The Spectator

Was the pro-Palestinian march the biggest protest in recent history?

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issue 18 November 2023

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David Cameron will not be the first former prime minister to serve as foreign secretary (which remarkably is only his second ministerial post).

– Sir Alec Douglas-Home served as Edward Heath’s foreign secretary between 1970 and 1974. The difference in his case is that he had renounced a peerage when he became prime minister, and sat in the Commons. Arthur Balfour, too, followed a spell as prime minister with that of foreign secretary, in which post he served between 1916 and 1919 under Lloyd George.

– Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain all served as Lord President of the Council after leaving No. 10. Baldwin managed to follow his spell as Lord President of the Council with a third term as prime minister – a feat which Cameron may or may not have ambitions to emulate.

– The last foreign secretary to serve from the Lords was Lord Carrington, appointed by Mrs Thatcher in 1979.

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