British Conservative Leaders
Charles Clarke author Patrick Diamond author Tim Bale author Toby S James author
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Biteback Publishing
Published:30th Sep '25
Should be back in stock very soon
As the party that has held power more times than any other, the Conservatives have played a crucial role in the shaping of British society. And yet the leaders who have stood at its helm - from Sir Robert Peel to Rishi Sunak, via Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher - have steered the party vessel with enormously varying degrees of success, particularly latterly, when the short but destructive tenures of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss did much to damage the party's reputation for competence.
The requirements, techniques and goals of Conservative leadership since the party's nineteenth-century factional breakaway have been forced to evolve almost beyond recognition - and not all its leaders have managed to keep up.
This comprehensive and enlightening book - now fully updated with chapters on all Conservative leaders up to Rishi Sunak and an assessment of the party's leadership in relation to Brexit - considers the attributes and achievements of each leader in the context of their respective time and diplomatic landscape. Offering a compelling analytical framework by which they may be judged, it also provides detailed personal biographies from some of the country's foremost political critics and exclusive interviews with former leaders themselves.
An indispensable contribution to the study of party leadership, British Conservative Leaders is the essential guide to understanding British political history and governance.
"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, UK Prime Minister 2019-22
"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, columnist at The Times
"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, former Conservative Cabinet minister
"The essays in this book shine a sharp light on the nature and history of political leadership in the Conservative Party, and on how each leader has coped with the specific challenges facing them. This is an excellent, authoritative volume that can be warmly recommended for everyone with an interest in British politics." Andrew Gamble, emeritus professor of politics at the University of Sheffield
ISBN: 9781785909511
Dimensions: unknown
Weight: unknown
656 pages