
From the archives
Being prime minister is an impossible job
When he was prime minister from 1902 to 1905, Arthur Balfour “spent as much time as he could on his 180,000-acre Scottish estate”, says The Economist. He whiled away the days playing golf, and the evenings enjoying long dinners and after-dinner games. “The one thing that didn’t get a look-in was politics.” It was a subject, Balfour told his sister, to which his mind “did not naturally turn”. He didn’t bother reading newspapers on the (very sensible) basis that “nothing matters very much and most things don’t matter at all”. How things have changed. Today’s prime ministers “spend every waking hour trying to master events, only to be broken by them in the end”. What’s happened? “Why has Balfour’s easy chair become so uncomfortable?”