Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

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 or group of parties 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 1990s-2000s 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)

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. (AUDIO: Upstairs)

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

John Major served as Prime Minister before Tony Blair. (PROSE: Interference - Book One)

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. Lord Greyhaven would serve as a de facto Prime Minister under Xnaal's dictatorship for the next few weeks. (PROSE: The Dying Days)

Terry Brooks was Prime Minister in 1999. He came to power by making promises about social programmes and education which the UK couldn't afford to do. In order to get out of this, he worked with the Voracians to cause a Y2K crisis, then frame General Randall for doing it for an attempted coup and cut funding for the armed forces, freeing money for his reform plans. While the UK was crippled by Y2K on January 1 2000, his plot was exposed and his career ruined. (PROSE: Millennium Shock)

21st century

In the 2002 general election, it seemed likely that Sherilyn Harper of the far-right New Britannia Party would become Prime Minister. Her plans to fake a terror campaign were exposed and the party's chances collapsed. (AUDIO: The Fearmonger)

Tony Blair was Prime Minister some time before 2006. Rose referred to him lying about foreign weapons of mass destruction. (TV: World War Three, Rise of the Cybermen) According to the Eighth Doctor, Blair was succeeded by Kenneth Clarke. (PROSE: Interference - Book One)

An early 21st-century 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) This Prime Minister was close to his Deputy Prime Minister, Meena Cartwright, who was assassinated by ICIS. (AUDIO: The Longest Night)

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) 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) Among all ex-Prime Ministers, Saxon was on file by UNIT, who noted him as one of the Master's incursions. This was revealed to the Twelfth Doctor by Osgood when the Master returned in a female incarnation, "Missy", commenting that 'she wasn't even the worst.' (TV: Death in Heaven)

Following "Saxon", Aubrey Fairchild became Prime Minister. The Doctor was unaware of who he was and remarked he "clearly makes no impression on history". (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 2014, the Prime Minister was a man. He was speaking at the House of Commons prior to August of the same year when a Kharitite rampaged the building, feeding on the negative emotions. The Prime Minister was traumatised by the incident, leaving him only able to speak in simple, childlike sentences. Paramedics came to his aid after the Eleventh Doctor took away the Kharitite, but all he could say was, "I want my beddy now." (COMIC: After Life)

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)

Harriet Jones was meant to serve three terms in the regular timeline (TV: World War Three).

In both "Inferno Earth" and Pete's World, Britain were republics and a President was head of the government. (TV: Inferno, Rise of the Cybermen)

Main article: President of Great Britain

Behind the scenes

Political references

• Stories that have been written or came out in an election year have used sleight of hand to avoid mentioning who won: The Dying Days (1997) just mentions the Prime Minister's gender, Aliens of London (2005 but set in 2006) has Rose unaware who won because she was time-travelling.
• 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 The Green Death was a joke by the production team, implying the Liberal Party led by Jeremy Thorpe would win the contemporary general election (they didn't); 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.)
• The Labour government of 1997 made promises of increased social spending that were delayed (due to their budget plan). Terry Brooks in Millenium Shock is a reference to this, with the same name (and sound) as the then-PM Tony Blair.
• The New Britannia Party in The Fearmonger is a Who version of the far-right British National Party.
• In World War Three, Harriet Jones says she was not one of "the babes": a reference to the term "Blair's Babes". This would indicate the PM at the time (and Jones) was Labour, who did indeed win in 2005.
• The PM in After Life goes unnamed, but his speech is similar to contemporary speeches by David Cameron and the art depicts him as an older, pudgier Cameron with glasses.

Production

• In the DVD commentary for Frontier in Space, Terrance Dicks says that the reference to the PM as female in Terror of the Zygons was an ad-lib by Nicholas Courtney. Tie-in books would make Shirley Williams into a Prime Minister to cover this (she was never party leader in real life).
• The Fearmonger assumed that Tony Blair's government would wait a full term (1997 to 2002) before holding an election. Instead, it held it in 2001.
• According to Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale, originally in The Stolen Earth or Journey's End, Prime Minister Fairchild was to have been exterminated by the Daleks at Westminster.
• As writers like to refer to and use real Prime Ministers, predict future Prime Ministers, and make up fake ones (especially for stories that want to use a modern-day Prime Minister), there are a large number of them from Thorpe to Green and the fiction tends to clash. This can be seen with the Eighth Doctor giving a specific list of PMs in Interference - Book One which has since been contradicted. (Luckily, there's no clashing term limit issues unlike with US Presidents in Doctor Who!)
  • The Ninth Doctor refers to Harriet Jones as serving three terms as "Britain's Golden Age", while the Tenth Doctor collapses her government: explicitly changing the timeline. This means at least some Prime Ministers aren't fixed points in time and can be altered.

Errors

• Committee chairmen are not ministers, so Joseph Green could not have been the highest-ranking member of government and made acting Prime Minister (even if he happened to be central London at the time).

• Harold Saxon was directly elected, which is not how Prime Ministers are appointed. This mistake is repeated when Wilfred Mott claims that he voted for Harriet Jones. (TV: The Stolen Earth)

BBC websites and tie-in books

• The Doctor: His Lives and Times has Harriet Jones's party collapse once she'd been deposed from office.
• It's never said what party, if any, Harold Saxon was part of. The Harold Saxon website says he's leading a coalition government of defected Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat, and Scottish National Party members.
• Saxon's website refers to Harriet Jones as "[o]ne of my predecessors", indicating she wasn't the incumbent when Saxon became Prime Minister.
• The "Party Politics" page on the Classic Who site has a hung parliament in 1970 an Thorpe coming to power as head of a coalition government, the direct result of alien attacks in the 1960s: "conflicting Tory and Socialist policies towards the alien menace drive many voters towards the Liberals and fringe parties." The invasions of the Pertwee era, as well as "the Government's involvement in the Axonite scandal (The Claws of Axos) and the Operation Golden Age fiasco, which included high ranking figures in the conspiracy", cause the government to collapse in early 1973. Shirley Williams leads the Labour Party back to power. [

Other

• In one timeline, Tony Blair oversaw the defeat of the Canisian invasion. (NOTDWU: Death Comes to Time)

Footnotes