If not Boris then who.....?

[ChristmasinJune]

Would you have chosen as a PM to lead us through the pandemic? I voted labour but I'm not sure Jeremy Corbin would have done any better. Kier Starmer perhaps. But I keep going back to Rory Stewart and wondering if he would have done a good job. I really liked him at the time.

So, who do you think would have made the best PM through the pandemic?

Thatcher & Merkel were both chemists, weren’t they? Which would definitely help in understanding how quickly things could go very wrong with the numbers.

Good God please don’t wish Thatcher back on us!
I agree with ChaChaCha JC would have been good but the poisonous press would have ripped him to shreds whatever he did. Shame they give de Pfeffelred the Ovenready the same treatment.

Don’t give!

Cameron.
Post-1982 Thatcher.

Need balance between getting on top of COVID, not being afraid to shutdown and enforce, while also understand they need to prepare for ongoing political issues elsewhere.

May would have been good on the detail but whether she'd have took the right measures, who knows?

Thatcher was more like Churchill. A good wartime leader but is that going to get you through a major public health crisis? Thatcher was heartless at the best of times.

Major, Thatcher or Blair.

Obama

Anyone! My nan would do a better job and she's been dead for 20 years.

@middleager

Major, Thatcher or Blair.

Agreed. Cameron didn’t have the stomach. Too wishy washy in the end.

Agree - mid-term Thatcher.
Would have kicked all the ministers and civil service into action and would have understood the science better.

Starmer.

The Tories dumped or chased away all their competent grown ups.

@FatCatThinCat

Anyone! My nan would do a better job and she's been dead for 20 years.

Lol. What about Mr Dead?

All these Thatcher supporters are presumably too young to remember the division that bastard wrought on our country. The communities ripped up and abandoned.
My only comfort with the current shit is that we flushed that shit down the toilet so this will join it soon enough.

Pic didn’t post. Mr Dead ....

I really hate to say this, as someone who has never voted Tory, but Thatcher. She would have done the job properly without waffle and no u-turns.

@bellinisurge

All these Thatcher supporters are presumably too young to remember the division that bastard wrought on our country. The communities ripped up and abandoned. My only comfort with the current shit is that we flushed that shit down the toilet so this will join it soon enough.

Nope, 54, and very much lived through Thatcherism and admired her greatly. Moreover, I come from a mining family (which actually agreed that the pits needed to close).

She had a kind of grit and determinism seldom seen in politics these days.

• determination, not determinism... (damn autocorrect!)

I’m not too young to remember either. The country was monumentally divided and needed a shift. A bit like brexit really but that was trolling and fabrication. I do not agree with a lot of her politics. She made serious mistakes. We could do with someone like her to Lance the boil.

I voted for Labour too. I don't think Corbyn would have done much better with all of this - but at least his heart would have been in the right place.

I think Starmer would do much much better.

If it had to be a Conservative I agree OP that Rory Stewart was the best of that bad bunch.

Even my mum (80s single parent, immigrant in the North) is wishing Thatcher back at the moment. It's not about not remembering how bad it was and in normal circumstances I think I'd take Johnson over Thatcher. It's that in the midst of a public health crisis, the inconsistent messages, optimistic rushes back to normal followed by blaming us and a complete inability to remember his own rules is terrifying.

I agree with others, I think Jeremy Corbyn could have been worse purely because of how his policies would have been received. Also on the list of people who would be worse are Trump and Biden.

The list of people who I'd prefer is huge and crosses all party divisions.

I don't even like Corbyn, stopped voting Labour on his watch, but even then I can still see that the Corbyn would've been just as bad narrative is bollocks.

All these Thatcher supporters are presumably too young to remember the division that bastard wrought on our country. The communities ripped up and abandoned.

The furlough scheme would have looked a lot different. She'd have let certain parts of the country starve to death.

Gordon Brown would have been infinitely better than Johnson. And better in this situation, I think, than Blair.

Probably.

I think what people are getting at is that Thatcher was at least someone with leadership ability, and who held principles and beliefs that were at least discernible. Even if you don't approve of how she used it, and I certainly don't, there's an attraction to having someone who isn't totally fucking incompetent running the show, and someone who at least gives it to you straight. Plus of course, it was only part of the country she fucked over. Lots of people did well enough out of it.

For me Blair, hands down.

Corbyn wouldn't have done any worse than Boris but would never have been taken seriously.

Major possibly.

Thatcher would have just let the poor starve to death and die of Covid.