Table of Contents

Part 1 Prelude: the platonic idea and the constitutional deal; continuity and cottage pie. Part 2 The premiership: the double-headed nation; organized by history - the premiership before 1945; beyond any mortal? the stretching of the premiership since 1945; where the buck stops - premiers, "war cabinets" and nuclear war planning since 1945. Part 3 The prime ministers: a sense of architectronics - Clement Atlee, 1945-51; in history lie all the secrets - Winston Churchill, 1951-55; the Colonel and the drawing room - Anthony Eden, 1955-57; quiet, calm deliberation - Harold Macmillan, 1957-63; country values - Alec Douglas-Home, 1963-64; centre forward - Harold Wilson, 1964-70; the somersaulting modernizer - Edward Heath, 1970-74; centre half - Harold Wilson, 1974-76; the sea-changer - James Callaghan, 1976-79; a tigress surrounded by hamsters - Margaret Thatcher, 1979-90; the solo-coalitionist - John Major, 1990-97; command and control - Tony Blair, 1997-. Part 4 Coda: the premier league - the inevitability of disappointment; towards a new specification - premiership for the 21st century.

About the Author

Peter Hennessy is Attlee Professor of History at Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London. Among many other books, he is the author of WHITEHALL ('Much the best book on the British civil service ever to appear', Anthony King, Economist) and NEVER AGAIN- BRITAIN 1945-1951, which in 1993 won the NCR Award for Non-Fiction and the Duff Cooper Prize