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
Prime minister "Chief Minister", "Chancellor", "Taoiseach", "Minister of State ("Statsminister")", "President of the Government", "President of the Council of Minister" and "Secretary of State": alternative titles usually equivalent in meaning to, or translated as, "prime minister". This contrasts with the presidential system, in which the president (or equivalent) is both the head of state and the head of the government. In some presidential and all semi-presidential systems, such as those of France, Russia or South Korea, the prime minister is an official generally appointed by the president but usually approved by the legislature and responsible for carrying out the directives of the