7 politicians who weren't as hopeless as we thought, and, yes, Liz Truss is on the list

Let's face it, we Brits can be ruthless in how we judge our politicians. And perhaps not without good reason. We mock our leaders whilst they're in office, and continue to do so long after they're ousted. In many cases, it's only decades later, with the help of hindsight, that we begin to wonder if they weren't quite so helpless after all. Our national pastimes may be threefold: cricket, queuing and complaining about politicians.

But history is a wry referee. Blowing the whistle after the match is over, many politicians once ridiculed at the time may soon appear almost heroic compared to the ones we're lumbered with today. Of course, many had flaws, but if you look behind the curtain, you'll sometimes find people who believed in things a little larger than a focus group.

This list isn't about saints, it's about those who darned, stumbled and found scorn. From the Iron Duke to the extraordinarily brief Liz Truss, all shared a rare qualification: conviction.

So here they are: seven politicians once written off, now ripe for rehabilitation.

He sent gunboats when others sent letters, yet he kept the peace through strength. Beneath the flamboyance was a shrewd sense of balance: liberal at home, imperial abroad. A century later, Britain could use a little of his swagger.

" data-has-syndication-rights="1" data-portal-copyright="Getty" data-licensor-name="Getty" /> Forever overshadowed by Blair, Brown became the cupbearer of a chalice laced with poison. Tony handed him a parcel and dashed for the lush life of consultancy, leaving Brown with an economy on the brink and an impending global crash.

When the music stopped, Brown kept the lights on. When the banks collapsed, his costly rescue package prevented catastrophe. Beneath that dour exterior was perhaps a deep moral consciousness, a need to protect the country Blair had all but abandoned.

He was not an innovator but a protector, the last of the Chancellors who understood money as trust, not magic. History may remember him as the Labour leader who stopped Britain sinking altogether, the wrong man for boom years, but the right one for a storm.

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His policy of buying time, while disastrous in diplomacy, bought Britain the year it needed to rearm. By the time Churchill rightly took charge, Britain was getting back on its feet, factories were churning out munitions, and radar masts were ready.

Whilst we cannot deny that Chamberlain grossly misjudged Hitler, it is hard to say he was a complete write-off. When war came, by many accounts, he accepted his own eclipse with dignity. A tragic but dutiful figure, Chamberlain was not the fool of legend, but the man who prepared the path for victory.

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To govern Britain has never been easy. To do so whilst sticking to your principles is rarer still. The lesson of these seven is that greatness often hides behind awkward manners and brief tenures. They erred, they fell, but all of them served in their own way. And perhaps that service, in the end, should be remembered a tad more generously.

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