Worst in Living Memory?

[ElephantWhaleRabbit]

Maybe it’s because we’re all caught up in everything right now, but AIBU to think Boris Johnson the worst Prime Minister in living memory? I mean, which of the former PMs, wouldn’t you swap in for him? Or is he just a victim of a bad set of circumstances?

@SarahShamsa

I'm no BJ fan but he's a human like anyone else and is not infallible. This crisis would have been incredibly difficult for anybody to manage and I highly doubt anyone else could do a better job. A population of over 60 million people is hard to manage when it comes to an invisible virus that we know so little about still. We also can't compare his leadership to other countries, like NZ. Two different countries with massively different population sizes.

Vietnam has a population of around 97 million. Thailand around 69 million.

He has dealt with this appallingly every step of the way. Of course "anyone else" could have done a better job.

Apart from Churchill during WW2, no PM has had to deal with so much. I'm not a of Tory or Labour, as they all have their own agendas.
Bojo and his team look exhausted, doesn't matter whether we had a tory, Labour or monster raving loony party running the country, its a shitty situation.
Whichever side is pm is just an easy target to politically moan, bitch and complain.

The worst at the worst of times.

I’m not a fan of his. At all. The current clisterfuck is the poisoned chalice to beat all poisoned chalices, though, isn’t it?

I cannot see any point in being party political or personal about any of this. Covid or Brexit. It’s just a shambles.

Yes, he barely turns up. That's my issue with this chancer

@ElephantWhaleRabbit

Maybe it’s because we’re all caught up in everything right now, but AIBU to think Boris Johnson the worst Prime Minister in living memory? I mean, which of the former PMs, wouldn’t you swap in for him? Or is he just a victim of a bad set of circumstances?

How old is your living memory?

I think we need some timescale.

If you are in your 20s or 30s, your memory is very different to posters here in their 60s or 70s.

I was born in 1990, which was Major but the first one I can remember is Toby Blair (although obviously at that age my awareness of politics was considerably less than it is now).

Pretty much all of them in my memory have done something the majority considered to be handled badly. I think the difference is that Blair, Brown and Cameron were confident in their decisions and the conclusions they came to. They held firm on those policies and mostly had the respect of their party. Although Brown was notably less well liked than the other two, that still didn’t seem to sway him in confidence of his plans.

May and Johnson both seem to have lost the support of their parties and seem to be running around in the dark. So in terms of a global pandemic, we probably don’t want to be running around in the dark so in theory any of Blair/Brown/Cameron would have at least been more firm in their decisions, even if they were ‘wrong’.

Whilst I agree that Johnson couldn’t predict a global pandemic and we don’t know how any of the others would have reacted. We do know that Johnson was part of the MPs declaring no confidence in May and highly critical of her deal. He then had ‘an oven-ready’ Brexit deal (which wasn’t massively different than May’s deal from my perspective) and was voted in on that. Here we are, 11 days for leaving the EU and we’ve got sweet fuck all. Actually sweet fuck all would be a step up from what we have, which is going to be a firey mess. On top of that, knowing that we do not have a deal and that companies were stockpiling in case of a no-deal brexit, which government encouraged, he decided 5 days before Christmas to mention to the world that we had a new strain of coronavirus that means nobody wants to open their borders to us (understandably). He knew about this strain in September but decided now was the best possible time to release that information. So as cases rise and we face a no-deal Brexit we have miles and miles of lorries queuing to get into and out of the country.

I don’t know if he’s the worst PM we’ve ever had but he most certainly seems like the most incompetent one and the one least likely to be able to think strategically for the long term.

He's definitely the worst.

When the public knows before the government and the 'experts' that a 5 day amnesty is a bad idea then that shows the government is an utter shambles.

@InTheNightWeWillWish

I was born in 1990, which was Major but the first one I can remember is Toby Blair (although obviously at that age my awareness of politics was considerably less than it is now).

Pretty much all of them in my memory have done something the majority considered to be handled badly. I think the difference is that Blair, Brown and Cameron were confident in their decisions and the conclusions they came to. They held firm on those policies and mostly had the respect of their party. Although Brown was notably less well liked than the other two, that still didn’t seem to sway him in confidence of his plans.

May and Johnson both seem to have lost the support of their parties and seem to be running around in the dark. So in terms of a global pandemic, we probably don’t want to be running around in the dark so in theory any of Blair/Brown/Cameron would have at least been more firm in their decisions, even if they were ‘wrong’.

Whilst I agree that Johnson couldn’t predict a global pandemic and we don’t know how any of the others would have reacted. We do know that Johnson was part of the MPs declaring no confidence in May and highly critical of her deal. He then had ‘an oven-ready’ Brexit deal (which wasn’t massively different than May’s deal from my perspective) and was voted in on that. Here we are, 11 days for leaving the EU and we’ve got sweet fuck all. Actually sweet fuck all would be a step up from what we have, which is going to be a firey mess. On top of that, knowing that we do not have a deal and that companies were stockpiling in case of a no-deal brexit, which government encouraged, he decided 5 days before Christmas to mention to the world that we had a new strain of coronavirus that means nobody wants to open their borders to us (understandably). He knew about this strain in September but decided now was the best possible time to release that information. So as cases rise and we face a no-deal Brexit we have miles and miles of lorries queuing to get into and out of the country.

I don’t know if he’s the worst PM we’ve ever had but he most certainly seems like the most incompetent one and the one least likely to be able to think strategically for the long term.

You are still very young!

I was born in 1990,

My kids are older than you.

I think the pandemic is unprecedented but it's extremely unfortunate that it's coincided with one of the most incompetent, self-serving PMs, yes.

The pandemic may be unavoidable but no-deal Brexit absolutely isn't and it is complete insanity for a leader to inflict such self-harm on their nation, especially when we are already in very challenging times. History will show him up for his poor decisions.

@whenwillthemadnessend

No. I dread to think how Corbyn Would have handled this

It's a shit show yes but every country is having a shit show

The govt have made mistakes yes totally

But it's a virus that spreads with no symptoms so how is it every going to be possible to contain it realistically

The only way would have been to shut all borders in jan but then we would have been screaming over reaction

However I will say the senior schools should have been treated like the unis and got testing in when they went back in sept. Now it's too late 🐎 bolted

I loathe Corbyn, but even he had the sense to say we should stay in the single market. This clusterfuck is Boris' doing and he has stuffed his cabinet with incompetents whose only qualification is believing in the deranged self harm of a no-deal Brexit. He has managed to make the Covis pandemic worse by leaving major decisions to the last minute and prioritising his cronies over public health.

But I still think Thatcher was equally as bad - she effectively waged war against her own people.

@Whammyyammy or to put another way, to care about human life and that with reasonably prompt action in March and after SAGEs recommendations of 21 September, at least 10,000 people more would be alive in the UK today.

Corbyn was gagging to leave the EU!

@ElephantWhaleRabbit

I think yours is a stupid question.
Sorry!
My mum was born in the 1920s.

Her assessment cover WW2 as well as all the PMs since then.

That's perspective.

Posters who could only vote for the past 10-15 years are really not qualified to say :)

@HeadNorth Jeremy Corbyn would have acted quicker in March under pressure from trade unions.

Maybe not as well as say Jeremy Hunt, but a lot better than Mr Johnson.

Johnson is not leader material - he’s a after-dinner entertainer. He has no attributes of leadership and cannot be trusted even by his own family.
As much as I didn’t like other Prime Ministers I think they would have seen the ‘bigger picture’ better. Johnson is inwardly looking and has very limited experience of the ‘real world’ most of us live in.
I honestly think a mumsnetters party could have done so much better.
For instance it was very obvious on here that the London boroughs schools needed to close not be kept open for some ideological purpose. I would like to think Starmer would have made a decisive choice to close, not threaten them legally.

You can’t say Boris is worse than Maggie if you’re of a leftish persuasion and if you’re of a more right-leaning flavour, you can’t say he is worse than Major.

If you’re not old enough to remember Major or Thatcher you’re not a good example of “within living memory” (which means within the memory of people who are alive and not your personal memory).

You can't blame Boris for the Covid issues, he is just the figure head of everything, and can't just make all the rules himself, he has to have advice from all his advisors, and then stands up to give the nation this advice on all things.Any other person who was Prime Minister, would be in the same boat now, and be giving much the same advice as Boris has to give out.

@GintyMcGinty

No Pm has had to deal with anything like this in many decades.

I'm not a Tory voter or fan btw.

No British PM. All PMs (and equivalent titles) around the world are dealing with it at the moment. Almost all are doing better than Johnson. This narrative that it’s not him it’s the circumstances is ingenuous at best. He’s incompetent. He’s weak. He’s a liar. He is lazy. These things are the facts, I’m afraid. And much as I haven’t much liked any of the other PMs in my lifetime, none of them had a full set of those faults.

AIBU to think Boris Johnson the worst Prime Minister in living memory?

YABU. He's the worst in British history.

Most of our previous PMs had specific failings but were effective in a lot of areas. Even with weak governments, such as under Brown or Major, the government still functioned- it communicated, it responded to crises and it co-ordinated the different bits of public services.

TM was the worst PM in living memory. She was ineffective across a range of important areas but she would have communicated better and not lost the public trust so effectively. There are arguments that Eden, Perceval and Douglas-Home were worse than her (and I'd argue Lord North was the worst ever until Johnson) but Johnson has lowered the bar enormously.

It's the fact that Johnson doesn't care that he's obviously lying, even when he doesn't need to, which has caused the most harm.

I think he's doing as well as anyone in this situation possible could. I know he signed up for the job but Jesus, what a year.

I think the worse was David Cameron. Why the fuck did he keep his promise for a referendum? It's not as if he was keeping his promises for other issues to solve them, but no let's keep our promise for the referendum instead!

He is a bumbling, incompetent, weak people pleaser.

I have zero faith in his abilities.

I suspect we are a huge laughing stock to other countries.

@Crankley

I can list the crap actions of Labour PMs that have damaged this country if you are interested? No, of course you aren't - Labour voters aren't interested in reality.

The majority of PMs have been tory ones, thats the reality, i note you don't actually name any of these disasters Labour have caused this country!

Johnson isn't the first PM to have faced circumstances beyond his control.
Heath (another Tory PM) had to deal with the Arab Israeli wars that led to the oil price trebling and the Tories implementing a 3 day week & power cuts.... somehow widely attributed, in voters minds, to Labour!

So how the fcuk the tories have this reputation for economic competence is quite amazing and shows the power of the 'press.

I had a lot of very intelligent people tell me that BoJo plays the buffoon but has clear strategy behind the facade.

Are they just deluded Tories?

I didn't vote Tory or Labour