Historical rankings of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom from his second term only. In 2013, a group of academic staff and students at Royal Holloway, University of London, conducted a postal survey of British Members of Parliament, asking them to evaluate the success of post-war British prime ministers. Some 158 MPs replied to the survey, a response rate of 24%. The respondents included 69 Conservatives, 67 Labour MPs, 14 Liberal Democrats and 8 MPs from other parties. The survey used the same question employed in the 2004 and 2010 University of Leeds studies: MPs were asked how successful or unsuccessful they considered each Prime Minister to have been
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom century as a convention of the constitution, the position of Leader of the Opposition was given statutory recognition in 1937 by the Ministers of the Crown Act. British Prime Ministers have never been elected directly by the public. A Prime Minister need not be a party leader; David Lloyd George was not a party leader during his service as prime Minister during World War I, and neither was Ramsay MacDonald from 1931 to 1935. Prime Ministers have taken office because they were members of either the Commons or Lords, and either inherited a majority in the Commons or won more