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As the UK gets ready to have its seventh prime minister in 10 years, how long before a revolving door is installed at 10 Downing Street? As social media wags have pointed out, this is likely the first time in history that the UK has been looking for a new prime minister, James Bond and Time Lord at the same time.
With the tribute film Rik Mayall: Magnificent B’stard airing this week (Thursday at 9pm on Sky Documentaries) and Steven Moffat’s drama Number 10 coming soon to Channel 4, it’s time to conduct a poll on TV’s best fictional British PMs.
From villainous schemers to beleaguered leaders, here’s our countdown of the all-time top 20.
20. Stephen Fry as Alastair Davies – 24: Live Another Day (2014)
Dammit, Chloe, I’m driving on the wrong side of the road! Jack Bauer came to London for this comeback series of the real-time preposto-thriller. The US president was in the UK to negotiate a treaty with PM Davies (Stephen Fry) – half David Cameron, half Boris Johnson, all horror – when assassins, hackers and armed drones all made nuisances of themselves. Only Kiefer Sutherland’s butt-kicking Bauer could save the day. Fry’s character was originally named Trevor Davies, presumably until producers looked at the plummy luvvie and realised he wasn’t a Trevor.
19. Hugh Laurie as Peter Laurence – Roadkill (2020)
Anything Fry could do, his old comedy comrade Hugh Laurie could do more snakily. In David Hare’s conspiracy drama, corrupt Conservative populist Laurence was beset by scandal. He not only had affairs and illegitimate children but was culpable in the deaths of several tenants in properties he owned. When a pesky journalist threatened to expose his plan to privatise the NHS, she was killed in a suspicious car crash. Laurence duly deposed the PM (Helen McCrory) and slithered into the top job.
18. Robert Carlyle as Robert Sutherland – Cobra (2020-23)
Robert Carlyle portrayed the beleaguered Tory PM in three series of Sky’s creaky political thriller. He was constantly packed off to the Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms for emergency meetings about power grid failures, cyber attacks or eco protesters. No wonder he always looked so knackered.
17. Rory Kinnear as Nicol Trowbridge – The Diplomat (2023-present)
Rory Kinnear has played two different TV PMs. A certain one ranks higher. In Netflix’s political thriller, tantrum-prone Trowbridge is a punchable leader who is suspected of orchestrating a terrorist attack on a British aircraft carrier and stirring up war with Russia to boost his public support. At least canny US ambassador Kate Wyler (Keri Russell) is on to him, the swine.
16. Suranne Jones as Abigail Dalton – Hostage (2025)
This twist-packed Netflix potboiler starred Suranne Jones as a plucky PM whose aid worker husband (Ashley “Bashy” Thomas) was kidnapped during a state visit by the French president (Julie Delpy). As Dalton steadfastly refused to give in to blackmail and raced to unmask the terrorists, what followed was a tangled web of military spending cuts, NHS drug shortages, illegal migrant crossings and a briefcase bomb in Downing Street. It’s the wooden lectern and Larry the cat we feel sorry for.
15. Adeel Akhtar as Richard Eaves – Black Doves (2024-present)
Writer Joe Barton’s riotous Netflix action thriller starred Keira Knightley and Ben Whishaw as spies-for-hire, while Adeel Akhtar played against type as Tory PM Eaves. When it returns for a second season this autumn, Eaves is set to step down over his role in a cover-up, leaving the way clear for Knightley’s politician husband (Andrew Buchan) to take his place. Handy.
14. Pamela Salem as Maureen Graty – The West Wing (2005-06)
All statespeople in Aaron Sorkin’s wordy White House drama suffered in comparison to saintly president Jed Bartlet (Martin Sheen). Naturally this included hawk-like Tory leader Graty (Pamela Salem), who popped up in season six when an Iranian fighter jet accidentally shot down a British passenger plane. Fond of quoting Churchill, she regarded Bartlet as a “Yankee-doodle windbag”. Special relationship indeed.
13. Bill Nighy as Alec Beasley – The Worricker Trilogy (2011-14)
David Hare’s star-studded BBC spy trilogy comprised a set of connected feature-length dramas: Page Eight, Turks & Caicos and Salting the Battlefield. Disillusioned MI5 intelligence analyst Johnny Worricker (Bill Nighy) became embroiled in corruption and murder when he learned that the PM (regular Hare collaborator Ralph Fiennes) was complicit in secret CIA torture camps. Fiennes played the venal Beasley as half Tony Blair, plotting a lucrative career after leaving office, and half cold-blooded Vladimir Putin.
12. Penelope Wilton as Harriet Jones – Doctor Who (2005-08)
Penelope Wilton first popped up in “Nu Who” as a backbench MP who helped Christopher Eccleston’s ninth Doctor defeat the Slitheen, leading him to predict that she’d make a great PM someday. By the era of David Tennant’s 10th Doctor, Jones made an enemy of him by shooting down a retreating Sycorax spaceship. The Time Lord vengefully brought her down with six words which undermine any leader’s authority: “Don’t you think she looks tired?” She was replaced by Harold Saxon (John Simm), an alter ego of the Master, who vaporised his US counterpart and ordered aliens to kill one-tenth of the global population. Late came Jo Patterson (Harriet Walter), who was zapped by a Dalek in Downing Street, and the sinister Roger ap Gwilliam (Aneurin Barnard), leader of the far-right Albion Party. Harriet Jones, however, was the Whoniverse’s premier PM.
11. Rakie Ayola as Opal Folami – (Noughts + Crosses, 2020-)
The BBC adaptation of Malorie Blackman’s alt-history novels conjured up a world where Europe was colonised by powerful West African nations. Folami (Rakie Ayola) was the leader of Albion, a self-governing colony of the African Empire, where racial segregation between Noughts and Crosses was strictly enforced. When Folami – a voice of reason in febrile times – dared to propose decriminalising interracial relations and de-escalate ethnic tensions, she was deposed by her hardline home secretary (Paterson “Johnson from Peep Show” Joseph).
10. Robert Bathurst as Michael Phillips – My Dad’s the Prime Minister (2003-04)
How embarrassing to be the son of the PM. That was the premise of Ian Hislop and Nick Newman’s sitcom, which began life on CBBC before being promoted to primetime. Twelve-year-old Dillon (Joe Prospero) was permanently cringing about his father, a New Labour-style leader (Cold Feet’s Robert Bathurst) who’d just been voted “Naffest Man in Britain” by Dillon’s favourite pop magazine. His smarmy spin doctors ran an oppressive regime, keen to keep the over-protected kids out of trouble and out of the headlines. The PM even showed up Dillon by arriving at school sports day in a helicopter. Don’t even get us started on his policy to introduce an extra hour’s homework per day – just for boys.
9. Jane Horrocks as Rosamund Pritchard – The Amazing Mrs Pritchard (2006)
Sally Wainwright’s romp followed supermarket manager Ros Pritchard (Jane Horrocks), who was so angered by the state of British politics she decided to stand as an independent candidate in her Yorkshire home town. Her no-nonsense approach proved a vote-winner and she swept to the top office. She crowdsourced policies for her inaugural Queen’s speech, including moving parliament to Bradford, but her principles were soon tested. Clean-up on aisle three!
8. Emily Watson as Freya Gardner – The Politician’s Husband (2013)
Paula Milne’s delicious sequel to her 1995 drama The Politician’s Wife followed a Westminster power couple, played by David Tennant (him again) and Emily Watson, whose relationship was fatally undermined by scheming and scandal. In a final twist, his leadership bid failed and she became prime minister. The pragmatic pair stayed married for political purposes, with hubby swallowing his considerable pride to serve as his wife’s deputy. That’ll teach him.
7. Tony Robinson as Baldrick – Blackadder: Back and Forth (1999)
Talk about a cunning plan. In Blackadder the Third (1987), brainless dogsbody Baldrick (Tony Robinson) was elected as MP for the rotten borough (AKA “rubber button”) of Dunny-on-the-Wold. This millennium special saw him and Edmund Blackadder (Rowan Atkinson) accidentally build a time machine and hop through history, manipulating events for their own gain. By the time the pair reached the Millennium Dome circa 1999, Baldrick was a puppet PM under King Edmund III and Queen Marian of Sherwood (Kate Moss). Turnips all round.
6. Rik Mayall as Alan B’Stard – The New Statesman (1992)
One of the late Rik Mayall’s most enduring characters, shamelessly self-serving MP Alan Beresford B’Stard, wasn’t what you’d call a subtle satire on Thatcherite Conservatism, but he was an effective one. In the final episode of Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran’s sitcom, a snap election was called over membership of the EEC. As leader of the Eurosceptic “New Patriot Party”, B’Stard became an extra-parliamentary PM and proclaimed himself a dictatorial Lord Protector, boasting that Britain is now his “plaything”. And with that, he was “off down to Stringfellows to commit adultery”. Again.
5. Rory Kinnear as Michael Callow – Black Mirror (2011)
The idea of a PM inserting a “private part of his anatomy” into a pig seemed fanciful when the debut episode of Charlie Brooker’s dystopian anthology, The National Anthem, aired in 2011. Little did anyone suspect that four years later, real-life leader David Cameron would be accused of something uncannily similar during his student days at Oxford – an allegation he dismissed as “false and ludicrous”. Brooker’s prophetic pitch-black comedy saw terrorists hold a beloved princess hostage and announce that they would only release her alive if the PM (Rory Kinnear again) committed bestiality on live television. It was a #snoutrage.
4. Emma Thompson as Vivienne Rook – Years and Years (2019)
Emma Thompson sported a power-bob and red suit to play an outspoken celebrity businesswoman who became leader of the far-right populist Four Star Party, named after her tactic of swearing on TV to appeal to disaffected voters. In Russell T Davies’s chilling dystopian drama, fascistic Rook – think Marine Le Pen meets Katie Hopkins – said she “doesn’t give a fuck” about the Israel-Palestine conflict on Question Time. She later proposed a national IQ test, with anybody scoring less than 70 being barred from voting. She became the first incumbent PM to be charged with murder over her so-called “Erstwhile Sites” – concentration camps for asylum seekers and economic migrants.
3. Ray McAnally as Harry Perkins – A Very British Coup (1988)
It’s been retrospectively described as “one of the founding myths of Corbynism”. This Channel 4 miniseries of Chris Mullin’s novel saw Labour leader Perkins (Ray McAnally) capitalising on a banking crisis to topple the Tories. Once in power, Perkins began to implement his radical socialist agenda of unilateral nuclear disarmament, open government, abolishing the House of Lords and closer ties with Moscow. A horrified establishment played dirty to thwart him.
2. Ian Richardson as Francis Urquhart – House of Cards trilogy (1990-95)
By neat coincidence, the BBC adaptation of Michael Dobbs’ novel trilogy debuted in the week before Margaret Thatcher’s downfall. Ian Richardson’s machiavellian Tory chief whip – “FU” to many, “Daddy” to a select few – bullied, blackmailed and murdered his way to power. A quarter of a century before Fleabag, the amoral antihero frequently broke the fourth wall to address viewers directly – a gimmick repeated in the glossy Netflix remake. Should Urquhart have been our number one? You might very well think that. He couldn’t possibly comment.
1. Paul Eddington as Jim Hacker – Yes, Prime Minister (1986-87)
Arguably TV’s sharpest ever TV political satire – sorry, The Thick of It – Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn’s masterly Whitehall sitcom depicted the rise up the greasy pole to power of bungling minister Hacker (Paul Eddington). To get anything done, well-meaning Hacker had to first outwit the civil service, personified by cunning mandarin Sir Humphrey Appleby (Nigel Hawthorne), a master of obfuscation who baffled foes with long-winded jargon and wrapped up policies in red tape to maintain the status quo. MPs have voted it the greatest political comedy of all time and it was famously Thatcher’s favourite programme. Fun feline fact: Humphrey, the Downing Street cat in the 90s, was named after Hawthorne’s character. Purrfect.
