The Political Leadership Question: Who Governs Britain?

At a time when Britain needs strong political leadership, I look again at the leadership characteristics we need from our next Prime Minister.

The political leadership question is back on the agenda. This time it’s more important than ever. This time we decide who will govern Great Britain and Northern Ireland for the next five years. Who will resolve Brexit, unite the country and build a prosperous economy for the future.

In June 2019 I published an article Political Leadership Revisited outlining the eleven leadership characteristics with which to judge the political leadership capability of the two candidates who sought to be leader of the Conservative Party. Boris Johnson won that election and succeeded Theresa May as Prime Minister. Who could have predicted just five months later Mr Johnson would find himself in a position where he needed to call a General Election to settle the question of who governs Britain. This is the political leadership question.

The leadership election in June 2019, when Boris Johnson became Prime Minister, was settled by just 160,000 members of his party. In the General Election on 12th December 2019 there will be about 46 million people eligible to vote in 650 parliamentary constituencies. Who will they select to be the new resident of that famous address at 10 Downing Street London SW1? Who will they vote for, and how will they choose their Member of Parliament, the Political Party they will back and who they want as their next Prime Minister? This is a complex subject at a crucial time in our nation’s history. There are a lot of factors to consider. But since my job is write about leadership, I once again offer a set of characteristics by which to judge the political leadership capability of the two candidates seeking to be the next Prime Minister.

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Political Leadership: Revisited

At a time the country needs strong political leadership, I look again at the characteristics we need from our next Prime Minister.

The political leadership question is back on the agenda again. In June 2017 we had a General Election in the UK. I published an article at that time, ‘Leadership: Your Vote Counts’, inviting readers to decide which of our would-be political leaders best matched eleven business leader characteristics.

The winner of that Election was Theresa May of the Conservative Party, albeit it with a reduced majority. Since then she has struggled to implement the result of our 2016 National Referendum and take the UK out of the European Union. Mrs May resigned in early June and since then there has been frenzied activity in the Conservative Party to select a new leader. This person will not only be the leader of the Party, they will also be our new Prime Minister. Are you with me so far?

Leadership Election

The initial selection process was in the hands of 313 Conservative Members of Parliament (MPs). They took ten initial candidates down to two. In the final stage the Conservative Party membership select a Leader and Prime Minister from the final two. As I write, there are estimated to be 160,000 paid up members who are participating in this final selection. Who will they select to be the new resident of that famous address: 10 Downing Street?

Leadership Characteristic

For this election I’ve come up with a different set of characteristics with which to judge the political leadership capability of our two candidates. I looked at research on the political leadership characteristics of two of our most notable post-war Prime Ministers: Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher. This is not just a random choice on my part. A YouGov survey of the greatest Prime Ministers since 1945 conducted in May 2019 placed Margaret Thatcher number one with 21% of the votes just ahead of Winston Churchill with 19%. Read more to see what I discovered …..

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