The last time this happened the car used was an Audi SUV. It would previously have been regarded as unacceptable for the British prime minister to be driven in a foreign-made car. I also saw a recent photo of the King and Queen getting out of a BMW. Dearie, dearie me.
David Cameron 2010-2015 and Tony Blair 2001-2005 are not that long ago. Or maybe I am getting old
I think you are spot on re. it being Heath. Another feature which might at one time have been more of an anachronism is that of PMs not bothering with the inconvenience of being elected by the electorate (Major, Brown, Sunak and potentially Starmer's successor).
Yes I overlooked Truss.You forgot one, rather short term, recent incumbent. That is a disgrace!
That's perfectly true, but possibly becoming more of a thing.
I can remember when a knee rail fence was all that was protecting Heathrow Airport...
Churchill in his first term technically
Even more so, one whose party loses an election, remains as leader and serves a further term after the next election. Wilson possibly the most recent but it used to be the norm back in the 19th century. Strangely enough, wisdom comes through setbacks and someone who loses isn’t always a “loser”.
Wilson was definitely the most recent example.
I think it was the Conservative party whose leaders at one time were simply deemed to have "emerged".
There's not, but there's no procedure that can offer that certainty and you have to have something.
I read somewhere yesterday that Heath and Clement Atlee are the only people who that's the case for in terms of the whole of their premiership (as opposed to, for example, Harold Wilson who did that once but then came back and served a partial term).
Part of the problem being that leading a party is like nothing else - including leading a country. In fact, except in the most favourable circumstances, those two positions almost certainly pull against each other.
You're right, it did apply to the Conservatives. Senior figures in the party took "soundings", which presumably means that they sought the views of other senior figures, MPs, local party chairmen, and the individual considered most likely to do the job most effectively, and have the widest acceptance, was identified.
But the point of being party leader is to become Prime Minister - in the case of Conservatives and Labour, anyway.
I've created a new thread 'Enduring Anachronisms' to stimulate discussion on such topics.
Responding to the share prices in the other thread.
Obviously no longer in living memory but back in the nineteenth century, when party attachments were more fluid, when a party lost the election their leaders did not resign. Parliament met, the Speech from the Throne was given, the Address In Reply was moved and only if they lost that did the government resign.
The other issue was that the final decision effectively rested with the monarch. Often the new prime minister was only ever going to be one person, but on occasions where the choice was up in the air, the monarch could manoeuvre themselves into being able to make their own selection. When we say now that the monarch is “above politics”, that is a fairly recent phenomenon; they were a political force to be reckoned with even in the 1950s. Queen Victoria famously strained every sinew to keep Gladstone out of power, and George V picked Baldwin over Lord Curzon in 1923.
Please enlighten - what on earth is a library school bus. School buses and mobile libraries I can cope with, but a combination of the two seems odd.
There is also the concept of a school library housed in a static (and effectively immobile) bus. I know of one such in north Devon, and believe there are others (I think one or two Pacer vehicles ended up that way)
I meant mobile library buses that visited school’s, so for schools as they were also branded to probably look more attractive to primary school kids.
