After Number Ten: What Do Former Prime Ministers Do?

Abstract

The article reviews the experience of former British prime ministers in the twentieth century. There is no fixed or predetermined role for former prime ministers. What they do after they leave office depends on personal choices and on circumstances. Some have largely disappeared from the political stage. Others have become active international ‘elder statesmen’. A couple‐Heath and Thatcher‐were embittered ‘models to avoid’. A quarter of the former prime ministers since 1900 have served in other government posts in their successors’ Cabinets, while a handful have turned down such appointments. Most have gone to the Lords, which offers a political platform, but sometimes they do not think much of the quality of the second chamber. The retirements of some former prime ministers have been clouded by money worries, but they nowadays get substantial pensions and can make money from business directorships, international lectures and writing memoirs. The article concludes with speculation about what Tony Blair's post‐premiership might hold.