Winston Churchill

Churchill's war ministry of 1940 to 1945 was a genuine all-party coalition, and its domestic success rested on handing Labour real power: Attlee as deputy running the home front, Ernest Bevin mobilising labour, and the Beveridge Report commissioned along the way. Churchill was a difficult colleague who often bypassed cabinet, but he kept the arrangement intact for five years under extreme pressure. The coalition also laid much of the groundwork for the post-war welfare state that Labour then built without him.