Dear Blogger
Answers to the State Craft Quiz earlier this week.
Bonar Law was the first British Prime Minister to be born outside of the UK in the then British colony of New Brunswick, now Canada.
Hugh Gaitskell. Labour leader from December 1955 he battled to rid the party of Clause lV which committed the party to nationalisation, was opposed to Suez, unilateral disarmament and British entry to the EEC. He died in 1963 aged 56 of complications from Flu following a visit to the Soviet Union which spawned many conspiracy theories.
Harold Wilson had a holiday home in the Scilly Isles. He nearly drowned, aged 57, in 1973 having fallen out of his boat. Six months later he became Prime Minister again.
Canada. He was Liberal leader and PM three times up to 1948.
Novelist John Buchan who was famous for The Thirty Nine Steps made into many film adaptions.
Australia. He founded the Liberal Party and served two terms as Prime Minster 1939-41 and 1949-1966.
Sirimavo Bandaranaike became Prime Minister of Ceylon, later Sri Lanka, and served three terms.
Gamal Abdel Nasser. The monarchy was abolished in 1953 but Nasser only became second President in 1956.
Umberto 11 who reigned for just 34 days in 1946 giving him the nickname the May King. His father King Victor Emmanuel 111 stepped aside hoping that this would neutralise the referendum abolishing the monarchy which was already in preparation.
Alexander 111 - he died of terminal kidney disease. His father had been assassinated which fate also attended his son Tsar Nicholas 11.
Theodore Roosevelt Jnr 26th President 1901-1909. An early conservationist he was most proud of the creation of National Parks. His nickname was Teddy and his face is carved into the rocks at Mount Rushmore. He was distantly related to FD Roosevelt.
Alec Douglas-Home, PM October 1963-October 1964. Born in Mayfair in the same house where Barbara Cartland he had various titles throughout his life but renounced his earldom when he became PM.
This was allegedly said by the mercurial David Loyd-George earlier in his career rather than Winston Churchill who had rather stronger criticism of Chamberlain's appeasement policy.
George Lansbury, whose daughter is Angela Lansbury. Lansbury operated in a period of political turbulence. Widely regarded as a man of principal a postwar Polar housing estate is named after him.
Jeremy Thorpe. Credited with a revival in Liberal fortunes at the ballot box, Thorpe's political career rose to great heights only to be dashed by scandal in the manner of a Greek tragedy.
