From Robert Walpole and William Pitt the Younger, to Clement Attlee and Margaret Thatcher, Seldon discusses which of our Prime Ministers have been most effective and why. Sir Anthony Seldon, historian of Number 10 Downing Street, explores the lives and careers, loves and scandals, successes and failures, of all our great Prime Ministers. Marking the third centenary of the office of Prime Minister, this book tells its extraordinary story, explaining how and why it has endured longer than any other democratic political office in world history. Aircraft & Spacecraft: General Interest.Ships, Boats & Waterways: General Interest.Road & Motor Vehicles: General Interest.Fishing, Field Sports & Outdoor Activities.Sports Studies & PE: Textbooks & Study Guides.Literary Studies: Textbooks & Study Guides.Anthologies, Essays, Letters & Miscellaneous.Inventions & Technology: General Interest.Environment & Ecology: General Interest.Popular Culture & Media: General Interest.Politics & Government: Textbooks & Study Guides.Both ruled with constraints, though the limits on Walpole’s powers were different from those on Johnson’s. In others, nothing has changed, to revive a famous phrase deployed calamitously by Theresa May.īoth Walpole and Johnson went to Eton and Oxbridge, a familiar route for quite a few of the prime ministers over the centuries. The dialogue shows that in some respects, the responsibilities and challenges are unrecognisably different. More than three hundred years separate their premierships. Early on in The Impossible Office? the similarities and differences of the two ‘bookend prime ministers’, Robert Walpole and Boris Johnson, are explored in the form of an imaginary conversation. He does so insightfully and mischievously. Each incumbent fascinates, but what about the qualifications for leading the UK? Why are they so rarely met? We need some answers, and Anthony Seldon is one of the few prime ministerial biographers to seek to provide them. There are far fewer books, however, on the nature of the office and its freakish demands. Even the dullest occupant of Number 10 becomes the subject of many studies. Bookshelves creak with memoirs and biographies of prime ministers.

Anthony seldon the impossible office