Clement Attlee

Attlee's government is the classic case for this list. Bevin at the Foreign Office, Bevan at Health building the NHS, Morrison running the legislative programme and nationalisation, Cripps and Dalton at the Treasury: big figures who disliked one another, chaired by a quiet prime minister who rarely spoke first. Bevin's loyalty protected him from a 1947 plot to replace him. The cabinet's breakdown over NHS charges in 1951, when Bevan and Harold Wilson resigned, helped end the government.