Items24The creator’s order
  1. 1Robert PeelRobert PeelBorn 5 Feb 1788Peel's Tamworth Manifesto of 1834 is often called the founding document of the modern Conservative Party: it accepted the 1832 Reform Act and promised careful reform rather than resistance. Twelve years later he repealed the Corn Laws with opposition votes, splitting his party in two. The Peelites…0i
  2. 2Benjamin DisraeliBenjamin DisraeliBorn 21 Dec 1804Having led the revolt against Peel, Disraeli rebuilt the Conservatives as a party that could win urban working-class votes. He passed the 1867 Reform Act, which roughly doubled the electorate, set up Conservative Central Office and the National Union of local associations, and in his 1874…0i
  3. 3Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. RooseveltBorn 30 Jan 1882Before Roosevelt, the Democrats were largely a party of the white South and northern city machines, suspicious of federal power. The New Deal coalition he built added industrial unions, northern Black voters who had backed the party of Lincoln, Catholic and Jewish immigrants, farmers and liberal…0i
  4. 4Barry GoldwaterBarry GoldwaterBorn 2 Jan 1909Goldwater lost the 1964 presidential election by a landslide and still changed the Republican Party more than most winners. His campaign shifted power from the party's moderate north-eastern establishment to conservative activists in the South and West, and his vote against the Civil Rights Act…0i
  5. 5Lyndon B. JohnsonLyndon B. JohnsonBorn 27 Aug 1908A Southern Democrat who had once voted against civil rights bills, Johnson committed his party to them as president, signing the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. He is often reported to have predicted that it would cost Democrats the South for a generation; the quote is not well sourced,…0i
  6. 6Gough WhitlamGough WhitlamBorn 11 Jul 1916Whitlam took over an Australian Labor Party that had been out of power since 1949, partly because its policy was set by a conference that excluded its own parliamentary leaders, mocked as the '36 faceless men'. He forced organisational reform, intervened to overhaul the Victorian branch, and…0i
  7. 7Deng XiaopingDeng XiaopingBorn 22 Aug 1904The largest change of direction any party on this list has made. From 1978 Deng steered the Chinese Communist Party away from Maoist class struggle towards 'reform and opening': household farming, special economic zones and foreign investment, while keeping the party's monopoly on power. Hundreds…0i
  8. 8Felipe GonzálezFelipe GonzálezBorn 5 Mar 1942In 1979 González resigned as leader of Spain's Socialist Workers' Party when it refused to drop Marxism from its programme, then returned months later after a special congress agreed. Freed of the label, the PSOE won an absolute majority in 1982 and governed for fourteen years, joining the European…0i
  9. 9Enrico BerlinguerEnrico BerlinguerBerlinguer led the Italian Communist Party, the largest in the West, away from Moscow. He said Italy was safer inside NATO, condemned the military crackdown in Poland in 1981 and in 1973 proposed the 'historic compromise' with the Christian Democrats, which led the party to sustain a Christian…0i
  10. 10Margaret ThatcherMargaret ThatcherBorn 13 Oct 1925Thatcher took a Conservative Party that had accepted the post-war consensus of nationalised industry, strong unions and incomes policy, and turned it into a party of privatisation, trade union law reform, monetarism and council house sales. Right to Buy and the share offers brought in skilled…0i