Your favourite pm in recent history

[Justwastingaperfectlygoodafternoon]

Yay, I'm on PM number 9 since I've come to the UK (early 2000).

Tony Blair: all right and clever except for the Iraq war fiasco. I think in the long run focussing on mostly banking and services has not served the UK well (ironically) but I am not sure if that was down to him or his two predecessors.

Gordon brown: brilliant and a decent person. I still wonder what the country (or maybe even the world) would look like if he had won the election in 2010.

David Cameron: the worst of the lot and caused the most damage to the country with Brexit and austerity. Some researchers put the number of deaths due to austerity at a few hundred thousands. His measures and rhetoric also normalised the hate spouted by the far right and made this country a more unpleasant place to live for everyone. As far as I know the only good thing he ever did was to legalise gay marriage. And Nick clegg isn't any better. An opportunistic chancer who sold both the country and his party (let alone his supporters) down the river for a stab at power.

Theresa May: pushed us into a harder Brexit than required with her red lines. She was a terrible and evil home secretary but as PM I felt sorry for her. I think she was unfairly subjected to a lot of sexism.

BJ: I mean what I can say? The country wanted a clown and they got a clown. He was 100% selfishness impersonated but he never made a secret out of that.

Lizz Truss: she lost the country about 30bn but she was in power for too short a time to cause more damage. If she had stayed longer I'm sure she would have costed us a lot more.

Rishi Sunak: populist like all Conservatives. Still, I think he could have been decent if he hasn't been surrounded with absolute loons. And his mum ran the local chemist. I mean that has to mean something, right?

Keir starter: I had so much hope for Keir starmer but he turned out to be another populist. People say he was a decent man who got unlucky but he wasn't decent. A decent person doesn't think that any country has the right to cut off water and power to another country. (I don't want this thread to become about Israel / gaza but I'm just curious about what other people think of the line up of PM s we have had recently).

Andy Burnham: like with Keir starmer I had a lot of hope for him but now I'm worried he will be as populist as most of his predecessors and I don't like most of his cabinet. However, if he is genuinely focussing on ending rough sleeping as his first big challenge then more power to him and good luck!!

What do you think of the prime ministers in your life time? Who is your favourite? Who do you think was the worst?

Favourite: Truss 🥬
Worst: Johnson 🤡

My feeling is the ones that seemed the best at the time left the biggest mess.

You might be right but who would you consider that to be?

It would be Tony Blair if it wasn’t for that awful, unnecessary war.
I still find it hard to believe he took us into that and can only think he was in thrall to the US.

And I don’t really get Andy Burnham’s homelessness ambitions. I’ve never seen anything like one morning during Covid when I arrived for an appointment in Manchester at 8am in the morning…. It felt like every single shop doorway on had a tent on it . Perhaps he had his hands tied due to the pm’s policies at the time? See also Rochdale. Even the charity shops that had resigned themselves to functioning as hubs to give out old sleeping bags to the homeless are now boarded up.
I had reason to visit Rochdale frequently six or seven years ago. Went the other day and was really shocked at the deterioration in a short space of time on so many levels, and it wasn’t good before.

The thing I don't understand is and that makes me see him in a slightly different light is that he still seems to be in thrall to the US. Based on recent comments he has made he obviously doesn't regret anything.

I didn't know much about politics back then (not that I'm an expert now as you can probably tell from my shallow op) but the tiny Blair/ Gordon brown years seemed the last time that someone responsible and sensible was in power.

I think Blair just recognises that the US is an extremely powerful ally.

Your choices betray your political leanings. As everyone’s will do. I think May and Sunak were both decent and sensible people. Brown was OK.

I just can't choose, there's been so many recently. I'm hoping I will really like the next one who should come along in about 9 months time.

I agree in the sense that they are powerful and we are insanely dependent on them for too many things. I can understand PM s treading cautiously because they don't want such a powerful enemy but I am pretty sure they are not an ally anymore.

Rishi best ,quiet understated and getting the job done. Things had started to slowly improve until labour came in and stamped on all the green shoots

Worst all the others

Best - Sunak
worst - Cameron

Rishi Sunak. Calm, professional, mindful of the economics of the time.

Worst - Liz Truss

Tony Blair got it wrong with the Iraq war. Generally good but always looking for the popular vote.Liz truss appalling .Rishi Sunak ok .

Best: Gordon Brown
Worst: Liz Truss

All as bad is each other TBH.

Gordon Brown.

Theresa May, and Rushi Sunak both of them honest with the country's best interest at heart . I'm hoping Kemi Badenich gets in next time.

We have to back as far as Churchill to find a good'un

It would be quite entertaining if it wasn't so impactful. I worry that our next PM will be from reform and then God (the universe, Jedi knights, the minions or whoever floats your boat) help us all.

And the man behind the successful Blair campaign was?

Mandelson.

Who? Churchill? He was competent and clever but unfortunately not a good person (at least not if you weren't white at the time).

I don't get Liz "the Lettuce " Truss - I mean it was obvious to everyone that she would be out of her depth and incapable of running the local school PTA let alone being PM.

Yet somehow the Conservative Party members thought it would be a good idea to make her PM - in which reality did they come to that conclusion?

I voted Labour but in hindsight it would have been interesting to see what Jeremy Hunt and rishi Sunak could have done. Unfortunately, their colleagues made them unelectable.

Of course they remain an ally. The UK and US share intelligence and have joint defence treaties. They have major economic ties and cooperate diplomatically.

Why would you think that the US and UK are not allies?