Has the pandemic made us appreciate nature more?

Out to grass

If Liz Truss is forced out of office (and doesn’t also resign her parliamentary seat as Tony Blair did on resigning as prime minister), there will be three ex-PMs sitting on the backbenches of the Commons. When was the last time this happened?

— Between Jim Callaghan’s defeat in the 1979 general election and Harold Wilson’s retirement from the Commons four years later, Callaghan, Wilson and Edward Heath were all still in parliament. As for the number of living ex-PMs, we are already at a modern record, with Boris Johnson, Theresa May, David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and John Major. Prior to Johnson’s departure from office, the then five living ex-PMs were matched between 1990 and 1995 when Margaret Thatcher, Callaghan, Wilson, Heath and Alec Douglas-Home were all still alive; between 1976 and 1977 when Wilson, Heath, Home, Harold Macmillan and Anthony Eden were alive; and between 1964 and 1965 when Home, Macmillan, Eden, Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee were all alive.