20 Most Famous British Politicians

Queen Elizabeth II March 2015.jpg Photo by Joel Rouse/ Ministry of Defence – Wikimedia Commons

20 Most Famous British Politicians

The United Kingdom comprises England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland and has various famous politicians who have changed the political climate in the region for decades. This article features the most famous among many in the regional political jurisdiction. Queen Elizabeth II, for instance, was a head of state of 15 realms and pregnant of 32 sovereign states. Her political powers included signing into law all bills in parliament, and starting and dissolving parliament. More importantly, she chaired the committee of Privy Councils. She carried royal authority and unity to the people of the United Kingdom. Sadiq Khan for instance is the current mayor of London making a great change to the development of the city. Another figure we have featured in this article is Norman Boyd, a Unionist politician who was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from July 24, 2019, through to September 6, 2022. Margaret Thatcher was the Prime Minister from 1975 to 1990 and made a significant change in the United Kingdom among other prominent political leaders featured in the article.

1. David Miliband

Chief Judge John Roll.jpg Photo by Administrative Office of the United States Courts – Wikimedia Commons

He was born on July 15, 1965, in London. He has a middle ‘Wright” that his parents gave him after the American sociologist C. Wright Mills, a very close friend of his father. His full name, therefore, is David Wright Miliband. His father was a Belgian-born Marxist sociologist called Ralph Miliband. The mother was Marion Kozak, a Polish-born from a Jewish family. He is currently the president and Chief Executive Officer of the International Rescue Committee. In the political field, he was the former British Labour Party. Between 2007 and 2010, he was the Foreign Secretary. He was a member of parliament between 2001 to 2013 for South Shields in North East England. From 1994 to 2001, he was the policy adviser to Tony Blair in which, he was a great contributor to the Labour Party manifesto. His wisdom gave him the name Brains by Alastair Campbell. In 2005, he was promoted to the Minister of State for Communities and Local Government in the office of the Deputy Prime Minister. In addition, he was appointed a Privy Councillor becoming a full member of the cabinet.

2. Dominic Rennie Raab

Official portrait of Rt Hon Dominic Raab MP.jpg Photo by Richard Townshend – Wikimedia Commons

He was born on February 25, 1974, in Buckinghamshire to Peter Raab and Jean. His father was a Jewish who came to Britain from Czechoslovakia in 1938 after the family migrated because of the Munich Agreement which gave Sudetenland to Nazi Germany. He grew up in the Church of England faith. He was appointed Minister of State for Housing and Planning in a cabinet reshuffle in 2018. Under the leadership of Michael Gove, he was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State of the Ministry of Justice. Since October 2021 he served as the Deputy Prime Minister,  Secretary of State for Justice, and Lord Chancellor. Since 2010, he was a Member of Parliament for Esther and Walton. From 2019 to 2021, he served as Brexit Secretary and Foreign Secretary. The highlight of his political career is when he deputized for Boris Johnson in 2020 when he was sick with COVID-19, currently occupying the position of Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland since October 25, 2022.

3. Ed Balls

Ed Balls 2.jpg Photo by National Archives – Wikimedia Commons

He was born in Norwich on February 25, 1967. His parents, Michael Balls, and Carolyn Janet Riseborough brought him up in the Anglican faith. His political career began when he was selected to contend as Labour and Co-operative candidate for the parliamentary seat, Normanton in West Yorkshire a place that was famous as a Labour stronghold. Fortunately, the Member of Parliament was going to retire. During the general election in 2005, he was elected as a member of parliament, a seat he won with a majority of 10,002. He was voted into the House of Commons and was a member of the Labour Friends of Israel. In addition, he was the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, a position that gave him an opportunity to be commissioned together with Jon Cunliffe by the G7 finance ministers with a mandate to prepare a report on the economic aspects of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. He was promoted to Secretary of State for Children, Schools, and Families during the leadership of Gordon Brown as the Prime Minister in 2007. He is famous for bringing together schools and children’s policy for the first time ever in the United Kingdom in education and training raising the leaving age to 18. He led in the government’s decision to scrap SAT tests for 14-year-old children in 2008. This move was greatly received by the opposition, teachers, and parents.

4. Gordon Brown

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He was born on February 20, 1951, in Giffnock, Renfrewshire, Scotland. His father was John Ebenezer Brown and his mother was Jessie Elizabeth Brown. The father was a minister of the Church of Scotland. The family moved to Kirkcaldy which was the largest town in Fife when he was only three years old. Together with his two brothers, John and Andrew, they were often referred to as the preacher’s kids. He served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2007 until 2010. Then, he was also the Leader of the Labour Party. From 1997 through to 2007, he served as the Chancellor of the Exchequer during Tony Blair’s government. He was also a Member of Parliament from 1983 to 2015 for both Dunfermline East and Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. He was very instrumental in the Scottish Constitutional Convention signing the Claim of Right for Scotland in 1989. The fact is that he is the very recent Labour politician to be in office, more so, the recently Scottish politician to be the Prime Minister. 

5. Jack Straw

Jack Straw 2.jpg Photo by Ministry of Justice – Wikimedia Commons

He was born on August 3, 1946, in Buckhurst Hill Essex. He is currently the Secretary of State for Justice Lord Chancellor. He was a member of parliament under the Labour Party from 1979 to 1997. He was appointed Home Secretary after the 1997 general elections. During his office, tenure, he was very instrumental in changing the electoral system for the European Parliament elections from plurality to proportional representation.`His major achievement was when he brought forward the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. He also increased police powers against terrorism and proposed to remove the right to trial by jury in certain cases. He was 

6. John Bercow

John Bercow Senate of Poland 02.JPG Photo by Michał Koziczyński – Wikimedia Commons

John Simon Bercow is a British former politician born on January 19, 1963. He was the speaker of the house of Commons between 2009 to 2019. In addition, he was a member of parliament for Buckingham from 1997 to 2019. Of importance to note is that he was the first member of parliament to be elected Speaker since the Second World War. The most significant point is that he was elected speaker without necessarily having been a Deputy Speaker. In addition, from 1986 to 1990, he was a councilor in the London Borough of Lambeth.

7. John Prescott

John Prescott official portrait.jpg Photo by Department for the Environment, Transport, and the Regions – Wikimedia Commons

His parents were John Herbert Prescott and Phyllis. He was born on May 31, 1938. He became a famous British politician and also served as Deputy Prime Minister from 1997 to 2007. As the Deputy Prime Minister, he was given a very large portfolio in the newly created Department for Environment, Transport, and the Regions as the head. He lead the United Kingdom team in negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol on climate change. Due to the success of the negotiation, then Prime Minister, Tony Blair asked him to work on developing the Government’s post-Kyoto agenda with the Foreign Secretary and the Environment Secretary. In addition, he was the First Secretary of State from 2001 to 2007. He was a member of parliament for Kingston under the Labour Party for 40 years (1970-2010).

8. Ken Livingstone

Ken Livingstone 2008.png Photo by Sam Blacketer – Wikimedia Commons

He was born in Lambeth, South London on June 17, 1945. At the age of 23, he joined the Labour Party in 1968. He was elected to represent Norwood at the Greater London Council where he was also elected as a council leader. He was a member of parliament for Brent East between 1987 to 2001. He was elected the Vice-Chairman of the Housing Committee on the Lambeth London Borough Council. He was also elected Chair of Camden’s Housing Committee.

9. Lindsay Hoyle

he was born on June 10, 1957, and became a famous politician as the Speaker of the House of Commons in 2019 to date. He was a member of parliament for Chorley since 1997 as a member of the Labour Party. He has been vocal in the opposition’s plan to replace the House of Lords with an elected upper chamber.

10. Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher cropped2.png Photo by Unknown photographer – Wikimedia Commons

Margaret Thatcher was born on October 13, 1925, in Grantham, Lincolnshire, England. The parents were Alfred Roberts from Northamptonshire and Beatrice Stephenson from Lincolnshire. The father was an Elder and Preacher. She started her political career in 1950 and in 1951, she vied for the conservative candidate for the labor seat of Dartford. She was courageous and fearless and attracted media attention as the youngest yet only female candidate. She was beaten by Norman Dodds but gained more popularity both for the party and on her side. In 1959, she was elected as the MP for Finchley. She was an outstanding member of parliament who voted against the Conservative Party’s official position for the restoration of birching as a judicial corporal punishment.

During the government of Edward Heath of the Conservative Party, she was appointed the Secretary of State for Education and Science in 1970. As a minister, she raised controversy by withdrawing Labour’s Circular 10/65 law. The law attempted to force comprehensivization without consultation. She however drafted a new policy known as Circular 10/70 that ensured the local authorities were not forced to go comprehensive. She abolished free milk for children between the ages of seven to eleven in 1971. She was nicknamed Margaret Thatcher, Milk Snatcher by the labor and press. She oversaw the end of grammar schools and the adoption of comprehensive secondary education. 

11. Nicola Sturgeon

Nicola Sturgeon election infobox.jpg Photo by The Scottish Government – Wikimedia Commons

She was born on July 19, 1970, in Irvine. She later became a famous politician and served as the Health Secretary. During her tenure as the Health Secretary, she launched a program for the government known as the Better Health, Better Care: Action Plan. The program settled the new vision for NHS Scotland. She outlined the guaranteed maximum of 18 weeks. She became famous internationally by the way she handled the 2009 Swine flu pandemic. She was appointed in charge of the Scottish Government’s legislative process in the making of a referendum on Scottish Independence. In addition, she was in charge of the SNP’s referendum campaign. She won the elections for the position of First Minister of Scotland. She emerged as a winner and was sworn in office on November 20, 2014, the same day she was appointed to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom. She is famous for unveiling her cabinet with a 50/50 gender balance. This move saw the promotion of John Swinney, the Finance Secretary as her Deputy First Minister.

She led the SNP into the 2021 Scottish Parliament election with a manifesto that was promising to hold a second independence referendum. She was very vocal in the power-sharing agreement between Green Party co-leaders Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater between their parties in 2021. On February 15, 2023, she announced that she will resign as the first minister of Scotland and leader of the Scottish National Party once a successor has been identified and voted into office.

12. Norman Boyd

Norman July 2019 49 (W Boyd Street).jpg Photo by Michael Barera – Wikimedia Commons

He was born on October 16, 1961, in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He was elected to represent South Antrim by the UK Unionist Party (UKUP) in 1998. He joined a four-member UKUP assembly in forming the Northern Ireland Unionist Party. In addition, he was acting as the whip for the new group and stood in for Westminster in the 2000 South Antrim by-election, a position he did not hold for long as he withdrew during the campaigns where he petitioned his followers to support William McCrea, a Democratic Unionist Party member.

He is known as the Unionist politician who served in the Northern Ireland Assembly for South Antrim between 1998 to 2003. At the 2022 Assembly election, Norman was the TUV’s candidate in East Antrim. He was later eliminated from the 5th count with David Hilditch of the Democratic Unionist Party taking the constituency’s final seat. 

13. Nigel Farage

Nigel Farage MEP 1, Strasbourg – Diliff (cropped).jpg Photo by Diliff – Wikimedia Commons

He was born on April 3, 1964, in Farnborough, Kent, England. His parents are Barbara and Guy Justus Oscar Farage. He is a British broadcaster, former politician, and former leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) between 2006 to 2009 and then from 2010 to 2016. He was the Leader of the Brexit Party between 2019 to 2021, a party that was renamed as Reform United Kingdom in 2021. In addition to the various positions that he held, he was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for South East England from 1999 to 2020 the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union. He is the current Honorary President of Reform United Kingdom.

14. Queen Elizabeth II

Elizabeth II in Berlin 2015 (cropped).JPG Photo by PolizeiBerlin – Wikimedia Commons

She was born on April 21, 1926, in Mayfair, London in England. She was married to Princip Philp, Duke of Edinburgh who died in 2021. She was the first child of the Duke and Duchess of York, King George VI, and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. She became the longest-serving monarch who reigned from 1952 until 2022 ahead of Queen Victoria who served for 63 years. She had a record of being head of state of 15 realms and regnant of 32 sovereign states in her lifetime. Queen Elizabeth II kept her opinion about the political climate of England, a fact that assisted the endurance of the British monarchy. Her political powers are ceremonial which include dissolving Parliament and giving bills the royal stamp of approval for them to become law. Nevertheless, the Queen’s responsibility includes opening each session of Parliament in person. She is also supposed to meet the Prime Minister weekly for government updates. In addition, she chairs the committee of Privy Councils. She was the only person who can declare war or peace in England. This makes her a political reader.

Queen Elizabeth II was known for developing constitutional and representational duties that expanded for over one thousand years of history. Queen Elizabeth II was the symbol of unity, and stability and gives support to the ideal of voluntary services. More importantly, she was a national identity and continuity of the government peace.

15. Rosemary Butler

Rosemary Butler – National Assembly for Wales.jpg Photo by National Assembly for Wales – Wikimedia Commons

Dame Rosemary Janet Mair Butler was born on January 21, 1943. She is a British politician who served as the Llywydd of the Senedd from 2011 to 2016. She briefly served as Secretary for Education in the first two years of the Welsh Government. In May 2007, Rosemary was elected Dirprwy Lywydd of the Senedd. Later, she was elected as the Llywydd of the Senedd in May 2011.

In 1971, Rosemary joined the Labour Party. She was elected to the Newport Borough Council from Caerleon ward in 1973. She played an important part in Labour administrations on the council as Deputy Leder and Mayor of Newport in 1989-1990. Rosemary was the chair of the Leisure Services Committee for 12 years. She was later selected as the Labour candidate for Newport West which she won. Rosemary was appointed Secretary for Education. The highlight of her political life was when in 2014, she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of The British Empire in the new year honors. This position was for political and public services for women in particular.

16. Sadiq Khan

Sadiq Khan (cropped).jpg Photo by National Archives – Wikimedia Commons

He is the current mayor of London since 2016 and was born on October 8, 1970, in Tooting, South London. He is a member of the Labour Party and served as a member of parliament for Tooting from 2005 to 2016. In 2008, he was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. He became the Minister of State for Transport. He was a close friend of Ed Miliband and served as a member of his shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Justice, Shadow Lord Chancellor, and Shadow Minister for London. Some of the implementations that he has done in London City include the implementation of the Hopper fare for unlimited bus and tram journeys for an hour; increasing the cost and the area covered by the London congestion charge; introducing the new charges for older and more polluting vehicles driving in the city; supported the London City Airport and Gatwick Airport.

17. Sir Keir Rodney Starmer

Keir Starmer, 2020 Labour Party leadership election hustings, Bristol 4.jpg Photo by Rwendland – Wikimedia Commons

He was born on  September 2, 1962, in Southwark, London. His parents were Rodney Starmer and Josephine. His parents supported the Labour party. They named him after the first party parliamentary leader Keir Hardie. He kept to his parents’ party where he served as the Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party. He was Director of Public Prosecutions between 2008 to 2013 after which, he joined politics. He was a member of Parliament for Holborn and St. Pancras since 2015. He was elected to the House of Commons during the 2015 general elections. He was appointed as Shadow Secretary of State after Exiting the European Union in October 2016.  He is the current Leader of His Majesty’s Most Loyal Opposition, a position seen as shadow head of government of the United Kingdom since 2020 when he won the Labour Party Leadership election. More importantly, he was very vocal in the second referendum on Brexit.

18. Theresa May

Theresa May (2015) (cropped).jpg Photo by Home Office – Wikimedia Commons

She was born on October 1 1956 in Eastbourne, Sussex. Her father was a Church of England clergyman and she was the only child. The parents were called Zaidee Mary and Hubert Brasier. She served as Chairman of Education between 1988 to 1990 and as councilor for the Durnsford ward on the Borough Council of the London Borough of Merton between 1986 to 1994. In addition, she was a member of William Hague’s front bench of the opposition team. May was appointed the Chairman of the Conservative Party in 2002 as the first female ever. she was the Minister for Women and Equalities. It was during her tenure that she voted against equalizing the age of consent quoting section 28 in 2001. She was against LGBT rights. In 2002, she spoke fearlessly against adoption rights for homosexuals. She was a leader of the Conservative Party, a position that gave her an upper authority to be appointed the Prime Minister by Queen Elizabeth II on July 13, 2016. Immediately she visited First Minister Nicole Sturgeon in Edinburgh to strengthen the relationship between Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom. She was on record as being the first Prime Minister to reshuffle her cabinet. This move was described by The Daily Telegraph as “a brutal cull.”

19. Tony Blair

President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Great Britain at Meeting of the NATO-Russia Council.jpg Photo by Paul Morse – Wikimedia Commons

He was the Prime Minister from 1997 to 2007. During his reign, his politics was felt globally. His government was involved in the liberal intervention in the military during the peacekeeping missions in Iran, Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Sierra Leone. In addition, his regime contributed to the peace progress in Northern Irish. Together with the Former United States of America President George W. Bush, they addressed the press during the NATO-Russia Council near Rome, Italy. More importantly, Tony Blair introduced the following: the National Minimum Wage Act 1998; the Civil Partnership Act 2004; the Freedom of Information Act 2000, and the Human Rights Act 1998.

20. Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill

He was born on November 30, 1874, in Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire as a direct descendant of the 1st Duke of Marlborough. He was a member of Parliament from 1900 to 1964. He served as the Prime minister of the United Kingdom twice. He was the Prime Minister during the Second World War between 1922 to 1924. He also served in the same position from 1951 to 1955. Most importantly, he was a member of the Conservative Party where he lead the party from 1940 to 1955. In addition, he was also a member of the Liberty Party from 1904 to 1924.