Christmas may be the most wonderful time of the year – but not for some of Britain’s prime ministers over the course of history.
From wars, to economic crises, and health issues – there has been no shortage of challenges facing the occupant of 10 Downing Street over Christmases past.
A listener to our Electoral Dysfunction podcast, Phil, sent in a question for today’s Q&A episode, asking which prime minister in history had the worst Christmas Day.
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We asked historian Dan Snow to comb back through the history books to find out.
Lord North, who served as prime minister from 1770 to 1782, “received the crushing news of terrible defeat at Yorktown in late November 1781” in the American Revolutionary War, Snow explained.
“‘Oh God, it’s all over’, he moaned, and for once he was right,” Snow said.
“Those 13 American colonies were gone – that was a miserable Christmas. He spent it looking for a lifeline or a wise man, he found neither.
“In February he admitted defeat, and he was out of office within weeks.”
Another contender for the PM who had the worst Christmas is Prime Minister Goderich in December 1827, according to Snow.
It was said he was “quite unnerved and in a most pitiful state”, the historian added.
“He had a political meltdown going on, his wife had a profound mental health crisis,” Snow went on.
When Goderich resigned in January 1828, he was crying so much that the King “lent him a hanky”.
“He only served 144 days, one of the shortest prime ministerial tenures, a record recently broken to general acclaim,” Snow added.
Moving into the 20th century, Snow said: “Stanley Baldwin decided to call an early general election in December 1923. He decided he was going to introduce tariffs, he wanted a mandate. He thought they would fire up an economic recovery.
“Imagine that, it didn’t work out. He lost his comfortable majority. He tried to get his agenda through parliament in January – he lost and resigned.”
“Now the man who dominates the field of disappointing Christmases was, well, dominant in so many other fields – we’re talking Winston Churchill,” Snow said.
Snow said Sir Winston “accidentally flashed” US President Franklin D Roosevelt in December 1941 – referring to when the American leader apparently walked in on him naked during a White House visit.
The historian also said Sir Winston “seems to have had a series of heart attacks over Christmas”.
Sir Winston’s successor as Conservative prime minister, Anthony Eden, lied to parliament on 20 December 1956 in relation to the Suez crisis.
“He was full of opiates and amphetamines, if that’s any excuse,” Snow said.
“He was wracked by fever over Christmas and resigned for health reasons, and ‘everyone conspiring against him’ reasons on 9 January.”
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And in the 21st century, Gordon Brown’s Christmas in 2008 was far from merry as he was “trying to stabilise the financial system – and his parliamentary majority”, Snow said.
The prime minister woke up on Boxing Day to a Daily Mail headline that read: “New plot to oust Gordon Brown”.
“He later said, it was a rocky time. When isn’t it? Poor things,” Snow added.
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