Who was PM during the best of times for you?

As an outsider, with no skin in the game, she was fooking gas. An absolute car crash in motion. Which really, i shouldn't enjoy looking at. But i did a bit.

Now, but only because I'm in a fortunate position now and the cost of living hasn't had an impact. I know many aren't as lucky and I'd never vote tory.

Truss - was an entertaining few weeks

If Jeremy Corbyn backed Remain you could've fooled me. He went missing

@Clavinova

You may as well ask where are Sunaks principals? He came in promising honesty and accountability mmmmmm.

Read your last link..... still want to ban ZHC, reduce probation period and ban fire rehire, Labour can't support FOM.... we ain't in the EU now.

Being business friendly is essential if Labour want to get into power & many businesses want better employee relations too, boosts productivity.

TBH i could see you supporting Labour.... you never seem tooo happy with the far right tories.

beguilingeyes
Johnson famously wrote two columns about Brexit, just before the referendum. One for and one against.

As far as I can see - Boris Johnson had the same doubts about the EU machine in 2003 as he did in 2016 (he saw positives of EU membership as well). I had not come across the 2003 debate before - you have to wonder why certain media sources took his quote out of context.

'[Those] are my principles, and if you don't like them, I have others'

Theresa May used that Groucho Marx quote ('Groucho not Karl') to point out, amongst other things, that Jeremy Corbyn had been Eurosceptic all his [political] life, and yet backed Remain.

What are Keir Starmer's principles?

The Telegraph yesterday;
Keir Starmer is now the least trustworthy man in British politics.
There is seemingly no issue the Labour leader can’t find a way to flip-flop on.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/19/keir-starmer-is-now-the-least-trustworthy-man-in-british-po/

The Independent yesterday;
Labour has been castigated for a series of U-turns under Sir Keir, who has abandoned large parts of the programme on which he won the leadership.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-workers-rights-u-turn-starmer-b2395249.html

Johnson famously wrote two columns about Brexit, just before the referendum. One for and one against. He came down on the side of leave because it would help him become Prime Minister. I don't believe he was ever fundamentally a Brexiteer, or believes in anything strongly except himself.
'These are my principles, and if you don't like them, I have others'

HappiestSleeping
After all, this is the man who 18 months before the Brexit referendum was quoted as saying "the EU is such a good thing that if we didn't have it, we'd have to invent it".

Appears to be a quote (or loose quote) from a House of Commons debate in 2003

European Union (Accessions) Bill 21 May 2003

Boris Johnson
... I am not by any means an ultra-Eurosceptic. In some ways, I am a bit of a fan of the European Union. If we did not have one, we would invent something like it - some means of association between the sovereign states of Europe, perhaps an organisation in Brussels ...

... There are benefits to membership of the European Union. My only contention is that, in order to reap the benefits, it is not necessary to build a single European polity, as we appear to be trying to do—"e pluribus unum". I do not believe that we need to make, out of 15 different and disparate states, one state with a centre in Brussels. I believe that that is a mistake and I see no reason why we should agree to the constitution as currently proposed. The Minister has been involved in discussing the detail in Brussels, but there are several respects in which this is a constitution and a treaty too far...

The incorporation of the European convention on human rights is another trigger, and will have a huge impact on our judicial system. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) spoke eloquently about the Criminal Justice Bill and handing over a lot of crucial decision making to institutions in Brussels.

The constitution goes too far. If we had a referendum on it and the people rejected it, it would not be a disaster. People who are in favour of the constitution cannot assert that it is in any way essential, as it has no function and does not advance enlargement one bit. It is intended purely to centralise more power in Brussels, and it would be a great thing if it were revisited and more of an effort made to turn it into a proper vehicle for subsidiarity. I therefore hope that there will be a referendum. The Minister must realise that, if the Government fail to call one, there will be an independent referendum. It is likely that, out of the great mass of popular wrath at not being consulted on the issue for so long, there will arise a referendum. I very much hope that the Labour Government will have the guts to abide by the verdict of that referendum when it happens...

That sounds like a decent plan. Strategic voting is as good as any.

Definitely true about the expectation of unelected leaders, however nobody who voted for the clown could have seriously expected anything other than chaos surely? After all, this is the man who 18 months before the Brexit referendum was quoted as saying "the EU is such a good thing that if we didn't have it, we'd have to invent it". 🤦‍♂️

Let's hope that you fancying him a bit is a good barometer of him being able to run the country. Quite frankly, it's as good a measure as any other at the moment. 🤣🤣

Blair / Brown for me. Their Working Families Tax Credit meant I could keep my house and still pay the mortgage when ex DP left us.
I could even reduce my hours slightly to pick DC up from school and nursery without losing money.
Under the Tory government before that, despite both working FT we were always struggling.
I was called selfish for voting for Labour again though for those reasons, and not considering the effect the Gulf war had on so many, in a conversation with a friend I have never forgotten.

I used to spoil my paper as I know they are counted, so was registering my objection, but I agree that it didn't help. This lot have to go. However wet Starmer appears to be, I can't believe that anyone could do a worse job than the current shower.

I looked up the circus thing too, and it does indeed look tough. As you say though, one would imagine going into a related field.

Completely agree about tax levels. I am always amazed by how often I hear complaints about tax levels being too high and almost in the same sentence, complaints about public service levels being too low 🤦‍♂️ There is an argument about whether the money the government do collect is administered efficiently, but that takes us back to the beginning of the thread.

Blair & Brown.

Obama in the states.

I don't think we'll see their likes for a long time. Can't see anyone in the pipeline, within any of the parties, that comes close.

Blair. Lots of public spending and private money, London was not a corporate shithole it is today and it was easy to live well.

Most UK government is really bad at actually helping people in the UK. Blair actually did that. I can't think of a PM since who actually had policy to invest properly in the country. Lots of blather, but actually doing it? No.

I'm early 40s. I do think as a teen/late teen and early 20s in the Blair/Brown era there was more hope. I recall Labour coming in when I was 15 and my elder peers feeling really happy about it. Personally I still felt poor due to being on a rate of pay linked to my age, but looking back I somehow managed to go on a few holidays, buy clothes and go out and still managed my rent (maybe with the help of credit). By the time I though about buying a home in my early twenties it was pre-financial crash and out of reach for me and has never since been affordable, although I went to uni in my 20's and then onto a low paid job/had kids for a while, so timing has been awful for getting ahead in life. I think the GFC was an opportunity to sort out social mobility and housing, but instead it has gotten far worse.

Partner and I have an pretty reasonable household income now, buy yet again the boom and bust cycle isn't too favourable for us. I think we would have felt better off having our kids during the late 90s and early 00's. Colleagues of mine who brought kids up during this time were shocked I couldn't just stay at home and be better off than working FT. They expected us to get quite a bit of help due to us both working in low paid roles. They couldn't understand why there was no benefits or we couldn't just get a council house, but this was in 2014 when we were well into austerity.

I think hope for anyone having a bright future has been decimated now. So I guess I would say probably the Blair years just because people felt hopeful then. They were a lot more focused on children and their future and less focused on keeping older voters happy. I really didn't like Blair that much though, but policy wise it was a lot better. The current incumbents are utter fruitcakes.

The Blair years were brilliant. It was a time of such hope and it was hands down the best time to work in education.

It was a time of great optimism - quite the opposite of now.

Brown - I got the health in pregnancy grant when havig DC1 and a child trust fund which started me saving for the DCs futures and child benefit which helped with the costs of having DC. I took the DC to state funded childrens centres activities when little.

Under Cameron/Osborne's time in office they stopped child benefit being a universal benefit. I still think its grossly unfair that two parents earning 50k each (100k) can keep their CB but the children of a single earner on 60k doesn't get it. The local childrens centres lost their funding and have to fundraise independently since Cameron & Osborne cut the funding for them.

John Major for the fact that I was at secondary school and enjoyed that - nothing to do with the govt!

Blair/ Brown for the fact that you felt the govt were actually trying to improve people’s lives/ the country, and things basically worked. Shame about Iraq but otherwise was a good time to be alive!

Tony Blair

Controversial but I have happy nostalgic memories of Boris doing his lockdown announcements. I don’t know why. Theresa May wasn’t too bad though IMO and David Cameron was an idiot but also thought he held his own well!