List of fictional Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom

Fictional stories featuring the political scene in Westminster or Whitehall in the United Kingdom, often feature fictional Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom – invented characters with the position of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Such characters may be complete inventions, or they may be based on a particular Prime Minister or politician, or on a broad stereotype of party politicians.

Prime Ministers are listed alphabetically by surname. Also provided is information (where relevant and provided) about actors who portrayed the character.

Named fictional characters

Real people with a fictional premiership

The following is a list of real or historical people who have been portrayed as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in fiction, although they did not hold the office in real life. This is done either as a near future or alternate history scenario, or occasionally for humorous purposes. Also included are actual British Prime Ministers with a fictional premiership at a different time and/or under different circumstances than the one in actual history.

• Max Aitken, Lord Beaverbrook

• In the alternate history novel Dominion by C. J. Sansom, World War II ended in June 1940 when the British government, under the leadership of the Prime Minister Lord Halifax, signed a peace treaty with Nazi Germany in Berlin. Due to poor health, Halifax resigned as Prime Minister in 1941 and was succeeded by the 78-year-old David Lloyd George. Following Lloyd George's death in 1945, Beaverbrook became Prime Minister. He led a coalition government which consisted of the pro-Treaty factions of the Conservatives and Labour as well as the British Union of Fascists. In November 1952, Beaverbrook made an agreement to transport all British Jews to the Isle of Wight, which was under Nazi control, so that they could be sent to the concentration camps of Eastern Europe. In return, the Nazis allowed the UK greater freedom when it came to trading with the rest of Europe. He resigned in October 1953.

• Tony Benn

• Prime Minister in Superman: Red Son by Mark Millar

• Gordon Brown

• Prime Minister in Crossed by Garth Ennis. During the outbreak of a contagious, zombie like virus in the United Kingdom, the country is plunged into anarchy as entire cities become vast charnel houses forcing the Prime Minister and his staff to evacuate to a government bunker in Yorkshire. Brown falls victim to the infected due to an internal outbreak within the bunker, leading to the near total collapse of the British government.
• Prime Minister in The Trial of Tony Blair, portrayed by Peter Mullan. He succeeds Tony Blair (played by Robert Lindsay) in 2010 (having stayed on as Prime Minister for longer to oversee government handling the invasion of Iraq and the resulting terror attacks on London). Brown wins the 2010 United Kingdom General Election over the Conservative leader David Cameron (played by Alexander Armstrong) but only by a razor-thin majority of two seats after Blair leaked memos from Brown as Chancellor saying that tax increases were inevitable, having feared that Brown would win larger parliamentary than he ever did. After that, Brown manipulates events to ensure that Blair is charged for war crimes and put on trial at The Hague. Whilst visiting Blair in hospital, Brown says that he will base his premiership on 'honesty' as opposed to charisma as Blair had done.

• Rab Butler

• Prime Minister in Random Quest by John Wyndham
• In a parallel universe in which World War II never happened, Butler was Prime Minister in 1954.

• Lord Byron

• Prime Minister and leader of the Radical Industrialists in The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling

• Winston Churchill

• In the Southern Victory Series by Harry Turtledove, where the Confederacy won the War of Secession, the British Empire and the rest of the Quadruple Entente lose the First Great War to the Central Powers (dominated by the United States and Germany), resulting in the loss of several territories, most notably Ireland and Canada. Churchill becomes Prime Minister in 1935 with his Conservatives going into coalition with the Silvershirts, making Oswald Mosley Chancellor of the Exchequer and de facto Deputy Prime Minister. The authoritarian Churchill leads Britain into a disastrous second war against the Central Powers, resulting in the German superbombings of London, Brighton and Norwich and the replacement of him by Horace Wilson as Prime Minister.
• In Michael Arlen's 1934 novel Hell! Said the Duchess, Churchill becomes Prime Minister in 1936 following the fall of the National Government. He leads a Conservative-Fascist coalition with Mosley as Secretary of State for War.

• Sebastian Coe

• Prime Minister in Drop the Dead Donkey 2000 by Andy Hamilton
• Prime Minister in The Brittas Empire episode set in 2019

• Harriet Harman

• She was Prime Minister in Kim Newman's short story "The Germans Won", where neither Margaret Thatcher nor John Major entered politics and she subsequently is the first female Prime Minister. Her predecessor was Chris Patten.

• David Lloyd George

• In the alternate history novel Dominion by C. J. Sansom, World War II ended in June 1940 when the British government, under the leadership of Lord Halifax, signed a peace treaty with Nazi Germany in Berlin. Due to poor health, Halifax resigned as Prime Minister in 1941 and was succeeded by Lloyd George, who was then 78 years old. His second term as Prime Minister lasted until his death in 1945. He was succeeded by Lord Beaverbrook, who served in that position until October 1953.

• George Grenville

• In The Two Georges, co-authored by Harry Turtledove and Richard Dreyfuss, George Grenville is mentioned as never having become Prime Minister, which prevents the American Revolution and leads to the creation of the North American Union, a self-governing dominion within the British Empire.

• Roy Hattersley

• In the Jeffrey Archer novel The Prodigal Daughter, Hattersley was the Prime Minister.

• Denis Healey

• Prime Minister in the 1987 graphic novel Watchmen and Kim Newman's short story "The Germans Won"

• David Irving

• Prime Minister in The Mirage by Matt Ruff
• In an alternate history where Israel was established in Germany, he is one of a number of European and North American leaders to call for Israel's destruction.

• Ken Livingstone

• In the 2025 episode of the satirical 1994 BBC Radio 4 comedy series A Look Back at the Future, Ken Livingstone becomes Prime Minister and head of a radical left-leaning government whose policies include the reduction of the powers and privileges of the monarchy. A second English Civil War is sparked at an extremely frugal State Opening of Parliament, resulting in the exile of King Charles III to a remote Scottish island (Livingstone having remembered midway through the royal execution his objections to the death penalty), the abolition of the monarchy, the establishment of a republican Commonwealth and the elevation of Livingstone to Lord Protector.

• Lord Milner

• Prime Minister in 1926, in the Alternative History/Time Travel story "A Slip in Time" by S. M. Stirling,^[5] featuring a history in which the First World War was avoided and the Austro-Hungarian Empire survived.
• The story, takes place mainly in the alternate Vienna. A Vienna paper read by one of the characters makes a reference to "Lord Milner, the British Prime Minister, considering the lifting of martial law in Ireland if there were no more outrages".
• In actual history, Lord Milner died in 1925 of sleeping sickness, with which he was infected during a visit to South Africa. Evidently, in the history where he became PM that visit was avoided and he survived.

• Iain Macleod

• In Michael P. Kube-McDowell's 1988 novel Alternities, Macleod is mentioned as having served as Prime Minister from 1969 to 1977.
• Authorizes the secret deployment of U.S. intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Britain.

• Oswald Mosley

• Prime Minister in various "Nazis win World War II" stories, e.g., the Doctor Who Virgin New Adventures novel Timewyrm: Exodus and Harry Turtledove's novel In the Presence of Mine Enemies.
• In Guy Walters's The Leader, Mosley has taken power as "The Leader" of Great Britain in 1937. King Edward VIII is still on the throne after his marriage, Winston Churchill is a prisoner on the Isle of Man, and Prime Minister Mosley is conspiring with Adolf Hitler about the fate of Britain's Jewish population.
• In Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, a secret pact between Charles Lindbergh who becomes President of the United States and Hitler includes an agreement to impose Mosley as the ruler of a German-occupied Britain with America's blessing after a ruse in which Lindbergh convinces Churchill to negotiate peace with Hitler, which deliberately fails — mirroring the dishonesty and repudiation of key Hitler-signed treaties, the Munich Conference Accord and Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact.
• In Kim Newman's The Bloody Red Baron, Mosley is shot down and killed in 1918 by Erich von Stalheim (from the Biggles series by W. E. Johns) and a character later comments that "a career has been ended before it was begun."
• In the Elseworlds comic Superman: War of the Worlds, Mosley becomes Prime Minister after the defeat of the Martian invasion of 1938.
• In the alternate history novel The Man Who Prevented WW2 by Roy Carter, Mosley became Prime Minister when the British Union of Fascists won the 1935 general election and remained in office until his death in March 1980. He forged an alliance with Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Empire of Japan and went to war with the Irish Free State, France, Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union and Greece. During the war with Greece, his government dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Salonika on 17 January 1941.

• David Owen

• Prime Minister in the popular Hearts of Iron IV mod Red World, he is assassinated in late 2010 and is succeeded by Shirley Williams. At the game's start he holds the record for longest serving Prime Minister in British history, serving since 1989. Owen leads a stronger SDP which has replaced a fragmented Labour Party by 2010.

• John Pardoe

• Played by: himself
• Prime Minister in Black Cinderella Two Goes East (a BBC Radio 4 pantomime by Douglas Adams)
• Party: Liberal

• Chris Patten

• He was Prime Minister in Kim Newman's short story "The Germans Won", where neither Margaret Thatcher nor John Major entered politics. His predecessor was Peter Walker while his successor was Harriet Harman

• John Prescott

• Prime Minister in My Hero episode scene set 10 years in future (2015)

• John Smith

• In the parallel universe featured in the 2006 BBC Four adaptation of Random Quest by John Wyndham, Smith was the Prime Minister in 2006. At this time, the United Kingdom was suffering severe drought, leading Smith to declare a state of emergency. There was widespread panic throughout Southeast England and Wales as the reservoirs have been dry for months. Tony Blair was the newly appointed Minister for Drought.

• Margaret Thatcher

• In a parallel universe featured in the Sliders Season Four episode "Asylum", Thatcher collaborated with the Kromaggs when they invaded her Earth. She agreed to give them access to the oil reserves in the North Sea in exchange for leaving the United Kingdom alone. After the end of the Kromagg War, collaborators came to be known as "Thatchers."

• Jeremy Thorpe

• Mentioned as being the current Prime Minister in the Doctor Who story The Green Death.^[4]

• Peter Walker

• He is Prime Minister in Kim Newman's short story "The Germans Won", where neither Margaret Thatcher nor John Major entered politics. His predecessor was Denis Healey and his successor was Chris Patten.

• Shirley Williams

• Prime Minister in Doctor Who Virgin New Adventures novel No Future by Paul Cornell
• Prime Minister in the popular Hearts of Iron IV mod Red World, she succeeds David Owen after his assassination by alleged Soviet agents. Williams becoming Prime Minister opens the UK's focus tree in the game, upon which the player can choose the route Britain can take as a nation.

• Sir Horace Wilson

• In the alternate history novel Settling Accounts: In at the Death as part of the Southern Victory Series by Harry Turtledove, Sir Horace Wilson succeeds an authoritarian Winston Churchill in 1944 as acting Prime Minister, bringing a disastrous Second Great War against the German Empire to a conclusion.
• In The War That Came Early, also by Harry Turtledove, World War II breaks out in 1938 over Czechoslovakia. In 1940, after the United Kingdom and France switch sides, and joins Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union, Horace Wilson succeeds Neville Chamberlain in 1940, and imposes an increasingly authoritarian government. Wilson is finally overthrown by a military coup in 1941, and is held in protective custody, while Britain ends the war against the USSR and goes back to war against Germany.

• E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

• In the alternate history novel Dominion by C. J. Sansom, World War II ended in June 1940 when the British government, under the leadership of Lord Halifax, signed a peace treaty with Nazi Germany in Berlin. Due to poor health, Halifax resigned as Prime Minister in 1941 and was succeeded by the 78-year-old David Lloyd George.
• In the alternate history novel For the Sake of England by Richard K. Burns in which Winston Churchill was born in New York City in 1874 when his mother Jennie Jerome left his father Lord Randolph Churchill and was elected President of the United States in 1936, Lord Halifax became Prime Minister in 1940 and signed a peace treaty with Nazi Germany after the Battle of France. However, Adolf Hitler betrayed Halifax and attacked the UK in 1941, leading the United States to enter the war.
• In Stephen Baxter and Simon Bradshaw's short story "First to the Moon!", Halifax becomes Prime Minister in a timeline where Edward VIII remained king. Halifax was still Prime Minister in 1950, when the British – using captured Soviet rocket scientists under Sergei Korolev – launch the first manned Moon mission.

Unnamed

Due to the absence of full names, this list is ordered by available information.

• First name "Jeremy"

• Prime Minister in Doctor Who : "The Green Death"

• Black male "Leroy"

• Prime Minister in Strontium Dog stories in 2000 AD comic.

• White Female

• Played by: Faith Brook
• Prime Minister in:North Sea Hijack (film, 1979)

• Female

• Prime Minister in Doctor Who : "Terror of the Zygons"

• Black male

• Played by: Don Warrington
• President of Great Britain in Doctor Who : "Rise of the Cybermen"

• White Male

• Played by: Michael Gambon
• Prime Minister in: Ali G Indahouse (film, 2002)

• White Male

• Played by: Robbie Coltrane
• Prime Minister in Stormbreaker

• White Male

• Played by: Kevin McNally
• Prime Minister in: Johnny English (film, 2003)

• White Male

• Played by: Tom Hollander
• Prime Minister in: Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

• Male (unnamed but possibly John Major considering the chronology of the Harry Potter stories)

• Prime Minister appearing in the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

• Male

• Prime Minister in The Anno Dracula series by Kim Newman

• Two unnamed Earls, one succeeding the other

• Prime Ministers in: Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope

• Unspecified gender

• In Ian McEwan's The Child in Time.

• Unspecified gender

• In The Two Georges by Harry Turtledove and Richard Dreyfuss, reported in a New Liverpool newspaper as having been informed about the theft of the titular painting.

• White Female

• Played by: Karen Taylor
• Prime Minister 'The Brass Lady' in: Touch Me, I'm Karen Taylor (comedy series)

See also

• Fictional characters
• List of fictional political parties
• List of fictional U.S. Presidents

• List of fictional U.S. Vice Presidents
• List of fictional U.S. Presidential candidates

• List of fictional British monarchs
• List of fictional Australian politicians

References