Who is the best British prime minister of all time?

Fifty-odd people have held the job and the shortlist barely moves. Reformers, war leaders, and one who beat Napoleon before he ever took office.

1

Clement Attlee

Beat Churchill in 1945 and built the NHS, the welfare state and a nationalised industrial base.

1000pts

2

Winston Churchill

Prime minister twice, 1940–45 and 1951–55, and the only one to win a Nobel Prize in Literature.

750pts

3

Earl Grey

Carried the 1832 Reform Act and abolition of slavery in the British Empire — and got a tea named after him.

591pts

4

William Gladstone

Liberal giant who held the office four separate times across three decades.

577pts

5

Robert Peel

Founded the modern police force and split his own party to repeal the Corn Laws.

577pts

6

Harold Wilson

Won four elections, founded the Open University and kept Britain out of Vietnam.

577pts

7

Margaret Thatcher

Britain's first woman prime minister and its longest-serving of the 20th century.

500pts

8

David Lloyd George

Ran Britain through the last two years of the First World War and introduced the old-age pension.

500pts

9

Robert Walpole

Generally counted the first prime minister, and still the longest-serving at nearly 21 years.

300pts

10

Harold Macmillan

Presided over the late-1950s boom and told voters they had never had it so good.

300pts

11

Tony Blair

Won three consecutive general elections, a Labour record, before Iraq redefined his reputation.

167pts

12

The Younger Pitt

Prime minister at 24 and for nineteen years, through the wars with revolutionary France.

167pts

13

Benjamin Disraeli

Novelist turned premier who bought into the Suez Canal and made Victoria Empress of India.

167pts

14

Duke of Wellington

The only prime minister who had already beaten Napoleon before taking the job.

167pts