British Conservative Leaders

Description

This extraordinary book considers the qualities of leaders from the most electorally successful of British parties, among them some of the towering figures of British political history, and places each in the context of their respective time and political landscape.From Robert Peel to David Cameron, and featuring twenty-two Conservative prime ministers since the inauguration of James Ramsay MacDonald, this book offers an analytical framework by which those leaders may be judged, and a detailed personal biography of each.This book will provoke discussion and debate as well as providing an essential guide to understanding British political history through the prism of the men and women who created it.

Charles Clarke was Member of Parliament for Norwich South from 1997 to 2010. He served as Education Minister from 1998 and then in the Home Office from 1999 to 2001. From 2002 to 2004 he was Secretary of State for Education and Skills and then Home Secretary until 2006. He holds visiting professorships at the University of East Anglia, Lancaster University, and University College London. Dr Toby James is Senior Lecturer in British and Comparative Politics at the University of East Anglia.Patrick Diamond is a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Manchester, Senior Research Fellow at Policy Network and Gwilym Gibbon Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford. He was formerly Head of Policy Planning in 10 Downing Street and Senior Policy Adviser to the Prime Minister. He is the co-author of Beyond New Labour; Social Justice in the Global Age; After the Third Way; and Global Europe, Social Europe (with Anthony Giddens).Tim Bale teaches Political Science at Queen Mary, University of London in the UK. In 2008 he won the Political Studies Association's Bernard Crick Prize for Outstanding Teaching. He was the co-founder of the PSA's specialist group on Conservatives and Conservatism. He also provides an Internet Guide to European Politics to accompany his book, European Politics: a Comparative Introduction. Tim's media work includes writing for the Financial Times and the Guardian, and he has appeared on various BBC radio and television programmes. In 2011 he received the Political Studies Association's W.J.M. Mackenzie prize for his book The Conservative Party from Thatcher to Cameron. His latest book on the Party is The Conservatives since 1945: the Drivers of Party Change.

'This is a riveting book. It succeeds as a work of history - the best authors on their topic of expert knowledge. It succeeds in understanding the Conservative Party, its flexibility and understanding of power. And, most interestingly, it succeeds as a reflection on political leadership. Read this if your side has just lost an election and wants to win the next one. Read it if your side has just won an election and wants to avoid losing the next one. Read it if you don't have a side.' - Daniel Finkelstein; 'I found this book a fascinating read because it is such a distinctively political analysis of various Conservative leaders and concentrates on their political successes or failures as leaders of a party. This gives an intriguing insight into an essential element of any political leader's career, which is usually only written about as background to the events of the 'reign'. I found the analysis absorbing.' - Ken Clarke; 'Puts David Cameron's 2015 victory in context - and shows him to be among the greatest winners in the long history of the Conservative Party.' - Boris Johnson