Former prime ministers are much in demand in the lucrative lecture circuit that fetches them millions of pounds through events in the United States, Britain and elsewhere
One of the enigmatic Enoch Powell’s most famous lines is that ‘all political careers end in failure’. That’s not strictly true, but reflects the precarious nature of life in politics. He is also known for strong views on immigration, but every time a leading politician is in trouble or when a sitting prime minister leaves No 10, Downing Street, this quote is wheeled out by pundits in the British press.
Britain today has perhaps the largest number of living former prime ministers: eight. The club was joined last year by Rishi Sunak, who led the Conservative party to a major defeat in the general election, and was most recently spotted playing cricket in Mumbai and in the Jaipur Literature Festival. As is known, he has rather strong connections with India, through his parents’ family as well as his wife, Akshata Murty.
The eight living former prime ministers are: Sunak, Liz Truss, Boris Johnson, Theresa May, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and John Major. Three are below the age of 60: Sunak (44), Truss (49) and Cameron (58). It is significant that except Brown and Major, the other six former prime ministers and the current Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, studied at Oxford.
For every departing prime minister, leaving office is a wrenching moment by any reckoning: One day you have all the powers; the next day it’s all gone, including the house with the famous No 10 door. It is a convention that the departing prime minister makes a speech, which is invariably marked by poignancy: May broke down in tears as she ended her speech in July 2019, while others present a stoic and solemn picture as they end their term.
The transition to normality after leaving office can be tough. Gone are the staff, trappings of office and the use of Chequers, the prime minister’s country residence in Buckinghamshire. Former prime ministers get security and the use of an official car. May reached out to Cameron, Blair and Brown to discuss life after Downing Street. As Brown once put it, “You’re very tired so you sleep for a bit…It’s pretty dramatic. In Britain, when you go, you not only lose the title, but you lose the house overnight and any ability to present yourself as something.”
There is much interest in what former prime ministers do after leaving office. Freed from the strains and stresses of office, many have made creative uses of their time.
Sunak, who continues as a member of parliament, is taking up roles in the universities of Oxford and Stanford. He will join the Blavatnik School of Government in Oxford as a member of its World Leaders Circle and also take up a visiting fellowship at the Hoover Institution, a think-tank based at Stanford University in California. Sunak met Akshata when both were studying at Stanford.
Former prime ministers continuing as MPs in the House of Commons is not against the rules, but is considered inappropriate and awkward. Blair (2007) and Cameron (2016) resigned as MPs primarily because they did not want to prove a distraction to their successors, but Brown continued as MP for five years, so did Major and Margaret Thatcher. Cameron, now in the House of Lords, made a rare return to frontline politics as the foreign secretary in the Sunak government.
A favourite activity of former prime ministers is to write books; for example, Winston Churchill (A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, 4 volumes, 1956-58), James Callaghan (Time and Chance, 1987), Blair (A Journey, 2011), Brown (My Life, Our Times, 2017) and Cameron (For the Record, 2019).
Former prime ministers are much in demand in the lucrative lecture circuit that fetches them millions of pounds through events in the United States, Britain and elsewhere. Johnson, who was a controversial journalist before entering politics, has gone back to writing columns and books that fetch large fees and royalties.
Blair, who had a long run as the Labour prime minister from 1997 to 2007, set up the think-tank called the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change to advise foreign governments and institutions, and make interventions on policy issues in Britain. Brown is also active at the global level in the area of education and health.
May and Major are known for their love of cricket and can be spotted at Test matches at the Lord’s or the Oval. As prime minister, Major facilitated a cricket match during the 1991 Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Harare. He ended his last speech as prime minister in May 1997 by saying that he will not speak more because he and his wife Norma had to “get to the Oval in time for lunch and for some cricket this afternoon”.
Churchill, one of the most famous British prime ministers of the 20th century, remained as an MP for nine years after leaving Downing Street in 1955. He also focussed on creative pursuits such as writing books, painting and travelling. In 2014, one of his paintings, The Goldfish Pool at Chartwell, which he painted in 1932, sold for almost £1.8million at auction.
(Prasun Sonwalkar is a columnist and former academic.)
