1976: Jim Callaghan (Labour)
1979: Ted Heath (Conservative) [1]
1983: Ted Heath (Conservative) [2]
1985: Jim Prior (Conservative) [3]
1988: Jim Prior (Conservative-SDP Confidence Deal) [4]
1992: Chris Patten (Conservative-SDP Confidence Deal)
1993: Chris Patten (Conservative) [5]
1998: Tony Blair (Labour) [6]
2003: Gordon Brown (Labour)
2003: Gordon Brown (Labour) [7]
2008: Edward Leigh (Reform) [8]
2011: Edward Leigh (Reform-Progressive Conservative Liberal Alliance) [9]
2015: Edward Leigh (Reform) [10]
2018: David Cameron (Reform)
[1] Heath wins 1979 in a landslide against Callaghan after surviving a challenge from the right-wing of the party in 1975; with Callaghan fatally weakened by the Winter of Discontent, Heath entered government for the second time - becoming the first Prime Minister to return non-consecutively to Downing Street since Ramsay MacDonald (in 1923 and 1929 respectively).
[2] In many ways victory in 1979 was a poisoned chalice, as while a Conservative victory had been seen by many as inevitable the dire domestic situation posed a hefty challenge to any prospective government. Heath attempted to swing the Exchequer away from direct taxation to indirect forms of revenue, with partial success, and having learnt from his previous government attempted to control the raging influences of the unions by court action and asset confiscation. Economic recovery, although steady, was slow. Ian Gilmour, the Chancellor, struggled to implement effective means to reduce unemployment and by the beginning of 1983 the government was struggling in the polls. However, despite these troubles the Opposition were also flailing; Labour remained divided between bitter factions, narrowly avoiding a total split in 1980 - partly due to the weakening of the Liberals following their own crises in the late-1970s. As a result Heath narrowly retained his majority, conceding that it would be his last election as Conservative leader (a post he had held since 1965). His last ministry would largely revolve around foreign policy - the controversial re-assessment of the Special Relationship, economic pressure on Argentina following the Beagle War (1982-1983) and, of course, further strengthening of Anglo-European ties.
[3] “From the Greengrocer to the Farmer”.
The last years of the “Grocer Heath” leadership were an extended farewell tour, both domestically and throughout the EEC. Then on Sunday July 28 1985, it finally happened. After 20 years as Leader of the Conservative Party and a combined decade as Prime Minister, Edward Heath resigned. Many expected the resulting leadership contest to be a non-event, as although Heath had “left the decision in the hands of my peers”, it was widely known that he had anointed his successor in Deputy Leader James Prior. However, a late stand from backbencher Airey Neave opened the doors to candidates from both the ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ factions of the party and Prior was pushed to the third ballot before he could make his way to Buckingham Palace. Prior followed largely in his predecessors international and economical footsteps, but attempted a more conciliatory approach with the unions, with some of the more hyperbolic political press comparing him to a combination of Australian Labor Bob Hawke and Canadian Progressive Conservative Brian Mulroney. However, only time would tell whether the premiership of “Farmer Jim” would bear fruit or he would need to be put out to an early pasture.
[4] For those who where sick of Heath, Jim Prior represented change although no actual change in policy occurred. While the self declared lead of the Tory right Norman Tebbit resigning the Tory Whip and encouraging all other “Browns” to do so, Prior and the “Blues” remained on top of them despite there small majority. When the 1988 Parliament was announced as a Hung one, Prior looked to the SDP and David Owen to break away from the Liberals in a confidence deal.
[5] Few people expected Jim Prior's SDP-Conservative pact to last anything like a full term. But Prior turned out to be surprisingly adept at managing the difficulties of coalition government. With the Tories having been in power for 9 years and with a major splinter party (Tebbit's 'National Conservatives') on the right, few people blamed him for losing the government's majority, and a short-lived leadership challenge by Norman Lamont came to nothing. He also received a major popularity boost when he sponsored the 1991 Maundy Thursday Agreement, a compromise brokered between unionists and nationalists in Northern Ireland that much lessened sectarianism. Prior, who confessed he was tired of politics, saw this as the capstone on his career and retired in 1992, when he was replaced by Chris Patten - who continued taking the Conservative Party down the Heath/Prior direction of a European social market economy together with elements of Christian Democracy, moderate social conservatism, and classic one-nation policies. Patten's relations with the Deputy Prime Minister David Owen remained harmonious, although the SDP was crashing in the polls after it had been forced to abandon its pledges for electoral reform as a condition of entering government. Come election day in 1993, Labour (now led by Jack Straw) was slightly ahead in the opinion polls, and most people expected Straw to become Prime Minister since the right-of-centre vote was split between Patten and Tebbit. But the polls were wrong - the Conservatives won the popular vote by 2% and outperformed this in marginals, taking many seats from their coalition partners (with Owen losing his own seat), and making a surprising number of gains in Scotland including two seats from Labour. Against all the odds, Patten had led the Tories to a majority of 10 - their fourth consecutive victory.
[6] By 1998, the Conservative government looked tired. Shortly following his defeat in 1993, Straw resigned and was succeeded by John Smith, who died two years later. The buck now passed to young Labourite, Tony Blair. Blair promised a 'New' Labour Party and a 'New Britain.' With the economic debacle of Black Friday tarnishing the Tories economic image, forcing Britain out of the ERM as well as the 1994 breakdown of the Maundy Thursday Agreement leading to renewed conflict in Northern Ireland, the country seemed ready for a change. Kicking the Tories centrist platform from underneath them by shifting the Labour Party to the centre and promising to rebuild the 'Special Relationship,' which he claimed the Tories had neglected, Blair won the popular vote: 42% to 32% and got Labour 400 seats in the House of Commons.
[7] Blair along with President Gore was able to restore the NI Assembly in 2000 leading to he and Gore winning the Nobel Peace price. The exit from the ERM in the early 90's cast a long shadow over Blair's premiership. He secretly wished for the UK to re-enter the mechanism but was warned by his left wing deputy John Prescott that that would destroy the party. In 2001 the USA was rocked to its core by the destruction of the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and the White House where President Gore was killed. Blair along with new president Lieberman invaded Afghanistan leading to the death of Bin Laden in November 2001. In early 2003 Blair was rushed to hospital with a heart attack. Although he survived he suffered long term heart damage and resigned as PM. Chancellor Brown saw off a weak challenge from Jeremy Corbyn to win the leadership and Premiership.
[8] Never has a Prime Minister made a more grievous mistake than Gordon Brown in failing to call an election in May 2007. His approval ratings and favourability as 'preferred Prime Minister' were sky-high, as he seemed a welcome and refreshing contrast with the flashier Blair; but his personal favourability did not translate into a huge lead for Labour in the opinion polls, with them averaging a consistent but slim 3% lead. The Afghanistan War, which had degenerated into a stalemate as the forces tried to put down guerilla insurrections, was dragging down Labour's ratings, and Brown gambled that delaying for another year would be more likely to guarantee Labour's re-election. But by 2008 the subprime mortgage crisis had begun to bite hard, and Labour, fairly or not, was getting much of the blame for Britain crashing into recession. By the middle of the year Labour's five-year mandate had run out and Brown was forced to call an election in an unfavourable political climate. As for the Conservatives, now led by Liam Fox, they had been hampered in the last two elections by the National Conservative Party, now led by John Redwood; although the NatCons were in decline and only had a dozen seats, they took valuable votes from the Conservatives in marginal seats. Consequently, in 2006 National Conservative Deputy Leader Nigel Farage reached out to the Conservative leadership, and the two parties organised a joint conference. The upshot of this was that the two right-of-centre parties reunited under the moniker of the Reform Party, adopting a new, Eurosceptic manifesto and selecting as their leader Edward Leigh, a veteran Eurosceptic rebel acceptable to the right who had nonetheless remained in the official Conservative Party instead of defecting to Tebbit's NatCon splinter group. Detractors claimed that Leigh was too right-wing, and three Conservative shadow cabinet members, Kenneth Clarke, Stephen Dorrell and Bill Newton Dunn, resigned from the party in protest and formed a new Progressive Conservative party which entered into an electoral pact with the Liberal Party. But despite this, Labour's unpopularity in 2008 was such that Leigh was able to win 38% of the vote in the general election and secure a thirty-seat majority. He appointed Redwood as Chancellor, Fox as Home Secretary, and David Cameron as Foreign Secretary.
[9] The unofficial ABC of the Government's Manifesto; ‘Austerity Now, Britain First, Conservatism Forever’ could easily stand for the economic, international and domestic policy of the ‘Reform Experiment’. The results of that experiment were still being vigorously debated when, not wanting to repeat the previous mistake of Labour, an early election was called. Results were both expected but shocking. Labour, perhaps as united as they had been in a generation under a new pragmatic Leader, managed to rebound from their previous disappointing result, but still failed to achieve a majority. They attempted to form a coalition with the PCLA (who had made up small but significant ground, led by a charismatic and pro-Europe Leader), until Leigh using his privileges as sitting PM, highlighted their common roots and made sweeping concessions on all aspects (most importantly the international) of the Reform platform. The Sun’s headline of “Not Tonight Darling!” over the dejected face of the Labour Leader became an iconic image, but the question was - what would the next stage of the Experiment be, now that such new variables had entered the mix?
[10] The 2015 election is seen as one of the biggest turning points in British Political History. The Liberal Party, which had twice been betrayed in a pact in favour of propping up the Tories, lost all parliamentary representation and voted to dissolve soon after and encouraged all members to join the Progressive Tories. Labour was criticised for not exploiting the Tories’ divisions and in the end both there leader (Chuka Ummuna) and Shadow Chancellor (Ed Balls) lost there seats. Edward Leigh was able to restore his majority against all the odds. The 2016 EU membership Referendum would see Britain vote with 58% to leave the EU, with Article 50 being triggered 4 months later. After securing a deal with the EU, Leigh resigned on the night that Britain left, stating he had done what he had set out to do. Despite being an opportunist, Redwood declined to stand for Reform Leadership feeling his time had come, but added he would continue to serve on the frontbenches. Fox was viewed as far too divisive, still blamed for the collapse of the Conservative Party and chose no to run. In the end, the Eurosceptic Foreign Secretary David Cameron ran and easily crushed his opponent.
[Edit: Sorry I was in a rush. Feel free to add to my paragraph]