Ex-prime ministers are measured against those who come before or after them

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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Good morning. Every time I go on holiday, someone in UK politics resigns. I am not superstitious so I think that is nothing more than coincidence. Then I look at the news. Nicola Sturgeon’s husband has been arrested for a second time, there are allegations swirling around Conservative MP Mark Menzies and Greater Manchester police are investigating Angela Rayner. All involved should avoid doing anything untoward to any black cats they may happen to bump into.

At least we will have much to chew over at Inside Politics’s next live event on May 8, a collaboration with the FT’s Political Fix where we digest the local and mayoral elections. You can register and send in your questions here.

For now, some thoughts on those politicians who’ve already resigned: the two ex-prime ministers interviewed by the FT this week, and how ex-prime ministers can go about shaping their legacy and rehabilitating themselves.

Horses of different colours

Almost by definition, if you are an ex-prime minister, something has gone a bit wrong. There’s a partial exception for Harold Wilson, who left on his own terms and for his preferred successor, but even he did so against a backdrop of disillusionment with his leadership and a party that was already heading towards civil war and a prolonged stay in opposition.

All ex-prime ministers have the same job: rehabilitating themselves in the eyes of the public.

Gordon Brown and Theresa May are, in different ways, doing the same thing: focusing on elements which people generally agree they did successfully in their careers. May’s campaigning against modern slavery builds on one of the legislative achievements of her time in office. Brown, who Henry Mance interviewed this week, has focused on fighting poverty, internationally and abroad. Boris Johnson is trying to do something similar when he talks about the need to give Ukraine all the arms it needs in his Mail column.

Of course, one difficulty for any prime minister is that it is hard to talk about your achievements if they are strongly associated with your predecessor and/or your successor. John Major’s biggest political achievements as prime minister, I think, were, in chronological order: defeating Neil Kinnock and guaranteeing the survival of Margaret Thatcher’s revolution for a quarter of a century, until the double whammy of the financial crisis and Brexit killed it off, helping to bring about peace in Northern Ireland, beginning the long reduction in crime rates, making important changes to UK sport that helped make Britain much more successful at the Olympics, and his very strong economic record.

These are all, in different ways, things that we more strongly associate with Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair. There are many reasons why Major’s standing has, in my view rightly, increased in recent years. One of the biggest is that it is only now, when we are contemplating what Keir Starmer is likely to inherit from Rishi Sunak, do we really appreciate what an inheritance Major passed on to Blair.

Another ex-prime minister interviewed by the FT this week is Liz Truss, whose Lunch with the FT can be read here or in the FTWeekend tomorrow. Truss’s big difficulty is that her premiership does not have many highlights for her to major on, unless you were a journalist covering it (it really was terrific fun) or a member of the Labour party (the only people who enjoyed the Truss era more than journalists were Labour activists).

But one reason why her reputation within the Tory party is better now than it was a year ago is that Sunak has also failed: the Conservative party polls as badly now as it did when Truss left office, and his government lacks direction or purpose. Although Truss and Major do not have a great deal in common, they are united in the way both their reputations have been boosted partly because of the comparison between their tenures and that of Sunak.

Now try this

Thanks for the suggestions about what to read on my flight: this newsletter will continue with a series of very special guests next week. I have realised with a jolt that the transatlantic flight means that I won’t be able to observe one of my most important Passover traditions: watching The Prince of Egypt on DVD.

However you spend it, have a lovely weekend.

Top stories today

• Forget about your strife | Sunak will unveil a package of measures to crack down on welfare claimants and what he described as Britain’s “sick note culture” as he attempts to tackle a sharp rise in mental health conditions that have compounded labour shortages.

• May the best mayor win | Tory MPs believe Sunak could face a no-confidence vote if the party crashes in May’s local elections, particularly if it loses two crucial mayoralties — West Midlands and Tees Valley — on top of heavy losses elsewhere. How is it looking for the Conservatives?

• Brussels offers up youth mobility deal | The EU has offered to strike a deal to allow UK citizens aged 18 to 30 to work and study in the bloc for up to four years.

• ‘Humiliation’ | Scotland has ditched ambitious climate change targets as being “out of reach”, after the UK’s Climate Change Committee said it would not be able to meet them because of insufficient delivery on reducing emissions.

• Shedding Timber | Thames Water could be renationalised, with the bulk of its £15.6bn debt added to the public purse, under radical plans being considered by the government, the Guardian’s Anna Isaac reveals. The blueprint, codenamed Project Timber, is being drawn up in Whitehall and would turn Britain’s biggest water company into a publicly owned arm’s-length body.

Below is the Financial Times’s live-updating UK poll-of-polls, which combines voting intention surveys published by major British pollsters. Visit the FT poll-tracker page to discover our methodology and explore polling data by demographic including age, gender, region and more.