I think another addition to the "underrated" category would be the Douglas-Home government of 1963-64. Like you say of others, it's all too often defined by what came afterwards: Harold Wilson, "white heat", MBEs for the Beatles, Ministry of Technology, huge majority in 1966. But Alec Home came astonishingly close to keeping the Conservatives in power, despite Vassall/Profumo, despite the Night of the Long Knives, despite RPM (a debatable policy anyway), despite de Gaulle's non-without-saying-non, despite the grouse moors, despite the "Magic Circle" (yet to be christened). Some have suggested if Khruschev had been ousted a week later, Alec's reputation in foreign affairs as a staunch anti-Communist might have swung enough votes to win it; Quintin Hailsham later wrote that he thought a fourth consecutive defeat for Labour would have broken the party and it would have split between hard-core socialists and European-style social democrats, the latter coalescing with the Liberal Party and some liberal Tories.
I think another addition to the "underrated" category would be the Douglas-Home government of 1963-64. Like you say of others, it's all too often defined by what came afterwards: Harold Wilson, "white heat", MBEs for the Beatles, Ministry of Technology, huge majority in 1966. But Alec Home came astonishingly close to keeping the Conservatives in power, despite Vassall/Profumo, despite the Night of the Long Knives, despite RPM (a debatable policy anyway), despite de Gaulle's non-without-saying-non, despite the grouse moors, despite the "Magic Circle" (yet to be christened). Some have suggested if Khruschev had been ousted a week later, Alec's reputation in foreign affairs as a staunch anti-Communist might have swung enough votes to win it; Quintin Hailsham later wrote that he thought a fourth consecutive defeat for Labour would have broken the party and it would have split between hard-core socialists and European-style social democrats, the latter coalescing with the Liberal Party and some liberal Tories.