game of thrones when everybody knows so-and-so's head is gonna fall a quickening in the praetorian camp exactly yes exactly yes okay so that being so um you've drawn up your list top 10 yeah what is your what is your first one so the first one is chronologically right yeah let's do it chronologically um and let's the first one is the first one. So it's Sir Robert Walpole. So Robert Walpole, as most of our listeners will know,

the first prime minister, he becomes prime minister in 1721. So by 1742, he's been prime minister, Tom, for more than 20 years. He's a great character. He's quite Boris Johnsonian. So he's very earthy, and he makes a virtue of his humanity. He sort of says he's no Puritan. He's no reformer or all this sort of thing. He's incredibly corrupt.

He's basically, he has made Britain rich, but he's also kept Britain out of foreign wars, which has upset a lot of people, the so-called Patriot Whigs. And there's a definite sense i think by the beginning of the 1740s that you know he's old the momentum has has moved turned against him he is forced slightly against his will to get britain into war with spain and the war of jenkins's ear right yes which you may remember from our episode on weird wars yeah um so jenkins was a he was a british merchant who had his ear chopped off yeah supposedly by the spanish years before wasn't it absolutely disgraceful spanish

behavior um which was obviously obviously the pretext for this war basically because you know we wanted to be to supplant spain in the caribbean and so on um but that doesn't go terribly well so we lost the battle of Cartagena in 1741. And here's the interesting thing that sets a bit of a sort of template. So in January 1742, there was a move in Parliament to have a commission to investigate the handling of the war. And that was basically seen, that's an attack, a full-scale attack on Walpole, because Walpole is administer of the war. And that was basically seen, that's an attack, a full-scale attack on Walpole,

because Walpole is administering the war. And that was defeated by only three votes. So in a way- A Pyrrhic victory. That's what so often happens in these stories. You get a Pyrrhic victory, and then just a little later, the final blow kind of falls. And that's exactly what happens

and the sort of komodo dragon in this the sort of final blow of the komodo dragon in this case is it's a it's very bizarre it's an argument about a by-election chippenham so that's one of the weird things about about old old political history is that often the sort of the trigger is the most banal and but by elections i mean you know so hanging over boris johnson now are the results of the two violations coming up in the red wall i know and in in the tory heartland so actually by elections are a kind of crucial markers of political health so what had happened is in 1741 there had been a general election which as as so often happened in those days took about 18 months or something there would been a general election which as as so often happened in those days took about 18 months something election and chippenham had two seats had two mps you know obviously manchester or

birmingham has two so chippenham had um two and they'd both been won by the opposition um by sort of patriots or tories and um uh the government that the government two government candidates said they'd been very hard done by and this had been rigged and all this sort of thing and um in the end of january there was a vote in the house of commons to sort of have to throw out the chippenham mps and to have by elections which the government hoped they would win and it became a confidence measure and uh walpole lost it do you know how many how many votes he uh he lost it by some no lost it by one oh by one vote oh he lost two three five two three six that was the result and if he'd won it if he'd won it by one would he have

staggered on no he did he was toast anyway because that that thing that happened james callaghan had a metaphor in 1979 very famously just before he lost to margaret thatcher he said there are times in politics when there's a sea change no matter what you do you know as prime minister the tide is against you and clearly for walpole um the tide was against him so he resigned um about about 10 days later uh he was george ii burst into tears when um i wonder if the queen will do the same when well when maybe sandwiches and walpole was given a pension of four thousand pounds a year which was a colossal astronomical amount of money he went off and bought gorgeous art didn't he which then got bought by catherine the great he died quite

soon afterwards um i can't actually remember He did, but he died quite soon afterwards. I can't actually remember how long afterwards, but it was quite soon afterwards anyway. And do you know who succeeded him, Tom? I know you're very familiar with our second prime minister. Can't remember. I had to look it up. I don't think anybody listening to this will know.

It was the Earl of Wilmington. The Earl of Wilmington, of course. A name to conjure with. Yes. Okay. So Walpole, as in so many things, blazes the path. Yes. That's the template.

So that's number one. Number two? So number two is a prime minister who is often regarded as one of our worst, absolute worst prime ministers. And American listeners, whenever we talk about prime ministers, would always say on Twitter, well, obviously your worst was Lord North. Lord North, yeah. Do you know, I discovered while researching this, that Lord North wasn't actually his official title. It was only a sort of courtesy

title and his real title was the Earl of Guildford. Well, Guildford got off luckily there. It did. So Lord North, like Walpole, had been in a very, very long time. So he'd been in since 1770. So we're into the reign of George III now. It's now 1782. The most famous thing of Lord North, obviously, he completely fails to conciliate the American colonies and basically presides over the American War of Independence, which goes very badly. And this is an interesting one because Lord North is clearly not personally solely responsible for the loss of the American colonies. But he's a good example of the way in which a particular individual um who who appears to have been kind of effortlessly all-conquering can become this sort of totem the sacrificial lamb i'm mixing my metaphors horrendously a bit

i mean it's it's a humiliating collapse i mean it's a humiliating blow to british prestige it's the collapse of his foreign policy so yeah and if he's had an effortless rise you could conceivably compare him to anthony eden who like i mean i know he doesn't resign immediately after yeah the suez crisis but he kind of goes off and has recuperative holiday in caribbean doesn't he but then he resigns and they and david cameron well i was going to say david cameron might not be a bad analogy but i think interest so david fun funnily enough, David Cameron is quite similar in the sense that there's this sort of effortlessness and this sort of chillaxing, which at first people thought of as a refreshing change after Gordon Brown throwing remote controls at people or whatever and biting his nails. But then becomes a stick with which to beat him.

Well, Lord North, he's also accused of being sort of indolent and sort of- Well, Cameron and Lord North have quite similar faces. I mean, kind of- Oh, this is the thing with Lord North. Rubicond and round. This is the thing with Lord North. Lord North looks like a very fat child in a wig. He's really not flattered by his portrait.

And the weird thing is that actually i believe the consensus among those historians who still do 18th century political history is that lord north was actually quite a good prime minister right and he the the oxford dictionary of national biography says no prime minister in our history has ever had such command of parliament it was a sort of financial wizard and very popular and all this sort of thing i mean cameron also had a kind of aura of i mean he commanded the house and he did yeah he did as regarded as a he looked like a man who could never lose and then he did and then he spectacularly did yeah yes okay so so what happens with lord north is um the british have surrendered at yorktown in october 1781 the war is quite clearly lost, not least because of French intervention, which makes it really

impossible to keep sending troops to North America. But the war has always been opposed. I mean, that's one thing that we often forget about the American Civil War is there are lots of people in Britain who actually, there are quite a lot of people who actually support the Americans because they don't regard them as foreigners. They're regarded as a kind of almost a British civil war. At the end of February 1782, there's a motion to end further prosecution of the war in North America. And this is basically equivalent of your Walpole Chippenham vote. And Lord North loses that vote by 234 to 215 in the House of Commons. And that basically is the end of him. So he, again, in that sort of rather strange way

that happens with sort of early British political history, there's then a sort of, the resignation which you would expect to come the next day actually comes a month later. So there's lots of sort of faffing around. So he takes longer than Cameron. There's a lot of, yeah, there's lots of hanging around

and presumably sort of gambling, port drinking. So that's more Anthony Eden. Betting on hot air balloons, whatever. Yes, all that kind that kind of stuff yeah doesn't lord north make a slight comeback he does yes he does make a bit of a comeback actually so he's still involved in senior politics years afterwards he succeeded so the the baton passes to the so to the people who had supported the americans basically who had been against the war so first of all rockingham and then to lord shelburne but north hangs around for a bit afterwards he's not completely discredited so in that sense he's so alec douglas hume tom oh yeah very good yes that's your lord north analogy okay

so that so that's lord north um and then your third choice is actually the one that i thought of immediately because of course you know you could stop being prime minister not just because you've lost a vote of confidence or whatever yeah but because you're dead yes yes your third one is the only british prime minister have to have been assassinated spencer percival spencer percival again a man who's slightly hard done by by his portrait i think because if you look at spencer percival he looks incredibly boring and i think actually he was incredibly boring. So he would get sort of points today because he was a great abolitionist. He was opposed to slavery. But it doesn't stop him. He gets murdered by an irate scouser, doesn't he?

He does. So he'd been prime minister for two and a half years. He was a Pittite. So he's a disciple of William Pitt, very much a friend of the rest of his history. Well, so Pitt also, I mean, he dies in office. He does indeed. So that's another. Through gout, ulcers, and being a three-bottle man.

Yes, he's drinking. Oh, is it claret he gets prescribed? I think it was port, wasn't it? He was drinking three bottles of port a day in order to deal with his ulcers and his gout. And his alcoholism. Prescribed by his doctor. Yes, exactly. Great days. So Sir Percival, who's a very boring man.

Well, actually, Pitt was quite chilly, apart from the drinking. But Spencer Percival seems quite a boring man, although he does have 12 children, aged between 3 and 20 at the time of his death, which is quite a family holiday. Anyway, he's been Prime Minister. He's not terribly interesting. Obviously,'re in the napoleonic wars um there's a lot of partly because of the or largely because of the wars the economy is in a bad way there's lots of unemployment there's lots of industrial unrest in the north lud luddism the luddites are in full cry so they're they're indignant weavers smashing smashing looms smashing up looms exactly so so spencer percival is on his way to a parliamentary committee to investigate the luddites and he on

the 11th of may 1812 and he goes into the house of commons lobby and a man called john bellingham is there now john bellingham as you described him an indignant scouter john bellingham is a failed merchant who's been imprisoned for bankruptcy in russia for five years or something wasn't it i mean a long time for a long time but he believes that the british government should compensate him yeah for his uh because he blames britain's sort of uh he thinks it's our fault for all our sort of orders and counsel and stuff that have been restricting trade and that he's a victim of our napoleonic war policy and he he went along to the foreign office a few days before and said he was in a great state about this. And Spencer Percival personally should be compensating him.

And the bloke at the Foreign Office said, you must do whatever you think best. So Belliam went out and got a gun. And anyway, he shoots Spencer Percival. Do you know what Spencer Percival's last words were, Tom? I've been murdered. Yes. He said, oh, I do. Yeah. But isn't, I mean, it's very shakespearean i'm slain kind of but isn't bellingham's motive as i

remember is that he shoots percival because he wants an opportunity to make his case well that's partly so so he will be accused and then he can stand up in the dock and say you all owe me money which which is a you know it's an original it's definitely a high risk policy but original well this is the thing because bellingham doesn't there's so much consternation when spencer percival has been shot and is shouting i've been murdered and people are sort of milling around and stuff and onlookers said bellingham could have just walked out of the lobby yeah he just sits there but he doesn't he sits down on a bench and he's got another he's got another loaded pistol with him and clearly is is very keen to be

and and when he then goes on trial a few days later he sort of as you say tom he's he he makes a great point of saying well you know i'm the real person because my russian business is i mean actually dominic cummings had a business in Russia. I'll tell you how I know about this is that Lord Byron hears about it because he's obviously in the House of Lords. So he hears about it and he goes off

and he goes to a dinner party where Wordsworth is. And it's the first time that Byron and Wordsworth have met. And Byron bursts in and says the Prime Minister's been shot. So it's the first time that Wordsworth and Byron meet.

And they kind of, they bond over. That's a good fact tom over them and then they have a massive bust up afterwards but uh that that's a great there's a great book in that isn't it yeah pence and percival john bellingham byron wordsworth wordsworth it's all there it's all happening okay so that's so so death is obviously a very dramatic way. That's an outlier though, isn't it? That is an outlier. Okay. So much more common is some spectacular parliamentary bust up, which is precisely what we get with your fourth choice,

who is actually a friend of Lord Byron. So continuing the Byronic theme, Robert Peel, who was at Harrow with Byron. Of course he was. So Robert Peel, he's twice prime minister, 1830s and 1840s, son of a manufacturer. So he's twice prime minister 1830s and 1840s son of a manufacturer so he's the first kind of industrial representative of industrial england of the industrial revolution to be prime minister um born in berry and then tamworth goes up in tamworth we discussed before didn't we whether

he would have had there's some discussion about robert peel's accent whether he had a sort of staffordshire accent which i like to think he did. But he's the sort of founding father in some ways of liberal conservatism with his Tamworth Manifesto of 1834, which said, we just shouldn't be mindless ultra reactionaries. We should try to accommodate sometimes to the modern world. Just be kind. Yeah. Well, I don't know whether he's quite be kind. He's all about EDI, is Robert Peel. Anyway, so Robert Peel, his big thing is that, I mean, he really is the sort of Jeremy Hunt of his day because he's much more emollient than some Tories.

And his big sort of – I mean, he has – Does he have a fully sprung ballroom, which is what Jeremy Hunt has? A fully sprung ballroom? Which is what Jeremy Hunt has. A fully sprung ballroom? Yeah. At his house. Jeremy Hunt is rich. He has his own ballroom. Fully sprung.

He's a very, very keen ballroom dancer. I can well believe he's a ballroom dancer. Yes, very good on Strictly. Very smooth. Well, maybe if this business doesn't work out for him, then Strictly awaits. Actually, Boris Johnson is such a St a strictly wannabe, isn't he? Yeah. I mean, he'd never get past here being around now, would he?

Well, he might be a sort of John Sargent and Widdicombe type. Yeah, maybe. I know, I don't think so. Maybe enough time would. Anyway, listen, we're... Anyway, let's stick to Robert Peel. Sorry. So Robert Peel, yes.

He's had two sort of semi-conversions. One is on Catholic emancipation, which he's become a believer in. And the other is the classic one is he was, the Tory party was the party of protectionism, of trade barriers to stop cheap food coming in to- Destroying England's green and pleasant land. To protect landowners' interests. And Peel, partly because of the Great Famine in Ireland, but also because obviously there's a huge demand

for cheap food from the growing cities, he decides that Britain has to change, that it has to ditch the Corn Laws and embrace free trade. And what he basically does, I mean, in some ways, the parallel, I suppose, that people sometimes give is Theresa May. So we'll come to Theresa May later, but she's caught between two wings of the party and sort of ground between these two great millstones. And that basically is what happens with Peel, except the difference is that Theresa May slightly refused to choose, whereas Peel basically does choose and abandons the sort of right of his party. Also, I mean, Peel is an incredibly charismatic and eloquent man.

Is he that charismatic, though? Yes, I mean, Peel is an incredibly charismatic and eloquent man. Is he that charismatic though? Yes, I think he is. I think he is. I think people really admire him. They do admire him, but I think they respect him more than they love him. If you know, do you not think? I don't know.

I don't know. I think, I don't know. You'd know better than me, but I always have the impression, Byron certainly thought he was a wonderful man. I think he wasn't easily impressed. I thinkron is misleading you tom maybe could be i mean he misled a lot of people byron's vampiric ways of um yes maybe maybe that's it anyway yeah so so basically by february where february 1846 peel has has said let's let's ditch the corn laws let's

have free trade 231 of his own mps turn against robert peel i mean that really is a rebellion and to get um the repeal of the corners through he has to rely basically on wig and radical votes so he's basically no longer dependent on any meaningful way upon his own party um but his cap his political capital is hemorrhaging all the time. And the most famous moment, which you alluded to, was the 15th of May, when there's this absolutely, which I reread today, this absolutely blazing attack on him by Benjamin, the young Benjamin Disraeli, who at that point is very reactionary. This is one of those things that, you know, you sort of read,

oh, there's some blazing parliamentary performance, and then you actually read it. And it's just a bit limp. It's just dollar-stitch water. So he accused Peel of huckstering tyranny. He said he was a burglar of other people's intellect. He said, if you scour the records from the days of the conquest, there is no statesman who has committed political petty larceny on such a scale.

That's great, isn't it? I love Disraeli. So this kind of made Disraeli's name as this sort of great flamboyant orator. It basically just, everyone laughs and everyone has a whale of a time and peel is sunk basically so peel survives for just over another month and then he's defeated again over one of these bills that's sort of subsequently forgotten so it's an irish coercion bill which is about sort of law and order in ireland he's defeated on that and that is the end of him so he's another example of this is another kind of komodo dragon it is exactly because he's limping on peel is limping on for the best part of six months

but he is finished it's clear that he cannot continue he falls off his horse very soon afterwards disraeli of course eventually becomes prime minister and steals all peel's ideas so yes and so i mean in a way obliely, he's destroyed by tensions within the United Kingdom, between the constituent parts. Ireland, yeah. So, yes, so people being kind of brought down by arguments over what the relationship of Ireland to Great Britain should be. This is then a thing that runs through the rest of the 19th century. But with Peel, I think you can argue that Peel's slightly brought down by his own integrity, by his own principle. I don't think that's something that people will say about our current um whatever they think of him they won't say that boris johnson was a man

toppled by his own but i mean gladstone is gladstone is basically destroyed by ireland as well isn't he he's not destroyed he's he's he resigns over it not ultimately so he does you're right that one of his premierships. I mean, Gladstone has, I think, four premierships. There's a third one. I think it's his third one. But he does then have a comeback in the 1890s when he's aged 380. So maybe Boris can look forward to that.

Yeah, exactly. Boris and Gladstone are the two most unlike prime ministers. Well, so, yes, okay. So our fifth on the topic of people who are actually quite like boris yeah um so your fifth is is asquith yeah prime minister in the first half of the first world war yes down by a very boris-esque character a very boris-esque character so asquith um who's very much a well he's a he's a friend of certainly this half of the rest is history askwith is a man who famously personifies the effortless superiority of the balial man tom um which i know you'll you'll enjoy that reference uh askwith has been prime minister

since 1908 uh he is presided over all kinds of reforms isn't he he's well he's very well turned out at the beginning but he's distinctly shabby, I would say, at the end. Is he? He has, unfortunately, he has... Well, his clothes are still... But he's sort of... He's obviously drinking a lot, Asquith. And having unsuitable relationships. Yes.

And writing letters to girls and having picnics with people too young to be picnicking with. And reading novels during battles. Yes. And there were claims also that Asquith was a little bit handsy um but i don't know whether that's true or not i mean certainly by comparison with lloyd george asquith is an absolute okay so lloyd george is basically asquith's deputy yes he's his chancellor he's his right-hand man he's the radical firebrand the welsh wizard the the people the author of the people's budgets in the edwardian period um the sort of scourge of the tories and the dukes and the upper classes and they've been running the government but in but they've obviously taken britain into

the first world war in 1914 in may 1915 they have had to form a coalition with the tories because they've been attacked for not having enough shells and for making a mess of Gallipoli and stuff like that. So Asquith, in 1915, 1916, his authority really, I would say, is leaking away almost daily by inviting the Tories in. Do you say like air from a zeppelin? I would say like air from a zeppelin, Tom. That's a very nice parallel. So he's had to accept things that his heart isn't in. For example, conscription at the beginning of 1916.

It's not liberal, exactly. The Liberal Party and the Liberal creed is kind of crumbling under the pressure of the First World War. So in that sense it's a little bit like Peel. He's sort of trapped in this situation where the tectonic plates are shifting and he's going to end up the victim of situation where the tectonic plates are shifting and and he's

going to end up the victim of it but actually what happens he really is completely and utterly stabbed in the back because lloyd george conspires with the tories and with the press lords as they were called so that's lord northcliffe lord rothermere and lord beaverbrook as he became i think um they they have a sort of they have a little plot that basically they'll keep Asquith on as an impotent figurehead, and that Lloyd George will really run the government through a war council. And they basically present this to Asquith. Asquith doesn't like it, not surprisingly. Lloyd George walks out, says, I won't serve under you then. know i'm out knowing really that the tories will back him lloyd george um askwith can't lead the government without lord george and without the tories or the unionists as they were called so that's the end of askwith has to resign and um lloyd george then

becomes prime minister with tory support and that destroys the liberal party from that point on so lloyd george who is an absolutely i've said it before i'll say it again he is an absolutely terrible man i know the welsh listeners to the rest is history of whom there are there are millions um don't like this this claim but lloyd george he sold out all his principles he was a dreadful i mean he makes bor like, look, positively uxorious. Yeah, so absolutely accepting that. But he was a more effective war leader, wasn't he? Well, actually, the jury's a tiny bit out on that. So it's always been said that he's the man who won the war, that he, through ruthless determination and his peerless chairing of committees.

And his mighty moustache. Yeah, he leads Britain to victory. That's what hemingway thought wasn't it but there are big fan yeah but people who like great men and people who fancy who sort of get off on the idea of titanic men of ruthless vigor yeah sort of churchill napoleon kind of people basically andrew roberts people like that they love lloyd george and they look at asquith and they say what a simpering old fool you you know, reading novels and talking to girls. Sitting in gardens and things like that. Yeah.

But actually Asquith was a perfectly good prime minister. So the theme there is rivalries within the same party. Yeah, being knifed by your- Which I guess is kind of happening in the 18th century, but I'm not aware of it to the same extent. And is it there with Disraeli or is Disraeli seizing his chance to make a name for himself what is really is the is the classic greasy pole but lloyd george and um uh asquith is the the classic prime minister and chancellor of the exchequer relationship which throughout the 20th century has you know been an absolute breeding ground for rivalry i would say yes there's that

and i would also say beware the mountebank because disraeli lloyd george and boris johnson are all prime specimens of the sort of the flamboyant parliamentary mountebank who the public love they think their mountebanks are tremendous characters yeah yeah but of course boris basically did to theresa may what um lord george had done to her i mean he wasn't her chancellor but he he flounced out didn't he and but it is i mean it is a theme and we'll we'll i'm sure it is well i know for facts i can see your list it's going to come up again but the relationship between 10 downing street where the prime minister lives and 11 downing street where the chancellor lives it's incendiary it breeds a rivalry so what would

destroy boris johnson right now is if rishi sunak came out and said enough is enough you know the prime minister had been sent a very clear message well maybe he's already said we don't know what's happening while we were no it's like trapped in a bubble i mean it's like the big brother house yeah it is it's just actually love island is starting tonight dominic so it's like we're trapped on the love island the tragedy of this i not just for the country, but for the world, is that we've had to postpone our planned podcast about history's greatest Love Island couples because we've been too busy thinking about the foodling business of prime ministers. I know.

I know. Anyway, so I think we should go and take a break now. I might pop down and see what's happening on Love Island. Katie will give me an update, my daughter. Okay. You can find out what's happening in downing street and when we come back uh it will be to look at another prime minister who was toppled during a world war so i'm sure you can guess who it is but uh we will confirm it when we get back see you in a minute i'm marina hyde and i'm richard osmond And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment.

It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip. And on our Q&A, we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com. Hello, welcome back. We are recording this on a historic evening, Monday, the 6th of June. And Dominic, during the break, I popped down and discovered that Michael Owen's daughter apparently has just shacked up with someone.

So that's very exciting. This is on Love Island. That's exciting. On Love Island. And Boris Johnson has announced that his disastrous result was extremely positive, decisive and conclusive. So it's all happening. It's all kicking off.

So you've given us five of your top 10. We've had Walpole. We've had Lord North. We've had Spencer Percival. We've had Peel. And we've had Asquith. So we've got five to go number six neville chamberlain so number six is neville chamberlain so if you just think about those five walpole and lord north are kind of the same story they've they've had their time uh the tide has turned against them um the game is up and then once the first blows start to fall it's obvious obvious they're out. Spencer Percival obviously shot.

Robert Peel, to some extent, sacrificed his career for what he thought was right. And then number five, Asquith stabbed in the back by Shyster. Chamberlain, I would say, is Lord North-esque. He is Lord North-esque. Because his entire foreign policy has been torpedoed. Yes, it is. Basically, if your foreign policy gets torpedoed and you have humiliated your country, or as Prime Minister, you've left your country humiliated,

then I think you have to go, don't you? Well, here's the thing. So he's Lord North-esque in another sense, because he's Lord North-esque in that the image that everybody has of him now is this sort of weed, this weedy wind. And his wind collar. It's completely at variance with the reality of the time so chamberlain's taken britain into the second world war obviously the policy of appeasement has

completely failed which is your analogy which is the the american war of independence you can imagine how yes what a bitter blow this is to me this is to me yeah oh exactly so he's taken britain into war with the least ringing, least warlike speech. Vladimir Zelensky, he is not. But in April 1940, so approval ratings, kind of Gallup ratings are in their infancy. His ratings are actually very, very good. They're north of 60%. Was this rallying to the flag, isn't there?

There was a rallying to the flag. There was a sense that Mr. Chamberlain, with his mastery of the accounts... Which he had done his best, I think. Yeah, that he had done. Well, I think that was very important. Actually, I think Chamberlain is much maligned. And I think the fact that he had clearly done his best and tried to avoid war meant that Britain went into the Second World War. I know people have huge arguments about aircraft production.

But what it definitely meant is that Britain went into the Second World War united with a consensus that we had done everything possible to avoid war. And now we were determined to wage it and win it, which I don't think would have been the case, actually, if we'd entered war earlier. Because there had always been people who said we should have given the Germans more chances. Anyway, what destroys him, his equivalent of Yorktown, is the invasion of Norway, the catastrophic debacle of all these people arriving in Norway with the wrong kits and getting lost in the snow and falling into the sea and fighting among themselves or whatever, while the Germans are kind of carrying all before them. Then we have this sort of shambolic withdrawal from Norway at the end of April 1940. And then on the 7th and 8th of May, there is this.

So this is the great debate. This is the sort of the only parallel for this, I think, is the fall of Margaret Thatcher and the Geoffrey Howe speech or the Israeli attack on Robert Peel. So it's the 7th and 8th of May. It's this famous Norway debate that you sort of see immortalized in the films and so on. Sir Roger Keyes, the MP for Portsmouth, turns up in his full admiral's uniform and absolutely denounces the government's handling of Norway. Leo Amory gives the famous speech, later... The name of God Go, is that the one? Yes. Depart, I say, and let us

have done with you. Later used by the Sun, I think, to describe Bobby Robson, Tom. Anyway, so there's a vote of... In the name of Alago, wasn't it? In the name of Alago after we drew with Saudi Arabia. I think it was. So I'm glad we've got that in.

Very important. He had about a 200 majority, Chamberlain, but he won that confidence vote by only 81. And at that point, it was obvious to him and to everybody that with so many people, sort of 120 Tories either abstaining or voting against, that the game was up. Chamberlain is a very honourable man. And he basically says to his sort of advisors, I will resign unless Labour agree to have a coalition government with me

as prime minister. Clement Attlee, the Labour leader, consults with the other sort of Labour bigwigs, and they say, no, they won't serve under Chamberlain, but they will serve under somebody else. And Chamberlain, he behaves admirably, actually. As a patriot. Exactly. Very patriotically. He basically organises the kind of consultation about who will succeed him. On the 10th of May, when he quits, he gives this, actually, when you read it, very moving resignation address where he says the whole country must unite around Churchill,

his successor. And then Churchill asks him to stay on as Lord President of the Council, which he does. When Chamberlain goes back into the House of Commons, there's a tremendous ovation. I mean, everybody kind of cheers him. Which is a problem for Churchill, isn't it? Yes.

Yeah, it's still chamberlain's party chamberlain recognizes this and in the crucial debate between him halifax and churchill he sides with chamberlain sides with churchill with churchill so chamberlain actually comes out of this story i would say extremely well as churchill recognizes and then when Chamberlain dies, he gives that kind of amazing thrannity on him. And Churchill offered him the Order of the Garter as he was dying. So he's dying of bowel cancer in August 1914. He dies in November.

Churchill says, would you like the Order of the Garter? And Chamberlain says, again, I think quite movingly, he says, no, I would prefer to die plain Mr Chamberlain like my father before me. So he does. I once went to a dinner party where we all had to read something that we found moving. This was part of the, this is what we do in London, Dominic. Yeah, of course. And I read Churchill's speech on mourning, you know, commemorating Chamberlain.

And the woman next door to me was so infuriated by that she physically assaulted me and threw me off my chair. Are you serious? Yeah. I thought you were going to, when you start the antidote, when you said the woman next to me, I thought, oh, she was, she started crying. But no.

Well, we're right. She was so furious. Why? I'm not quite sure. I don't know. I don't know what it was. Because even if she was anti-appeasement, the fact that Churchill was saying it would surely well that's extraordinary maybe she was a committed

fan of lord halifax yes maybe i don't know anyway uh so i've always had a soft spot for chamberlain yeah quite rightly um i think he's great you've been you know there's lots of unlikable things about chamberlain but robert harris really humanizes him in his book munich which was made yeah i thought the film was very good with Jeremy Irons. I haven't seen the film, but I imagine Jeremy Irons would be very good as Chamberlain. Yeah, he was. Because what people get wrong about Chamberlain is Chamberlain was an incredibly sort of, he was a man of iron will and incredibly arrogant, sort of man of tremendous self-belief and

not at all this sort of pooterish weed that we now think of him. He was a man of the Midlands, wasn't he, Dominic? He was a man of the Midlands. He was like one of Tolkien'skien's hobbits right tom um so we've had a couple there's another couple of prime ministers who fall by the wayside in the next few years so obviously uh eden ill health well but interesting churchill who doesn't yeah so churchill people always go people who've seen the crown which you haven't dominic but the opening episode i have seen the first episode okay it. It's kind of endless.

The political plot in that is people endlessly trying to get rid of Churchill, isn't it? What are we going to do about Mr. Churchill? So they're kind of going off and Anthony Eaton's sleeping off in a shooting party with George VI. Yeah. Well, basically what people are doing to Churchill is constantly saying, Winston, do you not think it's time? You know, the Mediterranean's right.

Yeah, Churchill then has another stroke and just refuses to go. Very Boris. So actually what that is a reminder of is that a prime minister is very hard to get rid of. If they don't want to go, they can be very hard to get rid of. So Churchill just refuses to go. Particularly if he'd just won the Second World War. Well, yeah, okay. I mean, that's a...

So Eden goes because he's gone off to golden eye in Fleming's house in Jamaica, but he's ill, isn't he? After the Suez crisis, his health has collapsed. It's an interesting question about whether people would have tried to force him out. Had he not resigned.

And it's still sort of, I think when he returned after Suez, Eden knew that the tide had turned against him. He had to go. I think that's, I think that is the lesson from Walpole through Lord North, through Chamberlain, that if your whole foreign policy has gone tits up, you've got to go.

We're going to come to an example later on, the Theresa May example, of somebody who stays on basically for a long time. You can be a zombie. But like a goat who's been bitten by a komodo dragon okay anyway and mcmillan is the weirdest one isn't it because he gets told he's got terminal cancer and then he discovers oh no i haven't i've resigned damn well i think mcmillan kind of talks himself into thinking this he's a terrible hypochondriac mcmillan so mcmillan yes he has he wakes up in the night with a terrible pain in his bladder

he can't go to the toilet. He gets a specialist in to see him. I haven't really ginned up on Macmillan for this, so I'm doing this from memory. And then he sort of says, oh, my God, I'm going to die. I resign. And then, yeah, exactly. Do you think he resigned? Do you think he resigned partly because he knew he was going to lose the next election?

Well, this is the thing. You see, the tide has clearly turned against Macmillan. Yeah. It was post-Perfumo. Peter Cook doing the merciless impressions of him and things. He's been prime minister since 1957. 63, the momentum, the cultural temperature has changed. He's an interesting example of someone who resigns because of hypochondria.

Yes, I guess so. But also, would he have resigned from hypochondria, Tom, two years earlier when he was in his pomp? I would say probably not. No, I would think probably not. I think there's a bit of him that thinks, oh, the game is a sod at the games of anyway. But this leads very, very neatly into your next choice.

If it's someone who may actually have been incredibly ill, but doesn't resign. Yeah, Harold Wilson. Harold Wilson is your, what's that, eighth? Well, he's my seventh choice. But actually, I didn't choose him for 1976. harold wilson is your what's that eight well he's no seventh he's my seventh choice but actually i didn't choose him for 1976 i choose him for the late 60s because he's the one example actually of a prime minister who appears to be sunk but i mean people always would talk about uh harold wilson as a kind of india rubber man but he doesn't resign and he doesn't resign and you can't have

him for that and the constant plots against him which are which i mean from 1966 to 1970 the newspapers are dominated by stories about people plotting and wilson doesn't resign so the reason he's my number seven tom is because he's the one who bucks the trend no that's that that's that's not acceptable but i've i've chosen him no he's you can only have people who resign you can't have people who don't no because i think but then of course he does resign in 1976 exactly so that's what i thought you were doing it because i've surprised he gets alzheimer's doesn't he i've surprised you well why does he resign in 1976 it's not because he had and he's being bugged by the by mi5 and it's not because he always said he would do just a couple of years

he'd always said this in fact he didn't expect to win in 1974. But you know how he breaks the news to the Queen, Tom? No. They're washing up in a cottage. Oh, yes. On her estate. In Balmoral. Yeah, I think it's Balmoral.

I can't remember. Yes. Or Sandringham, is it? No, Balmoral. They're washing up after tea or something or lunch. Because the Queen loved him, didn't she? The Queen got queen very well with wilson yeah and ever since people sort of said now why did harold resign why did because they've had all these plots to topple him in the late 60s he'd been incredibly unpopular in 1968 after the devaluation of the pound but here's the

thing and this is i think the interesting thing why doesn't Wilson fall? Why doesn't somebody move against him? In his case, it's because he stacked his cabinet with what he called crown princes. So Roy Jenkins, James Callahan, Dennis Healy, Tony Benn, Anthony Crosland, all these kind of big figures. Because he knew they all hated each other so much that they would rather keep him on than give their rivals a chance to strike for the crown. I accept that. Would rather keep him on than give their rivals a chance to strike for the crown. And, you know, this is... I accept that. The problem for a prime minister is if they have a plausible rival, as Asghar did with Lloyd George, and successor. However...

Wilson is a good way of escaping that trap. Yes, that's fine. But I still think that that is an illegitimate choice. You're outraged. You're outraged at this choice of Harold Wilson, aren't you? You should choose him for his resignation. i think the podcast should always surprise people yeah all right i think you know when we're not surprising our audience tom when i'm not surprising you well you have surprised me then then the spark will die i think that i well

the spark will die if you continue to if you persist in illegitimate lists that break the rules. There must be rules, Dominic. So anyway, he resigned in 1976. And is that because he has Alzheimer's? No. I think he resigned because he'd always said he would do two years or so to his AIDS. People didn't believe him because they didn't believe a word Harold Wilson said. So he, in fact, had told some of his own cabinet.

He'd said, I'll probably go in about a year, I'll go in about six months or whatever. But people always said, oh, you can't believe a word Harold says. So when he did do it, they thought there must be something sinister behind it. And then he has a scandalous resignation honours list. The lavender list, either written or not written,

depending on whom you believe, by his political secretary, Marcia Williams, Lady Falklander. Lady Falklander, yeah. So that's quite, you see, I thought that's why you'd had it, because that's an entertaining resignation. Oh, it's a very entertaining resignation. By scandal and – And Wilson's a great example of somebody who resigns

and then basically vanishes. Might as well never have existed. He goes off to the Silly Isles, doesn't he? Yeah, and people – Wears tight shorts. No, he was wearing the tight shorts before that. Was he? Yeah, he was.

Very strong look. Anyone wants to Google Harold Wilson, tight shorts. The shorts he uh yeah he was very strong look anyone wants to google harold wilson tight shorts the shorts the sort of boy scout look well wilson was a great fan of the scout he was obsessed by boys boy scouting but not he wasn't obsessed by boy scouts that's the wrong that's that's the wrong he was obsessed by yes but yeah so he dressed as a boy scout when he was on holiday right we've really spiraled off okay let's go to number eight uh because harold wilson's obviously everyone knows what the next one will be it's mrs thatcher yeah we've alluded to her in my brilliant introduction um i think that we should i mean people basically know the story of thatcher do that well i think we should tell it very very briefly tom because

some of our listeners that would you believe are quite young the reason why i don't want to go into this too is because i want to do a whole episode on it not just i think we should do a week of episode right lots of opportunity so mrs thatcher is your in a way you can political time has become condensed so walpole's 20 years for mrs thatcher it's 11 years well or 10 years because by 1989 i think people are tired of her. They're tired of her abrasive style. There's a first leadership challenge, which everybody forgets, in December 1989 by Sir Anthony Mayer. And she won that by 314 to 33. And even then, Tom, I mean, this puts Boris's result into context.

Even then, people said, oh, that's a very bad blow for the PM. 33 people voted against her so then jeffrey howe resigned her former chancellor i mean there's your point about chancellors and prime ministers in that relationship um he resigned he gave the resignation speech in the 13th of november 1990 you're an opening batsman and you find that your captain has broken your bat while you're in the pavilion. Yeah. Something like that.

Something that's worth that effect, anyway. Yeah. That was a very nice Geoffrey Howe, though. I enjoyed that a lot. Thank you. So Michael Heseltine challenged her. Again, she actually won that first ballot, 204 to 152. So she's in Paris, isn't she?

At Fontainebleau, yeah. And it's a kind of g7 no it's bigger than that it's a it's the summit to end the cold oh of course it is yes of course it is yes they're all there yes they're all there and she comes out and john sergeant who we've already mentioned as a strictly come dancing contender he's standing there wondering and she just kind of bustles up behind him doesn't we fight on we fight to win that's it i fight on i fight to win but of course she doesn't because she on we fight to win that's it i fight on i fight to win but of course she doesn't because she then goes back and the very next to london the very

next evening all her cabinet kind of troop in to see her so all these sort of people ken clark william waldegrave uh john gummer chris patterne and john major her chancellor who has um a serendipitous bad, terrible teeth. Sorry, Tom, people can't see this, but I was pointing aggressively at my teeth. Yes, you were. You were. So John Major has a kind of diplomatic… He's got a wisdom tooth being straightened.

But that's not something you would fake, is it? I mean, you think it's like Prince Andrew's COVID, Tom? Possibly. That was the comparison that leapt in my mind as well. So basically, thatcher goes yeah even though she'd won that first ballot she's hold beneath the waterline so so we'll do her later but on this theme of of bad blood between prime ministers and um chancellors the next big beast to be brought down is of course sir tony blair yeah your friend tony so poor so tony

he and he's probably sunk from 2005 i think so he's at the iraq war yeah but also i mean his majority which had previously been 167 was slashed to 66 it's not bad though is it i mean so i know my labor party standards three elections it's absolutely It's absolutely massive. Don't you think that the Thatcher thing, so you said that people are bored with her after 10 years, and obviously lots of people are fed up with her after about a week, but her own supporters are kind of fed up with her after 10 years. Well, the poll tax had alienated so many people. But I think there's a kind of unwritten rule that's come in

that 10 years is enough. I think people often say that. So obviously in America, there's an eight-year limit on the presidency. Or John Howard in Australia. Effectively, in British politics, there's a kind of 10-year limit. I think so. And Blair had reached that limit. I think political capital is a diminishing resource. And I think you spend it from the first day in office. It's very hard to replenish. Your majorities, by and large, gradually go down. But what I would also say about Blair is that he effortlessly remained prime minister for 10 years or whatever, however long it was.

And then since then, for prime ministers, governing Britain, being prime minister of Britain has been like kind of riding a bucking bronco. I think that's true. But of course, he benefits from the fact the economy is incredibly rosy during his time in office. So the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune are very much sort of muffled, if a sling can be muffled, during Tony Blair's time in office. But it's still notable, Tom, that people turned... His people were happy. That people turned... God almighty.

His people were happy. What does Tony Blair got on you? That's what we want to know. I just think... You should team up with Alistair Campbell on our sister podcast. I just think that if you compare his premiership with what's followed, it's like the Antonine Age followed by the Age of Rust. The Age of Rust? the Age of Rust.

The Age of Rust? The Age of Rust. Well, anyway, listen, we should do How He Fell before you. I mean, you're just getting tearful now. Yes. I'll have to stage an intervention like that woman at the dinner party about the Neville Chamberlain speech. So what brings him down, funnily enough, is, and this is, again, much forgotten. In the summer of 2006, Israel went to war against Hezbollah. So what brings him down, funnily enough, is, and this is, again, much forgotten.

In the summer of 2006, Israel went to war against Hezbollah and attacked Lebanon. And there was huge outrage within the Labour Party about this. Blair refused to condemn Israel. He said, you know. Be the wrong thing to do. Exactly. He said it was, you know, it was a complicated issue, blah, blah, blah, blah. And on the 5th of September, 17 Labour Party MPs, including junior defence minister and future Corbyn deputy Tom Watson and seven parliamentary private secretaries,

they signed this letter saying he's got to go. You know, he needs to, because Blair has already basically signed his own political death warrant by saying he won't fight another election. And this letter, I mean, it's only 17 MPs. And actually you're answering on eight points. I mean, 17 MPs by today's standards, I mean, you know, that's nothing.

But at the time it seems like this sort of great- It's like the murder of Commodus. Is it the murder of Commodus? Pretty much. Yeah. Okay. I'm just spinning this. Yeah.

What's that? What's the murder? So the murder of Commodus seems an outrageous event at the time, but later on just seemed perfectly normal. Yeah, absolutely. Now everyone's getting murdered in the crisis of the third century. Yes. All right.

But what about the Granita thing? The whole thing? Because essentially Blair and Brown are the big allies. You promised me, Tony. Yeah. That's a brilliant impersonation of Gordon Brown. Is that not a factor? I think probably.

Brown's kind of seething resentment. Yeah, of course. And feeling that he's owed Downing Street and that Blair's not sticking by his word. Blairites would say he could have lanced that boil by just sacking Gordon Brown sometime in his second term, probably, or moving him or in some way just getting rid of him and that Gordon Brown wouldn't have had the strength to launch it. But that is the kind of the classic example of a prime minister and chancellor locked in a kind of death grip. But Tony Blair, probably, it's hard to imagine a scenario in which any prime minister would get more than 10 years 10 years is a pretty good run I think he is brought down by his own MPs but I mean he was going to go within a couple of years anyway it's hard to believe that Tony

Blair would have fought the 2010 election and won it do you not think I think he did I think he did I don't think he would I think I think I think he was i mean i think his effect on the electorate was like the sirens on odysseus no i think you think that until they lose i mean somebody said on when we advertised that we were doing this this evening just before we did it somebody on on twitter said would margaret thatcher have won the 1992 election everyone hated her she was abrasive i think a lot of people were sick of tony blair i think they became sick in due course i think i think that kind of the weird thing about blair was the people was kind of the delayed shock of the iraq war i mean he still won the election after the iraq war it did but but but but tom in 2005 labor lost i think 101 seats had they continued to lose at the

same rate after a recession at the end of the decade? I don't think so. I don't think so. Because I think, I mean, Cameron didn't beat Brown. He didn't decisively beat Brown. He had to have a coalition. And Brown was, although he did great things with the aftermath of the crash, I mean, he was not a popular prime minister. And he perhaps wasn't temperamentally suited to the job. So Blair wasn't peter mandelson this i just think blair was very temp i think blair actually a bit like cameron was temperamentally suited to being a prime minister people quite like the idea of him as a prime minister he was kind of you know he he behaved and looked like people imagine a prime minister should look like yeah i think that's quite an important anyway i think it's very important

we're spying off into a different theme playing the part of being a prime minister should look like yeah i think that's quite an important anyway i think it's very important we're spying off into a different theme playing the part of being a prime minister yes is massively important i completely and in that sense blair is a bit kind of disraeli's you know he's he's a showman he's he's an actor he plays the part he's he knows how to tickle the tummy as i have to as i have told the readers of the daily mail many times he's a mountebank no he's he's he's an upstanding mountebank well anyway so that's so that's Blair games a contradiction in terms and our final one our final one number 10 is Theresa May yes so the interesting thing about Theresa May is how long she survives because she has that weird period right at the beginning when she has this incredible honeymoon everyone loves her don't

they her approval rating she doesn't say anything she never comes out of her office everybody thinks that she said everybody that's all she ever says it means brexit so everybody said well that's i find that very powerful and persuasive um and then she held the election and said that she liked running through fields of wheat and everybody turned against her so she also she said nothing has changed when everything has changed. Everything has changed, yeah. So that's the 8th of June, 2017. She lost her majority.

I mean, that night when the result came through, people were speculating, you know, will she be gone in days, in weeks? And the extraordinary thing is she survives for almost two years. So she goes all the way through to December 2018. And then she has a confidence vote because the sort of the Tory ultras of the, you know, the successors, I suppose you could say, in some ways to the ultras who had done for Robert Peel. They force a confidence vote in December 2018, which she wins by 200 votes to 117. And of course, the tremendous irony is that at the time, the Jacob Rees-Mogg and co are queuing up to say,

well, so she has to go. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, that's the extraordinary thing, the shamelessness of it. And now Rees-Mogg says he was mistaken. One is enough. One is enough. Yes.

Yeah, so I've just got it here. So when that result came through against theresa may this is a very bad result for the prime minister 170 votes against her much worse than she thought and says that she should resign because the overwhelming majority of backbenchers have voted against her and now he's saying uh one's enough yeah i'll do that's fine i think i think what you're fussing about? I think Jacob Rees-Mogg knows very well that basically there's only one conceivable person who would ever have him as a minister. And that one happens to be the prime minister.

So she also won a confidence vote in the House of Commons. So that was January 2019. She won by 325 to 306. And I think anyone who remembers this period, well, we all remember it. I mean, this appeared to be a period in which teresa may was facing confidence votes every three days of various kinds it was either confidence votes on but they call it brexit meaningful meaningful yeah just awful i just blanked the whole i just uh there were endless votes on i mean for our

overseas listeners there were just endless votes on abstruse and incredibly impenetrable Brexit arrangements, which all were defeated in various combinations. Kind of angry people from Ulster shouting at her. Just terrible. But yes, so early 2019, she has all these votes. But she lingers on till May 2019. And I think the lesson of that, I mean, there were two lessons. I think one is, as I said, political capital is a diminishing resource. I think when it's gone, you almost never, ever get it back.

It's hard to think of. I would say actually Wilson is the only example I can really think of, modern example of somebody who appeared to lose all his political capital in the late 1960s but then managed to to well he becomes he's in he's in office but not in power would you say yes he's very buffeted by his i mean he's not he's not a jenkins callahan he's he's he's well he spends an enormous amount of time basically playing political chess with his own cabinet yeah um and wilson's a great survivor he's very wily

uh he's also a likable i think that matters because i think people ultimately don't want to move against him because they he's a nice he's a nice person as i always say of harold wilson he's the prime minister you'd want as your next door neighbor to borrow a hose or some such yeah but um washing up like the queen but yes exactly but so political capital diminishes but the other lesson i think is that from theresa may or indeed from tony blair actually is that you can be a long time dying so even though the game appears to be up so it's quite hard gordon brown would definitely agree with us it's quite hard to get someone out of number 10 if they don't want to go so uh we're doing this

you know off off the back of the uh the no confidence result against johnson which he's won and we talked about neville chamberlain being an honorable man who yes does the decent thing um i mean boris would never do that i mean his mean, the whole point of his premiership is to be in power. And in fact, for a while now, it seemed like the main purpose of the current government is basically to keep Johnson in power. Now, he's famously on record, Tom, of saying his favourite film is The Godfather Part II. I thought it was Jaws.

I think he's – how unlike him to have given different answers. But, you know, he obviously has this sort of sense of himself as this sort of Michael Corleone figure who will sacrifice. Well, the big dog. Save big dog, isn't it? Boris's backers have been running this operation. He's the big dog. Yes, and his opponents wanted to have Operation rinker to um to get rid of him so rinker for those of you don't know if you should listen to our jeremy thorpe podcast rinker was a

dog cruelly murdered um on the orders of the leader of the liberal party um well kind of it's a great it's a great episode if you haven't listened to it do go and get it yes okay so do you think that uh i mean i, the whole basis of this episode is that he's now finished, but maybe he isn't. Maybe he'll snagger on. Maybe he'll win the election. as everybody knows who's ever read my columns but um i think 148 of your own mps against you i think that's that's ultimately terminal maybe not immediately but i think it's very hard to go into a general election saying you know so so the thatcher lost the that thatcher won a vote of confidence and resigned almost immediately you Well, she won a leadership election. May won a vote of confidence, staggered on for, what, six months, I think, and then resigned. Yes.

John Major won a vote of confidence, staggered on, fought the election, and got absolutely murdered in the next election. So I would reckon that if Johnson johnson doesn't resign then he will lead the conservatives to a massive defeat yeah and the my prognostication but who you know as you say who knows to pick up on your john major point tom we didn't mention john major at all but in july 1995 john major faced a leadership challenge from john redwood uh put up or shut up yes people may remember that tremendous press conference that john redwood gave where he was surrounded by people who i think can fairly be described as the more colorful end of the conservative party stressed in blazers terrible places anyway um major one by a pretty big majority. It was 218 votes.

And John Redwood, his challenger, won 89. So a pretty sizable margin. Major's private target, Tom, was 215. So he only beat it by three. And he decided he would resign if he didn't get 215. But again, Major is, I think it's fair to say, a man with, I mean, not a perfect man, but a man with perhaps a little more integrity than Boris Johnson. And I say that as I'm not a sort of great Boris hater, but I think it would be very hard for anybody to claim that he was a man, a paragon of virtue.

Well, yeah. And the Corleone comparison. Yeah. He would have to be dragged dragged out in a coffin basically i mean they've got two by-elections coming uh which i think they'll probably both they'll lose both of them and they're important aren't they because they're one's a red wall one is kind of tory heartlands exactly and i think you know especially one of the things that did for margaret thatcher was the economy turning

against her. She lost control of inflation. Interest rates went up. Sort of Tory homeowners feeling the pinch with inflation going up and likely to go higher. But by the end of the year, it's very hard to see how things will get easier for Boris Johnson. And, you know, he will make if I was if I was a Tory party MP, I would think about it this way. He's going to become a very convenient scapegoat a year from now. You dump him, then you get a new leader and you go in saying, well,

we've turned the page, you know, we've, we've learned the lessons, all that sort of thing. So I think we could easily be doing this podcast again. At half past 10. Well, we could put that same podcast yeah with the same disagreement yeah we just change it tweak it a bit at the beginning so okay that's a terrible insight into your i hope the listeners aren't too shocked by that but that's the kind of um beady-eyed wheeler dealing that really stay ahead in politics isn't it that's what david

lord george would have done it is that's the david lord george option right i think we've done enough um and our poor producers have to go off and lick this into shape yeah tom so we should probably tom's gonna go and catch up with love island yeah i am yeah and i think we should do the uh the love island episode but we can discuss this we definitely should do it it. We're so going to do it. And all the extra listeners we would have attracted because of our talk of the Earl of Wilmington. I think they'll stay for Love Island. So, yes, win-win. Okay.

All right. Well, thank you for joining this. All very spontaneous. All very exciting. I hope you've enjoyed it. And we will be back on Thursday, won't we, with Denunzio, the first fascist. The first fascist. We'll see you then.

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