Prime Minister of the United Kingdom retirement from the Commons, which elevates the individual to the House of Lords. Formerly, the peerage bestowed was usually an earldom, with Churchill offered a dukedom. From the 1960s onward, life peerages were preferred, although in 1984 Harold Macmillan was created Earl of Stockton. Sir Alec Douglas-Home, Harold Wilson, James Callaghan and Margaret Thatcher accepted life peerages, although Douglas-Home had previously disclaimed his hereditary title as Earl of Home. Edward Heath did not accept a peerage of any kind and nor have any of the Prime Ministers to retire since 1990; although Heath and Major were later appointed as Knights
Harold Davies, Baron Davies of Leek wing views led to him being overlooked for Ministerial office during the Attlee governments (1945-51). He was Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions from 1964 to 1966, and then Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Social Security until 1967. Afterwards, he became Parliamentary Private Secretary to Prime Minister Harold Wilson between 1967 and 1970. He was made a Privy Councillor in 1969. Appointed to junior office by Harold Wilson, Davies made headlines when Wilson despatched him on a "secret" mission to Hanoi. This was an attempt to broker talks between the North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh and the