The Prime Ministers: Winner of the PARLIAMENTARY BOOK AWARDS 2020

Iain Dale does excellent work narrating the book. For the editor, contributor, and mastermind behind the book to actually read the audio version is a treat. Highly recommend it.

The endnote section was folded and glued back into the binding making that section useless.

Excellent series of small essays on the good, bad and downright Johnsonian at No. 10 and elsewhere over the years. A good starter to study how it has all evolved over the years, even if recent mediocre chancers make it a bit depressing. Keir Starmer doesn’t have a high bar to reach.

A task that is thankless but he’s done it well. The chapter on John Major is one of the best works on him I’ve read. Difficult pms, like Eden are well done too and the joy is in the ones who didn’t make the mark of a Churchill, Gladstone, Atlee. Recommended.

It is undeniable that this book contains a hoard of information; reading even a few of the essays is enlightening.Some of the essays are truly excellent; for example, Rachel Reeves's essay on Harold Wilson and Simon Heffer's essay on Gladstone are brilliant. Unfortunately, not all of the essays are up to such a high standard. Some are repellently sycophantic (such as the ridiculous hagiography written by Lord Adonis on Tony Blair) and some are poorly written (Baroness Morgan's essay on Lord North is surprisingly appalling). On balance, however, the good outweighs the bad quite considerably.The book suffers structurally from there being no overarching metric by which the Prime Ministers are evaluated. This is probably appropriate, because over the centuries the position evolves in a number of fundamental ways due to socio-political changes (e.g. the diminution of the monarch's role, the solidification of the party system, technological advances in the media, the extension of the franchise, etc.). As such, any one metric used to judge all prime ministers would seem absurd. Nonetheless, the lack of an overarching means of measuring and contrasting the different prime ministers does give the book a feeling of being a little unfocused, or perhaps bewildered in how it has been directed.Notwithstanding a few poor essays, the flaws in this book are easily forgiven. It is a worthwhile read, packed full of so much information that is, generally, very enjoyable to read.

I have been reading each chapter of this excellent survey of each of the 55 British Prime Ministers for Walpole to Johnson, each week after listening to the podcast interview with the author of each chapter. It's an interesting approach (the podcasts haven't been in chronological order, though they started and ended with Walpole and Johnson respectively). Each chapter summarises the subject's life and career, especially but not exclusively his or her premiership, in between roughly 6-12 pages, enough detail to inform without being burdensome. Maybe some further reading recommendations would have been the icing on the cake, but this is very good.

Really enjoying reading this book. It is easy to dip in and out and each chapter is well written. I am combining reading each chapter with listening to the equivalent podcast on each Prime Minister. The choice of author is often unique such as the descendant of the murderer of Spencer Percival, the only PM to have been assassinated. I bought the book and it's kindle equivalent thinking I might read a chapter on every train journey to work but of course it has become my Wfh lunch break read instead with the podcasts for my walk.