Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

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Various Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom (PROSE: 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. (TV: Aliens of London) In the 17th century, the Houses of Parliament were the meeting place of the Prime Minister and his Cabinet. There, they would discuss policy and law. (PROSE: The Plotters) By 1796, the Cabinet met in session in the Cabinet Room inside 10 Downing Street. (TV: World War Three)

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. (TV: Victory of the Daleks) [additional sources needed]

However, the Doctor occasionally shunned the Prime Minister. His sixth and tenth incarnations showed distaste towards Margaret Thatcher (AUDIO: The Ultimate Adventure, Tooth and Claw), and the tenth later opposed Harriet Jones's government. (TV: The Christmas Invasion)

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

History

19th century

William Pitt the Younger was the Prime Minister in the early 19th century. (AUDIO: Upstairs)

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. (AUDIO: Other Lives)

George Canning was Prime Minister at the time of his death in 1827.

Lord Salisbury was the Prime Minister in July 1900. He was the last Prime Minister who refused to use 10 Downing Street as his official home. He instead allowed his nephew Arthur Balfour to use it. Balfour later became Prime Minister himself. (AUDIO: Upstairs)

20th century

Early 20th century

Herbert Asquith was the Prime Minister in 1912. (AUDIO: The Suffering)

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

On 5 October 1930, Charley Pollard named a Vortisaur "Ramsey", after Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald. (AUDIO: 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. (PROSE: Players) At some point, they became good friends and he gave Churchill his telephone number. (TV: 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. (TV: Victory of the Daleks) Churchill would serve as Prime Minister again in the 1950s. (TV: 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. (AUDIO: The Pelage Project)

As the Labour Party defeated the Conservatives in the 1964 general election, Harold Wilson succeeded Douglas-Home as Prime Minster. Various figures in the military, civil service, and MI5 were unhappy with this, seeing Wilson's government as riddled with communists, and a coup was attempted in late 1964. (AUDIO: 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. (TV: 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. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy)

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. (PROSE: Who Killed Kennedy)

Sometime in the 1970s, a Prime Minister, whose first name was Jeremy, was in charge. He asked the Brigadier to stop his inquiry about inexplicable deaths at the Global Chemicals. (TV: The Green Death)

According to the Eighth Doctor, Thorpe and Williams served between Heath and Thatcher as Prime Minister. (PROSE: Interference - Book One) Williams was Prime Minister in 1976. (PROSE: No Future)

James Callaghan of the Labour Party succeeded Williams as Prime Minister, serving from 1976 to 1979. (AUDIO: The Oseidon Adventure) Fragmentary historical records of the year 4000 erroneously stated that Bruce Forsyth was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 1977. (AUDIO: The Foe from the Future)

Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979 (TV: Tooth and Claw) and would remain in power until at least 1987 (TV: Father's Day). She was the leader of the Conservative Party. Her party won the general election on 9 June 1983 in a landslide victory over Labour. (AUDIO: Rat Trap) During the late 1980s, the Doctor served as an advisor or consultant to her. He referred to her disdainfully as "that woman" and admitted that she terrified him. (AUDIO: The Ultimate Adventure) In his tenth incarnation, the Doctor expressed further distaste for her. (TV: Tooth and Claw)

1990s

In 1992, Margery Phipps became Prime Minister. She negotiated a "deep and lasting" peace treaty between nations. Her book Love is All You Need was still a bestseller 500 years later. (AUDIO: Council of War)

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

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

21st century

A 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 (AUDIO: The Longest Night), but they remained in existence for a while longer. (AUDIO: The Wasting)

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

In early 2006, while Rose Tyler and the Ninth Doctor were being escorted to 10 Downing Street, the Doctor asked Rose who the Prime Minister was. Rose responded that she had no way of knowing if the Prime Minister before Rose "missed a year" was still in office. By 2006, 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. (TV: Aliens of London) Jocrassa and his brothers were later killed by a missile strike on 10 Downing Street. (TV: World War Three)

Harriet Jones was appointed Prime Minister after the incident. (TV: Aliens of London) [1] 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. (TV: 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. (TV: Greeks Bearing Gifts)

Following the 2008 election, "Harold Saxon" (aka. the Saxon Master) was elected Prime Minister. 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. (TV: The Sound of Drums) The general public remembered him as having gone insane. (TV: The End of Time)

Following "Saxon", Aubrey Fairchild became Prime Minister. (PROSE: Beautiful Chaos) During the 2009 Dalek invasion of Earth the authorities, including Torchwood, lost contact with the Prime Minister's plane. (TV: The Stolen Earth)

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

In 2025, the Prime Minister was a woman. (AUDIO: 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. (AUDIO: The Time of the Daleks)

33rd century

Hawthorne, in the 33rd century, was the equivalent of a Prime Minister on Starship UK. (TV: 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. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Exodus)

In another alternative timeline, Melanie Bush became Prime Minister and 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. (PROSE: The Quantum Archangel)

In Pete's World, Britain had the office of President, and not Prime Minister. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen)

Main article: President of Great Britain

List of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom

Alternative timelines

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 TV: 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. The BBC Classic Doctor Who website claims that after a hung parliament in the 1970 election, Jeremy, i.e. Jeremy Thorpe became Prime Minister.
  • In the DVD commentary for Frontier in Space, Terrance Dicks says that the reference to the PM as female in TV: Terror of the Zygons was an ad-lib by Nicholas Courtney. The BBC Classic Who website 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 TV: The Stolen Earth or Journey's End, Prime Minister Fairchild was to have been exterminated by the Daleks at Westminster.
  • Harold Saxon's website refers to Harriet Jones as "[o]ne of my predecessors", indicating she wasn't the incumbent when Saxon became Prime Minister. [2]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ The mention was accidentally included in the first part of the story
  2. ↑ My Beliefs. Harold Saxon. Archived from the original on 13 March 2009. Retrieved on 27 July 2013.
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
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