Alec Douglas-Home

Alec Douglas-Home was born in London in 1903 into an aristocratic Scottish family, studied at Oxford and played first-class cricket. He entered Parliament in 1931 and, as parliamentary aide to Neville Chamberlain, attended the 1938 Munich conference. After inheriting the title of Earl of Home he sat in the House of Lords, served as Commonwealth Secretary during the Suez crisis and became Foreign Secretary in 1960. When Harold Macmillan resigned in October 1963 he was chosen as Conservative leader, gave up his peerage and won a seat in the Commons. He narrowed Labour's poll lead but lost the October 1964 election by four seats. He served again as Foreign Secretary under Edward Heath from 1970 to 1974, returned to the Lords as a life peer and died in 1995.

Admirers describe Douglas-Home as a calm, honest and widely respected figure who steadied a demoralised party and came close to winning an election many expected him to lose badly; Macmillan called him steel painted as wood. Critics point to the way he was chosen through private consultations rather than a vote, which led the Conservatives to adopt elections for their leader, and to his open admission that he lacked economic expertise. His approach to white-ruled Rhodesia and his handling of the 1968 D'Oliveira cricket affair with apartheid South Africa have also been criticised. His premiership was the second shortest of the 20th century.