When Parliament met on 10 April to pay tribute to Baroness Thatcher, Prime Minster David Cameron observed that, ‘at a time when it was difficult for a woman to become a Member of Parliament, almost inconceivable that one could lead …
...Edmund Spenser’s romantic tribute to Elizabeth I in his sixteenth-century poem of the same name, and allowed the septuagenarian Disraeli to pose as a chivalrous knight in Victoria’s service. Victoria...
...both to play a leading political role himself and to distance himself from the ministers of his grandfather, George II. It was not until 1770 that George found a satisfactory...
In Anthony Trollope’s 1876 novel The Prime Minister, the Prime Minister of the title is Plantagenet Palliser, the Duke of Omnium. It may today appear very strange that a member of the House of Lords could head the British government. …
...the newly formed BBC, wrote to the King in 1923 to inquire whether he would be interested in ‘delivering a message to his people’ on a significant holiday such as...
...announced his plan to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson. The marriage was unpopular with many in Parliament and the Church of England. The Cabinet rejected the King’s compromise solution...
...the Conservative Party split over the repeal of the protectionist Corn Laws in 1846). Although the Cabinet was united in their advocacy of Free Trade, this rich political compound contained...
...arrive and were often written in code in case they were stolen by foreign spies. When his conduct at the 1814 Congress of Vienna was later challenged in Parliament, Castlereagh...
...the 1920s, under three different prime ministers. Tony Blair immediately gave up his seat in the House of Commons on leaving Number 10, but David Lloyd George stayed on in...
...the ten British officials from intelligence and policy departments, ranging from the Chief of the JIC Assessments Staff and ‘C’, the head of the Secret Intelligence Service, to representatives from...