To mark the signing of the Helsinki Final Act, 45 years ago this month, FCO Historians look back to where it all began – the CSCE preparatory talks.
The reign of George III, from 1760 to 1820, one of the longest in British history, proved very important to the development of the modern idea of the Prime Minister. There was a major contrast between the situation in the …
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. …
Through one of the marvels of modern Science, I am enabled, this Christmas Day, to speak to all my peoples throughout the Empire. I take it as a good omen that Wireless should have reached its present perfection at a …
The first Prime Minister to carry out significant constitutional reform was the Duke of Wellington. Wellington was an unlikely figure to be associated with constitutional changes – he was a deeply conservative and aristocratic politician, a defender of the British ‘Protestant …
Seen at its inception in December 1852 as a distillation of political talent, the Aberdeen Coalition held office for just two years and one month. It was brought down in January 1855 by allegations of gross military mismanagement in the …
On New Year’s Day 1814, the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Castlereagh, set sail from Harwich for Holland with a challenging brief: to build a coalition with Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Sweden to finally bring an end to the French Empire …
There is no fixed or predetermined role for former Prime Ministers in Britain. What they do after they leave office depends on their personal choices and on circumstances. While there is therefore little in the way of a common pattern, …
Soon after taking office a new Prime Minister receives special briefings from the Cabinet Secretary. One is on the ‘letters of last resort’, which give instructions to the commander of the British submarine on patrol with the nuclear deterrent, in the …
On her 21st birthday in 1947 Princess Elizabeth broadcast from Cape Town in South Africa: I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of …
The connection between Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer is probably the most important, and potentially the most problematic, of all ministerial relationships. Foreign Secretaries and Home Secretaries can be powerful figures, and yet they rarely have the capacity …