From Churchill to Truss: the 16 prime ministers that Queen Elizabeth II has seen pass through Downing Street

To say that Elizabeth II is the living history of the United Kingdom is an understatement. Since she fired the paratroopers who left for the French beaches during the Normandy landings, until now, almost eighty years have passed in which her scepter has illuminated the path of the English. Along the way, throughout the seven decades of her reign, she has also seen a list of up to fifteen prime ministers parade. From Winston Churchill – who needs little introduction – to the resigned Boris Johnson. Ten from the Conservative Party, always more popular on the islands, by four from Labor. He has also witnessed the social evolution of a people that did not hesitate to raise Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May to their easy chairs. 1 Winston Churchill 1874-1965 Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874-1965) garnered many titles other than Sir. He was a journalist, statesman, historian, orator, soldier… Chancellor of the Exchequer between the wars, he became disenchanted with Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement. After the outbreak of World War II he became Prime Minister. Needless to say, he became the voice of the people and the heart of Britain during the German bombing raids on London. He lost the election to Atlee in 1945, but returned in 1951, until he resigned four years later. 2 Clement Attlee 1883-1967 Clement Attlee (1883-1967), pictured with Harry S. Truman, began his political career in 1919. He became leader of the Labor Party in 1935. From his easy chair he criticized the policy of hands-off English in the Spanish civil war and, ultimately, also that of Chamberlain. He participated in the concentration government established by Churchill during World War II and, at the end of it, defeated him. His mandate was marked by nationalizations, economic difficulties after the conflict, decolonizations and isolation from European integrating trends. He lost the 1951 elections. 3 Anthony Eden 1897-1977 https: //www.abc.esEden (1897-1977) is the great forgotten in history. A Conservative politician and Foreign Secretary in the years before WWII, he had a meteoric career in the twenties and thirties. He was a British delegate to the League of Nations, where he was in favor of a heavy-handed policy regarding the Italian war adventures in Africa. During the conflict he was also against appeasement. Speaker of the House of Commons from 1942, briefly commander of the Armed Forces in the Middle East, Viceroy of India, representative in the newly formed United Nations… his resume is eternal. He became Prime Minister between 1955 and 1957 and, after his mistakes in the so-called Canal Crisis (Suez), he withdrew from political life. 4 Harold MacMillan 1894-1986 Following Eden’s resignation, it was Harold MacMillan (1894-1986) who took over the position. Rough and caustic in character, he navigated a turbulent period marked by the decolonization of the United Kingdom. Although he cannot be denied a certain popularity among the population. It was not in vain that he was always in favor of ‘progressive conservatism’ with populist overtones. A scandal removed him from the post. In 1963, the Defense Minister’s relationship with a young woman close, in turn, to a Soviet military attache, caused rivers of ink. 5 Alec Douglas-Home 1903-1995 https://www.abc.esThe Brief. Conservative Douglas-Home (1903-1995) was in office for just one year. He got the job after the MacMillan government scandal. Qualified by historians as a denied for economic affairs, something that he himself admitted. The defeat in the 1964 elections ended him politically. 6 Harold Wilson 1916-1995 James Harold Wilson (1916-1995). Prime Minister twice (1964-1970 and 1974-1976). Labour, he won the first victory by a large majority. Clashes with unions marked this mandate. As if that were not enough, Rhodesia’s unilateral declaration of independence ended up giving it the finishing touch. Despite this, he won the elections again in 1974. His second term was murky. He called a referendum to determine the permanence of the United Kingdom in the European Community. In the end, instability led him to resign. 7 Edward Heath 1916-2005 Edward Heath, who died in 2005 at the age of 89, died surrounded by suspicions that linked him to cases of pederasty. The conservative politician, who held the position of chief executive between 1970 and 1974, was a staunch defender of the idea of ​​a united Europe and thanks to his tenacity and in the face of internal and external resistance, especially from France, he managed to get the UK will join the EU. 8 James Callaghan 1912-2005 James Callaghan, British Prime Minister between 1976 and 1979, succeeded Harold Wilson, also a Labor Party member, in Downing Street, after having been Chancellor of the Treasury, Minister of the Interior and head of the Foreign Office. He was the only prime minister to previously go through the three most important Government Ministries. Although close to the unions, his disagreements led to the ‘winter of discontent’ between 1978-79, whose chaos in mining and large industries led to the election of Margaret Thatcher. Callaghan, Home Secretary, led British troops to Ulster. 9 Margaret Thatcher 1925-2013 Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013), was better known as the ‘Iron Lady’. She was elected in 1979 and, almost instantly, introduced a series of controversial economic changes. The defenders of it assign the paternity of the prevailing neoliberal model. Her critics accused her of forcing several municipalities to restrict water and ask their inhabitants to shower less after the privatization of the supply. She won a long fight with the labor unions, bitterly opposed to her reforms. Thatcher put the country through shock therapy. As a result, say his admirers, the British went from being a puny and sluggish society to benefiting from lower taxes and greater access to credit and housing brought about by “popular capitalism” 10 John Major 1943-X Major (born in 1943) is a curious character. And it is that, he was a manufacturer of garden gnomes before starting his career in politics. A Conservative, he was elected as a Member of Parliament in 1979 and, shortly after, held various positions in the Thatcher government. The crisis of 1989 made him ascend to Minister of Economy. He was Prime Minister between 1990 and 1997. He stood out for his conciliatory position with Europe and for intervening to achieve the IRA ceasefire. Despite this, political weariness made him fall in front of Labor. 11 Tony Blair 1953-X Tony Bolair, born in 1953, was Prime Minister between 1997 and 2007. The biggest change in politics attributed to him is that he turned the Labor Party towards the center, which led to three mandates in a row. He was the youngest in his post since Lord Liverpool (elected in 1812) and strove to promote a youthful and modern image. His first term was characterized by the promise to reform public services. The second, due to disputes with his former ally, Gordon Brown. In 2002, he jumped into the spotlight after supporting the Iraq war. He resigned in June 2007. According to his followers, he was a man capable of risking popularity for causes that he considered morally justified. 12 Gordon Brown 1951-X When Gordon Brown became Prime Minister, the Labor Party’s campaign slogan inspired by the 1930s superhero sought to distance himself from the style of his predecessor, Tony Blair: ‘It’s not the Flash, it’s just the Flash. Gordon.” He had won his seat in Parliament at the age of 27 and from 1997 to 2007 he headed the Ministry of the Treasury. His beginnings in Downing Street were glorious. He made his big debut for the way he coped with a victimless bombing at Glasgow airport and severe flooding in central England. His popularity skyrocketed and he began to speculate on bringing forward the early elections, but in the end he changed his mind and was exposed. He never recovered from that stumble and his mandate ended just three years later, in the 2010 elections, when Westminster was left without an absolute majority for the first time since 1974. 13 David Cameron 1966-X David Cameron almost went down in history as the man who allowed the breakup of the United Kingdom by holding the famous Scottish independence referendum, held on September 18, 2014. Finally, the 55% of Scots who voted against it, despite which the Prime Minister did not he escaped a barrage of criticism from journalists and politicians, including colleagues from his own Conservative Party. They reproached him for having endangered a political union of three centuries. A very different reception from the one he had when he arrived in 2010 at number 10 Downing Street, when it seemed that Cameron was going to make the hopes of the conservatives come true. He was 43 years old and the youngest prime minister his country had had in 200 years, bringing his party back to power since the days of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in 1997. After six years, he had to resign in the middle of of a political crisis due to the departure of the United Kingdom from the European Union and a Scotland that flirts with independence. 14 Theresa May 1956-X Theresa May took office in July 2016, when she prevailed over her fellow militants to succeed David Cameron, who had been defeated after the Brexit consultation. In her first speech as prime minister, she appeared in Downing Street pledging to fight “pressing injustices” suffered by citizens. The conservative leader also promised to build a “country that works for everyone”, but the truth is that, in the three years she was in power, she devoted herself mainly to trying to carry out the controversial plan to leave the United Kingdom from the European Union. However, he failed to reach consensus either among the opposition or among his own party colleagues to implement the agreement reached earlier with the other 27 community partners in November 2018. 15 Boris Johnson 1964-X Unauthorized biography published two years ago by Boris Johnson, who revealed the details of a childhood and private life as turbulent as the three years that this sly politician, tongue-tied, eccentric and always ready to get into all the puddles has been prime minister. His parents, Stanley Johnson and Charlotte Fawcett, met at Oxford University and he was born in New York in 1964. They soon moved to England, where they had three other children. When Boris was 14 years old, his parents divorced, which was a huge trauma for the teenager and many believe that this is where his perennial and hidden inner dissatisfaction springs. Three have been the women with whom he has been married until he became Prime Minister, after being Minister of Foreign Affairs and of the Commonwealth of Nations of the United Kingdom for two years (2016-2018) and Mayor of London between 2008 and 2016. But it was in his last position where the politician has been involved in more controversy, such as his justifications for the appointment of Chris Pincher as deputy coordinator of the parliamentary group of the Conservative Party after the accusations of harassment, the famous one that weighed on him, the famous ‘Partygate’ and its null management of the pandemic. This has meant that, throughout his legislature, more than fifty executive positions have resigned. Johnson’s has been one of the shortest stays in Downing Street since 1900. 16 Liz Truss 1975-X Mary Elizabeth Truss is not a very charismatic politician. But she has character, she is intelligent and she has built her career slowly but surely. She went through ministries such as Trade, Foreign Affairs, Equality, Justice and Education in the governments of David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson. She started young. And she still is: 47 years old. Her biggest achievement so far has been securing the payment to Iran that allowed Nazanin Zagari Ratcliffe to be reunited with her family. As for the Ukraine, she even asked the British to come and fight there.