A concise, sharp-witted and illuminating account of the lives of Britain's Prime Ministers from Walpole to May (and beyond), illustrated by Martin Rowson Gimson's Prime Ministers provides the perfect follow-up to Andrew Gimson's best-selling Gimson's Kings and Queens , offering acerbic and wonderfully funny portraits of the fifty-two men (and two women) who have led our government for the last three centuries. From Walpole to May (but possibly not for long.), Gimson elucidates with his trademark wit, brevity and brilliant eye for vivid detail the lives and times of the personalities who have shaped our modern political landscape. Discover the leaders who have risen to the top, outfought opponents, slipped in silently and upturned precept and principle, and unearth the enduring qualities that unite all prime ministers: courage, eloquence, hunger for power, acuity, respectability, financial mastery, the ability to distribute patronage (keep those colleagues happy), the capacity for hard work, a different style to the predecessor and of course. vulnerability, for a free people will not tolerate a tyrant, and soon enough needs a scapegoat for whatever has gone wrong. These are individuals who must be at once ordinary and extraordinary, conventional and innovative, safe and audacious, banal and brilliant, on the side of the wider public but able to form a team out of members of the elite. For the reader who has heard of such giants as Gladstone and Disraeli, and has drunk in a pub called the Palmerston, but has only the haziest idea of who these people were, Gimson's Prime Ministers offers a short account of them all which can be read for pleasure, and not just for edification. With Gimson's wonderful prose once again complemented by Martin Rowson's inimitable illustrations, this lively and entertaining aide-memoire and work of satirical genius brings our parliamentary history to life as never before.