The prime ministers who never were

'It has long been said that the largest political club is that of ex future Prime Ministers to which Francis Beckett has nominated fourteen of us in this book.

We know what really happened in the years we might have held office, but that was scarcely more likely that what might have been, and these speculations are perhaps more than just fun.

They may be food for thought.' NORMAN TEBBIT Each of these chapters in this book of political counterfactuals describes a premiership that never happened, but might easily have done had the chips fallen slightly differently. The contributors, each of them experts in political history, have asked themselves questions like: what shape would the welfare state and the cold war have taken if the Prime Minister had been Herbert Morrison instead of Clement Attlee?

What would have been consequences for Northern Ireland had Norman Tebbit succeeded Margaret Thatcher?

How would our present life be different without New Labour - a name we would never have heard if either Kinnock or Smith had become Prime Minister and not Tony Blair?

Each of the chapters in this book describes events that really might have happened. And almost did.