Can you name the Leaders of the UK Conservative Party?

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Leaders of the UK Conservative Party Quiz

by BenUK

Created Mar 11, 2009 in History
Featured Mar 11, 2009
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	johnlk:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 05:05 GMT		3 points
	Disappointing there's no pre-1922 leaders

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	Esteban:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 05:33 GMT		-3 points
	Oh boy, politics

	Esteban:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 05:35 GMT		20 points
	Also, isn't it Andrew Bonar Law?

	davidr:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 08:35 GMT		9 points
	This is rather easier than the Labour one, since every one of the pre-1997 leaders was Prime Minister and the post-1997 ones are recent enough to remember.

	davidr:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 08:37 GMT		8 points
	Technically, `Smith' shouldn't be accepted, since Iain Duncan Smith's surname is `Duncan Smith'. It's an un-hyphenated double-barrelled name.

	davebesag:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 09:38 GMT		5 points
	As has been pointed out the same applies to Bonar Law. In my view Law and Smith are wrong, shouldn't be accepted and be corrected to requiring Bonar Law and Douglas Smith. Home is different as he became Earl Home.

	greekmike:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 13:21 GMT		-2 points
	I only got the three big ones ... well, big in the sense that most U.S. students should come across them in a World History class.

	johnlk:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 13:41 GMT		0 points
	I don't think "Bonar" is technically part of Bonar Law's surname - I think it's acceptable (if a bit unusual) to call him "Law." But someone can perhaps correct me.

	gopaladins:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 13:52 GMT		-3 points
	i'm american and don't know jack about UK politics, but i got 10/14 because of the PMs quiz. can someone british explain to me why everyone through major became PM and no one after??? teach me.

	delToro87:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 14:08 GMT		1 point
	Its mainly because pre 1979, governments changed more frequently than they have done recently, when the Conservatives were in power from 1979-1997, and Labour have been in power since then. Also, added to that the increasing impatience to get results, so leaders like Hague and Howard felt they should resign rather than fight on, and Duncan Smith being forced out because of his low poll ratings.

	RobH:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 14:12 GMT		6 points
	@ gopaladins. Major, the PM after Thatcher, lost the 1997 election in a landslide against Tony Blair's New Labour. Hague took over and ran a farcical campaign against the Euro currency in the 2001 election in which Labour again trounced the Tories. Iain Duncan Smith took over, never really got control of the party which was in disarray and was replaced by Michael Howard before the 2005 election. Whilst the Tories made quite big gains in that election they still lost to Labour and Cameron took over afterwards. Odds on he'll be the next PM in this country. I guess before the 60s and 70s the Tories didn't change leader every time they lost an election. Politics seems a lot more fickle these days. Furthermore, this is the longest sustained period of Labour governence in this country ever and the last ten to fifteen years have seen the Tories at their weakest for many, many decades.

	jism:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 14:14 GMT		8 points
	Sorry to lower the tone in a serious quiz. But did anyone else laugh at "Bonar"?

	RobH:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 14:15 GMT		19 points
	@Worker and Parasite. No, but we all had a good laugh at Iain Duncan Smith.

	weizenugb:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 14:38 GMT		3 points
	When in doubt, guess Smith on a quiz that has to do with Britain.

	JamesJamesClub:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 15:07 GMT		4 points
	@ gopaladins There have been 20 General Elections between 1922 and 1992 the Tories formed a governments after 12 of these. Of the 8 Governments that Labour formed half of them lasted less than 2 years (1923, 1950, 1964, 1974 Feb). So basically the Conservatives had long been the most sucessful party over most of the 20th Century. One reason for this (besides the arguement that they often ran on populist policies in a centre right nation) is that in 1900 elections there were only two main Parties: Conservatives and Liberals. They had been fighting elections for well over a century. At the start of the 20th Century Labour began to replace Liberals as the party of the left. So by the 1920s and 1930s the 'left of centre' faction of British politics was split with Labour slowly becoming the alternative party to the Conservatives and the Liberals slowly declining. The Conservatives were the only party of the centre right locked up that vote and appeared more stable than the alternatives. They also were more comfortable with ideological splits and were a much broader party, comfortably spanning the centre ground as well as the right, in comparrison Labour looked more 'extremeist'. Between 1940 and 1997 the average length of a Conservative Leader's time in the role was 8.5 years (a statistic dragged down by Eden and Douglas Home) so it was likely you would become PM if stuck around long enough. The reason we've seen 3 Conservative Leaders recently and not one become PM is because in the 1980s the Labour Party drifted to the far left and became unelectable. This allowed the Conservatives to drift further to the right and left the centre ground. Tony Blair revolutionised the Labour party in 1994 and brought it to the centre and in the 1997, 2001, 2005 elections it still managed to occupy the centre ground while the right was less mainstream. Esentially the Conservatives made Labour seem extreme through much of post war British Politics. Since 1994 Labour has done well at making the Conservatives look extreme. Although the Conservatives look likely to win the next election.

	gopaladins:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 16:15 GMT		5 points
	wow. i'm glad sporcle has so many british political scientists on the boards. this really has been interesting. thanks to everyone who weighed in. i'm curious about how these leaders come about. are party leaders chosen in a general election? how often? how does a party leader become PM, a vote amongst the house of commons? i think i learned in school that a PM could hold an election whenever he/she wants to, as long as it's done once every six years. is that still the case?

	JamesJamesClub:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 17:03 GMT		8 points
	Party's elect their leaders. Leaders are always Members of the House of Commons. Usually they are prominent members of the cabinent or shadow (opposistion/minority party) cabinent though some backbenchers do run but its often the case they are seen as not having the right experience or are seen as outside the mainstream of the party. Different Parties elect their leaders in different ways but there are no fixed terms. A new election of a leader happens when a current leader resigns or dies or an challenger gets enough support from their party to trigger a leadership election. When Tony Blair stepped down so much of the Parliamentry Labour Party (Labour MPs) supported Gordon Brown that the left wing candidate John Macdonnel was unable to stand because he didn't have the level of support high enough. Macdonnel needed to be nominated by 12.5% of the MPs and only got about 8% so an election thrown open to the wider party never happened. If you are the leader of the party that currently has the majority of MPs in the Commons you automatically become the PM (like Brown in 2007 and Major in 1990). If you become the leader of the party who is in the minority than your become leader of the opposition (or leader of a third party such as the Liberal Democrats who have around 60 MPs) Unless they die, resign or are sucessfully challegned by someone in their own party then they lead their party into the next election. If they retain the majority they stay PM (such as Major in 1992). If they achieve a majority after having been previously in the minority they then the leader becomes the next PM and forms the next government (such as Blair as 1997). Sucess in the general election doesn't affect you being leader. Neil Kinnock leader the Labour Part from 1984-1992 even though he lost the 1987 election to Margaret Thatcher. Conversely Thatcher's wins in 1979, 1983 and 1987 didn't stop her being challenged in 1990 by Michael Heseltine. The PM decides when to hold an election though it must be once every 5 years. Often they will try to hold it whenever they current governing party will do best although unpopular governments often wait out the full 5 years only to be swept out of power at the end of them.

	PresidentJSC:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 17:07 GMT		3 points
	Despite being a supporter of Labour I got all of these and only around 8 of the Labour leaders first time. Apart from Wilson the Tories basically controlled the country from 1951-1997.

	jesus:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 17:54 GMT		9 points
	David Cameron is a prick and will ruin this country

	lulubelles:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 18:18 GMT		1 point
	Basically Gopladins the Tories brought the NHS almost to its knees and everyone was sick of its elitist attitude - though i must say it seems a bit better now, they realised how much everyone hated them so they softened up a bit (with 'dave' cameron trying to be cool)

	jereboam:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 18:27 GMT		4 points
	@jamesjamesclub: I seem to recall that, before Edward Heath, Tory party leaders "emerged", and were not actually elected. I mean, how likely is it that the 14th Earl of Home would have actually been "elected"?

	gopaladins:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 18:27 GMT		5 points
	ok that makes sense. so i'm assuming these elections (at least) every 5 years are general elections. is this right: so each party (liberal, conservative, labour) has their leader (decided by MPs of each party) and then the general public votes from amongst the three of them at election time? doesn't sound entirely different from the US, except the general public technically picks party leaders also. and we pretty much have a two-party system (with an occasional third screwing things up). what is voting age in the UK? is the conservative party akin to the US republican party, and is labour most similar to the democrats? sorry about all these questions.

	aaron:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 18:53 GMT		-1 points
	@God, Cameron "will ruin this country". He may not get the chance as Brown is doing a very good job of that.

	RobH:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 19:08 GMT		6 points
	@gopaladins. Essentially yes. However, the Republicans are much further right than either the Conservatives or Labour. Whilst you could say there is a Republican/Tory, Democrat/Labour equivalence, the truth is that on the political spectrum our right-wing mainstream party (the Conservatives) is probably quite similar to your "left-wing" mainstream party (the Democrats). What you'd call left-wing, we'd probably call the centre of centre-right. The Conservatives would never-ever, for example, outlaw stem-cell research as the Republicans did, or deny global warming for years as Bush did, or take a staunchly pro-life position as many Republicans do or ban Gay marriage as I believe Palin proposed. Whilst the two party thing exists in both countries America is a leap to the right of us and the overlap, if there is any, probably comes between the Tories and the Democrats, not the Tories and the Republicans.

	RobH:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 19:26 GMT		4 points
	@gopaladins. In the UK we vote for an MP who represents a party and the party with the most MPs wins the election and their leader is Prime Minister. We obviously don't vote on our head of state (the Queen) whilst you do. Whilst practically there may few differences between the thought processes of someone voting Cameron here and someone voting Obama in the US, over here the Cameron voter isn't really voting for Cameron but their local Conservative MP (Cameron's name would not be on the ballot paper). http://farm1.static.flickr.com/8/12488890_6e65999f85.jpg?v=0

	gopaladins:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 20:39 GMT		3 points
	interesting. this makes it even more unbelievable that blair and bush seemed to get along (was that only because of national security?) but makes it more understandable why his party seemed to hate him. so, the only people putting cameron on their ballot are voters in his...what, county? district? hamlet? i wonder who would be president right now if the american public only voted on representatives in congress (and the majority party's leader just became president). it would probably be either obama or hilary clinton, since democrats have control. do you brits ever wish you could cast a vote for PM?

	davidr:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 20:57 GMT		5 points
	@gopaladins: Yes, the only people who can vote directly for Cameron are the people in his constituency, which is Witney, near Oxford. If they don't vote him into parliament at the next election, the Conservatives will have to choose a new leader. `Constituency' is the British term for `district'. Constituencies typically have about 100,000 people living in them so many urban constituencies are subdivisions of large cities, while many rural constituencies contain several small towns (as Witney does). In practice, in a general election, most people vote for Party X's candidate for their constituency because they want Party X's leader to be Prime Minister. To be honest, if your own constituency MP is the Prime Minister, you've drawn the short straw. It's your MP's job to raise issues relevant to your constituency in parliament but the Prime Minister's too busy running the whole country to have any time to worry about your hospital or whatever.

	MissInformed:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 21:05 GMT		6 points
	> RobH: The Conservatives would never-ever, for example...ban Gay marriage. I wouldn't be so sure about that. They brought in the infamous anti-gay Clause 28 in the 80s, repeatedly voted against the equalisation of the age of consent (especially in the House of Lords) in the 90s, and were pretty hostile to Labour bringing in civil partnerships too, as I recall. Agree about the rest of it, though.

	davidr:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 21:06 GMT		3 points
	@johnlk: Correct. His surname was Law and his given names were Andrew and Bonar; he used `Bonar' most often. As such, he is referred to as `Andrew Bonar Law', `Bonar Law' or `Law' or `Mr Law' but not `Andrew Law' or `Mr Bonar Law'.

	davidr:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 21:13 GMT		4 points
	@Dave B.: Alec Douglas-Home's situation is complicated. He was an MP but came to the peerage as the Earl Home when his father died. However, when he became leader of the Conservative Party, he renounced his peerage and was re-elected to parliament in a bye-election. The Conservatives lost the next general election and he later returned to the House of Lords as a life peer (i.e., a non-hereditary peerage).

	davidr:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 21:26 GMT		5 points
	@RobH: The UK have a two-party thing? The current composition of the House of Commons is 352 Labour MPs (54%), 195 Conservative (30%), 63 Liberal Democrats (10%) and 36 others (6%), out of 646. The US House of Representatives consists entirely of Democrats and Republicans (plus three currently vacant seats); the Senate has two independents out of 100 seats (plus one currently vacant).

	RobH:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 21:37 GMT		5 points
	@davidr. I know, I know, I know. For the purpouses of explaining our political system to our American friend I simplified things somewhat! There are, to all intents and purpouses, only really two parties with a chance of government though; although our third party is of course sizable.

	RobH:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 21:41 GMT		2 points
	@Missinformed. The Tories were a different animal in the 80s to what they are now - whether that change is genuine or only skin deep is perhaps more questionable. I can't see them doing substantial damage to Gay Rights as they would have done twenty years ago and my general point about the difference between them and the American GOP still holds. The mainstream party for conservative (with a small c) voters in the US is a fair amount further right than our Tory party which is the natural base for right-wingers here.

	davidr:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 22:05 GMT		4 points
	@RobH: I agree that the Lib Dems have little chance of forming a government in the near future, except perhaps as part coalition after an election in which neither Labour nor the Conservatives won a majority of the seats.

	RobH:	Mar 11th, 2009 at 23:32 GMT		1 point
	@everybody...Although I've spent some time explaining all this I'm also someone who tried typing "Hume" three or four times into this quiz before giving up on that answer, so don't mistake me for some kind of political scientist!

	davidr:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 01:01 GMT		3 points
	@RobH: I have the opposite problem. I can spell it but keep having to hit myself for pronouncing it to rhyme with `Rome'. Thankfully, I don't have to say his name very often at all.

	JamesJamesClub:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 09:56 GMT		3 points
	@gopaladins re: only voters in his district electing Cameron. Its much like Nancy Pelosi. She is the speaker of the house but is only 'elected' by voters in San Francisco. But of course she is then elected by the Democratic caucus in the house. Similar system to how we do things here except the PM is obviously much more powerful than the speaker of the house.

	JamesJamesClub:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 10:07 GMT		4 points
	@MissInformed The Conservatives have completely reformed on this issue. One of the best (and probably longest lasting) reform Labour made was to encoruage social inclusion. Right now there are more gay MPs in the Conservative shadow cabinent than there are in the Labour Cabinet. Alan Duncan, Shadow Leader of the House and Shadow Cabinent member since 2005 entered into a civil partnership with a man in the summer of 2008. I'd like to see John Boehner do the same! A small government, right of centre party SHOULD be saying it doesn't matter what two people do in private. They should be saying government should have no involvement in a person's marriage. Republicans say government interferes too much and then they organise to legislate a definition for love. Alan Duncan's libertarian political views on gay marriage in my opinion are far more consistent. But perhaps this isn't the place.

	gopaladins:	Mar 12th, 2009 at 15:28 GMT		3 points
	you brits clearly know far more about american politics than i know about UK politics, and for that i respect you. it even seems like you might know more about US politics than I do, and for that i am ashamed. more questions! does the house of lords have just as much decision-making power as the house of commons? and are their members also affiliated with labour/conservative/lib-dems? is there a "lord" for every constituency the same as there is an MP? how often does the UK reform/redraw constituencies? in the US, districts are screwed with after every 10-year census, i'm pretty sure.