Richard Summerson

Richard Fredrick Summerson (Born July 7th, 1944) served as the 34th Prime Minister of Airedalandia from 1998 to 2013, and as the Deputy Prime Minister under Jimmy Sanderson from 1988 to 1993. His near-15 year premiership is second in duration to only to that of Nicolás Aguilar.

Summerson was born in Clover, Gatewood, and grew up in Airedale after his family moved there when Summerson was seven years old. After high school, Summerson served in the Royal Airedalandian Navy as a naval aviator from 1963 to 1969, seeing combat in the Eckhadam War. After his military career, Summerson worked as a commercial pilot for Vicente Rubio’s fledgling GASA airline. Summerson became a close friend of Rubio’s, and was involved with Rubio’s founding of the National Party of Airedalandia in 1971. Summerson became the National candidate for Deputy Prime Minister for the 1983 election, and although the National Party would finish fourth, Summerson won a seat and became the National Party's third-ever MP.

After the 1988 election brought the National Party to the premiership, Summerson became Deputy Prime Minister under Jimmy Sanderson. After Sanderson lost the 1993 election, he resigned as party leader and Summerson narrowly lost the ensuing leadership race to Lucas Ramos. After Ramos lost to Austin Collins in 1998's first election, Summerson challenged him and won the party's leadership in time to be the National Party's nominee in the snap election that followed the resignation of Austin Collins. Summerson won a historic landslide victory.

Summerson's premiership saw major hikes in defence spending and deployments of sizeable military forces abroad in an effort to assert Airedalandian power in the Second Cold War.Additionally, Summerson's government enacted large tax cuts, brought in standardized testing at a national level for Airedalandia's secondary schools, and began major hydroelectric and space exploration projects. Summerson continued as a popular leader, winning re-election in 2003 and 2008. In 2013, he was defeated by Liberal Bruce Brimley, and became the leader of the opposition. In 2017, he retired from politics and was succeeded by Isabel Pascual as leader of the National Party, who was in turn the party's successful nominee for the 2018 General Election.