They might have become PM, but you've probably never heard of them
Not the obvious alternate PMs, Rab Butler, Roy Jenkins, Denis Healey, Michael Portillo, David Miliband etc....
I'm talking about men and women who didn't serve as party leaders, or hold one of the Great Offices of state, but who were expected to achieve great things and simply faded into relative obscurity.
For example, in Tam Dalyell began his obituary of Patrick Jenkin with this:
Had any Labour Member of Parliament in the 1964-66 session been asked “If there is a Tory government in the 1980s or 1990s, who would you think would be the Prime Minister?” most of us would have said Christopher Chataway, Terence Higgins, Geoffrey Howe or – most likely – Patrick Jenkin. It would not have occurred to us to opt for the former Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions, Margaret Thatcher: and 10 years would go by before John Major would even be elected to the Commons.
Of the four men mentioned only Howe and Jenkin made cabinet. Chataway lost his seat in 1966, served as Leader of the ILEA for two years before returning to parliament and serving as a minister in the Heath govt. He left politics at the October 1974 election, aged just 43.
Higgins served as a junior treasury minister in the Heath government, before returning to the backbenches and making his name on parliamentary select committees, he stood down from parliament in 1997. He is still alive, aged 92.
Another example would be Alf Robens, a senior figure on the Labour frontbench in the 1950s. He resigned from politics when offered the Chairmanship of the National Coal Board by Harold Macmillan, and subsequently had his name blackened by the Aberfan tragedy. Had he remained in politics he would almost certainly have achieved high office in the 1964 Labour government, and might have defeated Wilson/Brown the 1963 leadership election.
What are other examples of figures who might well have achieved high (or the highest) office, only to fade into obscurity?
Not the obvious alternate PMs, Rab Butler, Roy Jenkins, Denis Healey, Michael Portillo, David Miliband etc....
I'm talking about men and women who didn't serve as party leaders, or hold one of the Great Offices of state, but who were expected to achieve great things and simply faded into relative obscurity.
For example, in Tam Dalyell began his obituary of Patrick Jenkin with this:
Had any Labour Member of Parliament in the 1964-66 session been asked “If there is a Tory government in the 1980s or 1990s, who would you think would be the Prime Minister?” most of us would have said Christopher Chataway, Terence Higgins, Geoffrey Howe or – most likely – Patrick Jenkin. It would not have occurred to us to opt for the former Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions, Margaret Thatcher: and 10 years would go by before John Major would even be elected to the Commons.
Of the four men mentioned only Howe and Jenkin made cabinet. Chataway lost his seat in 1966, served as Leader of the ILEA for two years before returning to parliament and serving as a minister in the Heath govt. He left politics at the October 1974 election, aged just 43.
Higgins served as a junior treasury minister in the Heath government, before returning to the backbenches and making his name on parliamentary select committees, he stood down from parliament in 1997. He is still alive, aged 92.
Another example would be Alf Robens, a senior figure on the Labour frontbench in the 1950s. He resigned from politics when offered the Chairmanship of the National Coal Board by Harold Macmillan, and subsequently had his name blackened by the Aberfan tragedy. Had he remained in politics he would almost certainly have achieved high office in the 1964 Labour government, and might have defeated Wilson/Brown the 1963 leadership election.
What are other examples of figures who might well have achieved high (or the highest) office, only to fade into obscurity?
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