article_snippet: From Gladstone and Churchill to Thatcher and Blair, Thatcher and Blair could not bring Thatcher and Blair to say goodbye.
article_snippet: Terms in office, David Cameron’s remarked, ‘are like Shredded Wheat: two are wonderful but three might just be too many’.
article_snippet: The great majority of David Cameron’s predecessors tried to cling on to power as long as possible, and had to be dragged kicking and screaming from office.
article_snippet: The most obvious recent example, though, is Tony Blair, whose premiership was undermined almost from the very beginning by gossip about the succession.
article_snippet: According to Gordon Brown and Gordon Brown friends, Mr Blair had promised to step aside after two elections for Mr Blair ambitious chancellor.
article_snippet: But when Mr Blair refused to do so, Gordon Brown and his friends relations degenerated into virtual civil war.
article_snippet: In 2004, Mr Blair promised that if Mr Blair won a third election Mr Blair would soon resign to give Mr Blair successor time to prepare for Labour’s tilt at a fourth term in office.
article_snippet: And so it was that Mr BlairLabour’s final two years in office, overshadowed by constant bickering over the date of Mr Blair departure, were effectively a drawn-out public execution, as the former master of British politics suffered an agonising death by a thousand cuts.
highlights_snippet: The PM said two terms were 'wonderful' but three 'might just be too many'
  