Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Various Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom (DWAN: Time Wake)

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom was an individual appointed by the monarch, based on which political party won a democratic vote. The Prime Minister was the political head of the United Kingdom.

As the UK lacked fixed terms and came under repeated assault and scandal from alien lifeforms, the 1960s-70s and early 21st century saw multiple Prime Ministers caused by rapid changes of government.

10 Downing Street was the seat of the Prime Minister's power (DW: Aliens of London) but after it was destroyed, the Prime Minister worked out of a temporary office in Westminster (WEB: UNIT website) until 2008 when Number 10 was rebuilt. (DW: The Sound of Drums) The Houses of Parliament were the meeting place of the Prime Minister and his cabinet. There, they would discuss policy and law. (MA: The Plotters)

The Doctor and the Prime Ministers

The Doctor had numerous encounters with the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. These associations seemed to vary between friendships and general assistance. (DW: Victory of the Daleks)

However, the Doctor occasionally shunned the Prime Minister. His sixth, ninth and tenth regenerations showed distaste towards Margaret Thatcher (BFA: The Ultimate Adventure, DW: Father's Day, Tooth and Claw), and the tenth later opposed Harriet Jones's government. (DW: The Christmas Invasion)

Using the alias Harold Saxon, the Doctor's arch nemesis the Master once became the Prime Minister. (DW: The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords)

History

Prime Minister's names in bold face for easy reference.

19th century

After his victory at the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815 and the consequent end of the Napoleonic Wars, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington served as Prime Minister. (BFA: Other Lives)

20th century

Early 20th century

The Ninth Doctor mentioned meeting and drinking with David Lloyd George who was prime minister during World War I. (DW: Aliens of London)

On 5 October 1930, Charley Pollard named a Vortisaur "Ramsey", after Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald. (BFA: Storm Warning)

The Doctor spoke of having met and known then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill during World War II. In his sixth incarnation, he encountered Churchill twice before he became Prime Minister and prevented the Players from altering the man's timeline. (PDA: Players) At some point, they became good friends and he gave Churchill this telephone number. (DW: The Beast Below) They met more than once during the war, and each time Churchill would ask for use of the Doctor's TARDIS to end the war. (DW: Victory of the Daleks) Churchill would serve as Prime Minister again in the 1950s. (DW: The Idiot's Lantern)

1960s through 1980s

In 1963, Harold Macmillan stepped down as Prime Minister and was succeeded by Sir Alec Douglas-Home, previously Earl Home. Both men were members of the Conservative Party. During Home's tenure as Prime Minister, there was a failed attempt to kidnap him, which was subsequently covered up by the British government. (CM: The Pelage Project)

As the Labour Party defeated the Conservatives in the 1964 general election, Harold Wilson succeeded Douglas-Home as Prime Minster. (CM: State of Emergency) In 1965, he authorised the sacrifice of 12 children to an alien race known as the 456 in exchange for an antivirus. (TW: Children of Earth: Day Three) His support in the 1970 general election was eroded by a series of disasters at scientific research facilities in 1969-70, such as Wenley Moor and the Inferno Project. As well as the crisis caused during Black Thursday and the Mars Probe 7 incident. (MA: Who Killed Kennedy referencing DW: Spearhead from Space, Doctor Who and the Silurians, The Ambassadors of Death, Inferno)

Edward Heath succeeded Wilson as Prime Minister, but his government quickly came under fire due to the chaos at both of the Britain-hosted peace conferences, and the governments involvement with the Axonite scandal. (MA: Who Killed Kennedy referencing DW: The Mind of Evil, The Claws of Axos, Day of the Daleks)

Jeremy Thorpe succeeded Heath, forming a Liberal coalition government. But the public's trust in the government was depleted after the incident at Global Chemicals, and the scandal caused by Operation Golden Age, eventually toppling the government. (WEB: Party Politics referencing DW: The Green Death, Invasion of the Dinosaurs)

Shirley Williams succeeded Thorpe. (WEB: Party Politics referencing DW: Terror of the Zygons) She was still Prime Minister during 1976, but presumably left later this year. (NA: No Future)

James Callaghan succeeded Williams as Prime Minister from 1976 to 1979. (BFA: The Oseidon Adventure)

Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979 (DW: Tooth and Claw) and would remain in power until at least 1987. (DW: Father's Day) During the late 1980s, the Doctor would also act as a consultant to Thatcher. (SP: Doctor Who: The Ultimate Adventure) Despite this, he would later show distaste towards her. (DW: Father's Day, Tooth and Claw)

1990s

On 6 May 1997, a recently elected unnamed male Prime Minister, was assassinated by his own bodyguard while in Washington during the Lord Xznaal crisis. (NA: The Dying Days)

Terry Brooks was Prime Minister in 1999. (PDA: Millennium Shock)

21st century

In the early 21st century, Sherilyn Harper of the far-right New Britannia Party came extremely close to being voted in as Prime Minister. (BFA: The Fearmonger)

An unnamed male Prime Minister incurred the wrath of ICIS and related interests in the government due to increased links with the European Union. After he signed the Euro-Combine Treaty, this conspiracy started a wave of terrorism in the hopes of getting him to declare martial law and give ICIS the power to take charge. He later declared he would shut down ICIS over this (BFU: The Longest Niht), but they remained in existence for a while longer. (BFU: The Wasting)

Tony Blair was elected Prime Minister some time before Harriet Jones was appointed in 2006. (DW: Rise of the Cybermen)

In early 2006, following the 2005 general election, the United Kingdom had a male Prime Minister. He was killed by the Slitheen, and the position of Acting Prime Minister was then assumed by Joseph Green, actually Jocrassa Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen wearing the slain Green's skin. Jocrassa and his brothers were later killed by a missile strike on 10 Downing Street. (DW: Aliens of London / World War Three) Following the Slitheen crisis, the real Prime Minister's death was officially deemed an accident. (WEB: whoisdoctorwho.co.uk)

Harriet Jones was appointed Prime Minister after the incident. (DW: Aliens of London) (The mention was accidentally included in the first part of the story) By Christmas 2006, Jones had brought in a number of changes and was viewed positively, with some calling her term the start of a "golden age". Her destruction of the retreating Sycorax, however, earned her the disfavour of the the Tenth Doctor and he ensured her political downfall. (DW: The Christmas Invasion) Torchwood Institute leader Jack Harkness once rang her, angrily demanding to know why Torchwood files were being "given" to the opposition leader (presumably "Saxon"). (TW: Greeks Bearing Gifts)

As "Harold Saxon's" website would refer to Jones as "one of my predecessors", she may have been forced out as Prime Minister before the May 2008 election. (WEB: www.haroldsaxon.co.uk)

Following that election, "Harold Saxon" (a.k.a. the Master) was elected as the head of a coalition formed by defectors from other political parties. (WEB: www.haroldsaxon.co.uk) Shortly after his election, he gassed his entire cabinet and introduced the Toclafane to the human race, before being shot and killed by Lucy Saxon, his wife. (DW: The Sound of Drums) The general public remembered him as having gone insane. (DW: The End of Time)

Following "Saxon", Aubrey Fairchild became Prime Minister. (NSA: Beautiful Choas) During the 2009 Dalek invasion of Earth the authorities, including Torchwood, lost contact with the Prime Minister's plane and he is implied to have died. (DW: The Stolen Earth)

Brian Green succeeded Fairchild. (TW: Children of Earth: Day One) He came under criticism from foreign governments after Martin Trueman intercepted global broadcasts. (SJA: Secrets of the Stars) He was Prime Minister during the 456 incident, first covering up Britain's history with the 456 (TW: Children of Earth: Day Two) and later deciding to hand over a tenth of the country's children (TW: Children of Earth: Day Four). Afterwards, Denise Riley, with the backing of Bridget Spears, decided to blackmail him with the incriminating evidence. (TW: Children of Earth: Day Five) He remained Prime Minister following the crisis. (IDW: Don't Step on the Grass)

At some point after 2011, Amanda Holden becomes Prime Minister, according to the Eleventh Doctor's statement to Dermot O'Leary in the cold open to the 16th National Television Awards on 27 January 2011.

In 2025, the Prime Minister was a woman. (BFA: Project: Destiny)

General Mariah Learman was the Prime Minister after the Eurozone wars during the 2050s, by marching into the Houses of Parliament a shot at the ceiling. However during her experiments with time travel and the involvement of the Daleks and being mutated into one and killed, she no longer was the PM. (BFA: The Time of the Daleks)

Far future

Hawthorne, in the 33rd century, was the equivalent of a Prime Minister on Starship UK. (DW: The Beast Below)

Alternative timelines

In an alternative timeline in which Germany won World War II and proceeded to conquer the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe in 1941, Sir Oswald Mosley became Prime Minister after Churchill was executed. (NA: Timewyrm: Exodus)

In another alternative timeline, Melanie Bush became Prime Minister, led the United Kingdom against an invasion of by the Cybermen, only to be betrayed by an alternative version of the Third Doctor whose exile on Earth had never ended. (PDA: The Quantum Archangel)

In Pete's World, Britain had the office of President (head of state). It is unclear whether this position simply replaced the Monarch as head of state creating a semi-presidential system like in modern day France, or if it replaced the prime minister (head of government) creating a presidential system like the United States. (DW: Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel)

List of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom

• Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington (BFA: Other Lives)
• David Lloyd George (DW: Aliens of London)
• Ramsay MacDonald (BFA: Storm Warning)
• Winston Churchill (DW: Victory of the Daleks)
• Harold Macmillan (CM: The Pelage Project)
• Sir Alec Douglas-Home (CM: The Pelage Project)
• Harold Wilson (MA: Who Killed Kennedy)
• Edward Heath (MA: Who Killed Kennedy)
• Jeremy Thorpe (DW: The Green Death)
• Shirley Williams (DW: Terror of the Zygons)
• James Callaghan (BFA: The Oseidon Adventure)
• Margaret Thatcher (SP: Doctor Who: The Ultimate Adventure)
• Terry Brooks (PDA: Millennium Shock)
• Tony Blair (DW: Rise of the Cybermen)
• Harriet Jones (DW: The Christmas Invasion)
• "Harold Saxon" (a.k.a. the Master) (DW: The Sound of Drums)
• Aubrey Fairchild (NSA: Beautiful Chaos)
• Brian Green (TW: Children of Earth: Day One)
• Hawthorne (equivalent of, DW: The Beast Below)

Behind the scenes

• In real life, the Wilson government did have a sudden defeat in the 1970 election and Heath's government ran into difficulties very soon after it came in. Who Killed Kennedy by David Bishop attributed these problems to events in the Whoniverse involving the Third Doctor and UNIT.
• The "Jeremy" reference in DW: The Green Death was a joke by the production team, implying Liberal Party leader Jeremy Thorpe would win the contemporary general election; the equivalent would be if a near-future episode of the new series implied the Green Party was going to win. (The production team assumed at the time that the UNIT stories actually took place in the near future.) In real life, he didn't win, though he was briefly in talks with Edward Heath to form a coalition government.
• In the DVD commentary for Frontier in Space, Terrance Dicks says that the reference to the PM as female in DW: Terror of the Zygons was an ad-lib by Nicholas Courtney. The BBC Classic Who website [1] has this mean Shirley Williams, who was only a Labour cabinet minister in real life.
• Rather than finger a specific party, "Harold Saxon" is implied to have not been in a political party on the tie-in website and Green's party goes unmentioned. World War Three, however, made deliberate jabs at Tony Blair's Labour government and Harriet Jones says she was not one of "the babes", likely a reference to the term "Blair's Babes"; this would indicate the PM at the time (and Jones) was Labour.
• The show indicates that "Saxon" was directly elected as Prime Minister. This is not how the position is attained.
• According to Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale, originally in DW: The Stolen Earth or Journey's End, Prime Minister Fairchild was to have been exterminated by the Daleks at Westminster.