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?

For as long as I have been able to vote, it has been one shit show after another. Favourite and PM have yet to make into the same sentence!

Wasn't she supposed to be good at leaking to briefing the media?

It could have been worse. It could have been Suella Braverman.

What Clement Attlee was a wrong ‘un ?

It’s hard to say because you have to put them in the context of what they were dealing with. Tony Blair presided over a prosperous time but that was just luck really- loads of cheap EU labour and the rise of China, so he wasn’t bad but I think he gets too much credit for what would have just happened regardless . GFC was then a watershed moment and at the same time a lot of the benefits of that cheap EU labour and Asian growth started to reverse. Cameron’s big error was the EU referendum but it might have worked for him had he not got stabbed in the back by BJ who was never much of a Brexiteer and just saw it as a chance to put himself in the frame. May was stuck between a rock and a hard place and another victim of BJ, who I’ll say was the worst PM because was the most obviously self serving and back stabby.

Best? If I had to get one back I’d have Cameron but only because I think right now he’d probably do better than the others. But only if he doesn’t bring that twat George Osbourne. John Major was quite underrated I think but not sure if he can still count as recent.

They are not allies. They are holding us to ransom because of our ties. We don't so much share intelligence and defence but we are dependent on them for intelligence and defence and a host of other things.

Generally speaking good PMs tend to be dull and practical (John Major, Gordon Brown, Keir Starmer Rishi Sunak etc) rather than charismatic and populist (Boris Johnson, Andy Burnham).

Unfortunately the voter's like the populists but not the fact that they don't produce any real improvements / make things worse and they don't like the less charismatic / dull who do produce improvements/ make things better.

Actually I think Stella Braverman would have been better than Liz "the lettuce".

I believe that if Braverman was the PM she would recognise that she was out of her depth and seek advice. The scariest part of Liz the Lettuce was not that she was out of her depth but that she genuinely believed she knew what she was doing.
Historically I think she will go down as the worst PM ever by a country mile.

Best? If I had to get one back I’d have Cameron but only because I think right now he’d probably do better than the others. But only if he doesn’t bring that twat George Osbourne. John Major was quite underrated I think but not sure if he can still count as recent

Really? the PM that allowed this rat Farage to prosper and spread his destruction of the UK! The division and hate towards each other we now see is because that c* has been allowed to grift and lie and break up communities, on that back of the Brexit vote that Cameron is responsible for. The same PM that ran away once the leave vote was announced.

What a different position we would be in if Cameron and Osbourne hadn't been allowed near number 10.

This is like choosing between the floating shit or the drain that has cockroaches.

Both are a very grim choice.

The electorate hasn't been treated well, but we need to look further back before we reached the shit.

I think May, Sunak and Starmer were all principled people that had the country's best interests at heart. May really was given a poison chalice after the Brexit referendum.

I didn't vote Labour or Conservatives at the last election, I felt too pissed off with the Tories following the lockdown parties but like a PP I'm interested in what Rishi Sunak would have done had he stayed on as PM. I would vote Kemi Badenoch if there were an election tomorrow.

I agree that neither are PM material, but Liz the Lettuce was comparatively way worse simply because she genuinely believed (and equally scary still believes) that she knew what she was doing.

That said Zac Polanski with his economic plan of printing money would make Liz the Lettuce look like an economic genius.

As for the electorate they generally get the politicians they deserve. If candidates were honest then they would never get elected and as per my previous post voters prefer charisma over competence.

I’m not sure that it counts as recent, but with hindsight, I reckon it’s John Major. At the time, the Spitting Image portrayal of him seemed accurate. Maybe it was. Maybe we need a leader obsessed with peas.

But what is clear is that when Blair came into power, the country was already in a stable state - a massive achievement in the context of Black Wednesday. New Labour was able to get things done because of the Tories.

I do remember walking home in the small hours of 2 May 1997 believing in a brighter future. And I think that, but for Iraq (a very big but), history would have been kind to Blair.

Well said, that’s exactly why I chose him as the worst.

Gordon Brown from your list. I think the actions he took in the Banking Crisis saved the country from a much worse fate and most would have acted differently.

I actually thought Starmer was OK and suspect the Labour party may regret what they've done to him.

I also thought Sunak was OK, but the thing with his wife's taxes and the way the family didn't seem to intend to be permanently resident makes it hard to be a credible PM, I think.

If we are only taking this century, then Tony Blair.

Boris Johnson is not only my least liked, but is the worst Prime Minister in history and the only one to unlawfully suspend Parliament, for which he should be facing criminal charges.

This is simply untrue. We absolutely do share intelligence and have reciprocal agreements on defence. They are our ally. It isn’t an opinion, it is just a fact.

What ransom are they demanding of us?

Major and Sunak. Cameron I f he hadn’t overseen Brexit - I don’t think he’s to blame for that though - Farage was a pita and referendum was inevitable. If Jonson and Corbyn had campaigned for remain, remain would have won. I kniw in theory Corbyn did but it was v half hearted.
Best we never had - Ken Clark.
Fingers crossed for Kemi!
Blair and Brown seemed good at the time - but they rode a global good time, and they over spending lead to austerity. Also PPI - criminal!

Oddly enough for a leftie like me, I’m going to say John Major.

History has shown him to be inherently decent. I think history will view Starmer in the same way.

Despite Iraq, Tony Blair was inspiring and charismatic, made an impression on me during his tenure.

Richi Sunak impressed me also. No bells and whistles, just doing the job.

I've often wondered, going back in time, what John Smith would have been like if he had lived on and became PM. He struck me as a decent, intelligent sort.

Cameron never expected to win the 2015 election and to have to hold the referendum and when he did commit to it he expected it to go Remain as he expected labour to come out for Europe. If Ed Miliband hadn’t been so useless he wouldn’t have won the election . Also if Ed Miliband hadn’t changed the leadership election rules before he lost the election then Jeremy Corbyn wouldn’t have won and been useless at persuading people to vote Remain. Then Boris knifed Cameron in the back at the 11th hour. I get why people are pissed if with Cameron for Brexit but he was seriously unlucky with the cards he got dealt. Basically it was mainly Ed Miliband’s fault for backstabbing his brother in the first place and then being fucking useless at literally everything. And now he’s FS. Oh yay!!

Probably Jim Callahan.

I do remember walking home in the small hours of 2 May 1997 believing in a brighter future.

Incredible you have pierced through all the cynicism (especially of the last few days) and taken me back in time. I remember staying up to see the first few results of the election ... and one came in winning for Labour and it was a woman, and German (Gisela Stuart), and I thought this is looking interesting - and ended up staying up all night as the results rolled in.

And yes, it was as if a burden rolled off me and the country ..🌈.. until your last sentence

Blair.

I was a Labour activist in the 90s, campaigning in an important marginal seat in the Midlands. I met Blair several times and he remains the most charismatic person I have ever encountered, before or since. I was delighted when we won, and between 97 & 03 he was by far the best PM of my lifetime, leading a government which I was proud to have help elect and which made me proud to be British. Then he lost his mind over Iraq…

Starmer has been harshly treated by his party & their panicking MPs. In time, I think his reputation will recover, just as John Major’s did. His decision to keep us out of Trump’s Iran fiasco will stand the test of time, just as Major’s decision to keep us in the EU but out of the Euro did.

Sunak is an interesting case. He is a very bright, very capable guy who became PM when it was too late for him to make an impact before the 2024 election. He has said how much he would love to have taken over with more time & his own mandate. He is still a young man, and I have a feeling that if the Tories lose the next election he might want another crack at the leadership.

Absolutely agree with this on every count.

Harold Wilson. He was so beautiful.