The afterlives of former Liberal prime ministers

Sooner or later, every prime minister becomes a former prime minister. The ‘club’ of former prime ministers is small and exclusive. Over the years, few of its ‘members’ have left Number Ten Downing Street as happy, contented or fulfilled people, or at a time and in a manner of their own choosing. There has been (and there still is) no fixed or established role in public and political life for former prime ministers. What they do after they leave office depends very much on personal choices and on circumstances, including the reaction and attitudes of still-active politicians and of political parties to the former political and governmental leader. There is little in the way of a common pattern.