Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Worst in Living Memory?

641 replies

ElephantWhaleRabbit · 21/12/2020 13:45

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?

OP posts:
Zandathepanda · 21/12/2020 15:06

HeadNorth completely agree with the ‘ This clusterfuck is Boris' doing and he has stuffed his cabinet with incompetents.’

Unfortunately I know two of them and what you say is true.

DecemberDiana · 21/12/2020 15:07

I take it the strategy is self aggrandisement?

tootesuite · 21/12/2020 15:07

Where is the Labour party that build the NHS? I want that party back!

FOJN · 21/12/2020 15:07

There is stiff competition for worst PM in my lifetime. I lived through Thatcher and Blair and don't have any great love for either of them but both had vision and demonstrated leadership even though I didn't like many of the things they did.

For me the worst has to be David Cameron, promised a referendum in the belief the Lib Dems would save him from having to keep his promise, could not control rebels within the party, buggered off when the referendum failed to return the result he'd hoped for and lets not forget counter productive austerity. Such a WEAK leader.

I always think Gordon Brown gets a raw deal, the global financial crisis was not of his making.

Can't think of anyone who might have handled C19 better or worse than BJ, it's a shit show.

Omeara · 21/12/2020 15:08

I think both Cameron and Blair were worse.

whysotriggered · 21/12/2020 15:08

I'm in my mid-40s and I personally think any of the previous PMs in the last 20 years would have done a better job. Mainly because they would have paused to think before they spoke, and perhaps would not have hired a heartless piece of work - Dominic Cummings or at least if they did would have fired him.

Omeara · 21/12/2020 15:10

Gordon Brown was terrible too. Although his worst mistakes (pensions and gold) weren’t made during his time as PM.

Kendodd · 21/12/2020 15:10

It's the fact that Johnson doesn't care that he's obviously lying

Thing is, his supporters don't seem to care either, they will nod along and cheer even when he has just said something that is absolutely, unequivocally, a lie.

ShopoholicIn · 21/12/2020 15:10

" @Aprilx

No PM during my lifetime has had to deal with what BJ has had to deal with, so I don’t think I could make a fair comparison."

This

ancientgran · 21/12/2020 15:10

I expect his personal opinion about people dying from Covid19 might be marginally more humanitarian than Thatcher’s would have been Really, I don't think he gives a damn and he's incompetent. She probably wouldn't have given a damn but she was competent.

nicky7654 · 21/12/2020 15:10

Teresa May was a wet lettuce!! She takes some beating!!

Samcro · 21/12/2020 15:11

i really dislike BJ and think yes he is the second worst pm in my life time.(scameron being the worst)
yes I aggree that he is dealing with a pandemic and who knows how any other pm would have dealt with it.
But he is so weak, he seems to think he is on the xfactor.

Zandathepanda · 21/12/2020 15:11

tootesuite Boris’ strategy was to become Prime Minister. Johnson had no strategy after that.

toomuchtooold · 21/12/2020 15:11

He looks pretty abysmal from where I'm sitting here in Germany. And it's not a Labour vs Tories thing - Merkel is a conservative, and I'd take her over Johnson every time. The difference is, she is actually conservative - he's just posh.

Frouby · 21/12/2020 15:12

Not a tory voter or a Boris fan. But Theresa May was pretty shit, did she actually achieve anything? I liked Blair til he went to war illegally but I was young and idealistic then. I live in the north in an ex mining town so Thatcher is hated here. Don't think she would have fucked about with either Brexit or covid as much as Bojo tho.

But the one I hate and loathe and detest the most is David Cameron, inventor of austerity, fucked the disabled and the poor up, fucked the NHS to the point it's at now needing billions investing in it, making covid much worse, responsible for fucking Brexit in the first place and spent all his term moaning that Labour had spent all the money, while increasing the deficit to the point Food Banks entered our vocabulary. Oh, and fucked a pig.

Bojo is ineffectual, but I don't see much difference around the world with covid management. We got a vaccine, our NHS has so far not collapsed, schools have been open from September onwards and the average age of death with covid is 82. We haven't had bodies piling up in the streets, care homes haven't been abandoned like in Italy I think it was, qnd though we are restricted it hasn't been as bad as france etc so less impact on mental health.

He's a knobber but could have been worse. The support for business and employees has been good, even support for the self employed. We ran out of bog roll but not much else and apparently he's nearly there with a brexit deal.

Cam77 · 21/12/2020 15:13

He is the worst. It’s not even close. A crap journalist who gets taken seriously because of his posh accent and silly hair.

jasjas1973 · 21/12/2020 15:16

No one has been as poor a PM as Bojo, even our German friends think so!

Requinblanc · 21/12/2020 15:16

Yes, the worse ever PM without a doubt.

As for those who are saying 'well, it is unprecedented' If you want to be a leader you need to be able to deal with a crisis and the unexpected.

Do you think the people who were leading countries during wars used that excuse?

If he can't do the job (which is pretty much obvious) he should resign.

It is madness that he allowed that idiot Hancock to just blurted out that there was a new strain of the virus that was 70% more contagious before the scientists had a chance to check the fact first and before he had spoken first to the leaders of other countries and agreed joint action.

This is simply criminal negligence at this point and no PM should be able to get away with what has unfolded over the weekend.

BadTattoosAndSmellLikeBooze · 21/12/2020 15:17

I’m definitely not a Tory but I don’t think we’d be in a better or a worse situation with covid no matter who was in charge. It’s a ridiculously difficult situation to manage.

Thatcher was an absolute cunt. She ruined society.

ConquestEmpireHungerPlague · 21/12/2020 15:17

Hard to imagine anyone could have done worse tbh.

MarieIVanArkleStinks · 21/12/2020 15:17

Nope. That accolade for me belongs firmly with David Cameron. It seemed impossible for anyone to pip those two neoliberal megalomaniacs Blair and Thatcher to the post for worst PM in recent living memory. Cameron managed it with aplomb.

Brexit is more his mess than Johnson's (although Johnson hasn't helped). The referendum was Cameron's whim to appease his Eurosceptic back benchers, and I doubt he imagined for one moment the country would be idiotic enough to return the vote he didn't expect.

They did it, decisively, twice. For that I will never forgive him.

Coffeeeeandcake · 21/12/2020 15:18

I agree. He’s an embarrassment.

rc22 · 21/12/2020 15:18

Maggie was a scientist before she got into politics so may have done quite well with this situation. John Major, Tony Blair or Gordon Brown would probably have dealt with it better than Boris. Not sure about David Cameron or Theresa May.

tootesuite · 21/12/2020 15:19

@DecemberDiana

I take it the strategy is self aggrandisement?
Grin
tootesuite · 21/12/2020 15:20

@Zandathepanda

tootesuite Boris’ strategy was to become Prime Minister. Johnson had no strategy after that.
I think you may be right.