Who do you think was the best and worst British Prime Minister of the 20th Century?
I think the best was Thatcher, who intently stuck to her guns, and turned the nations around from the 70s when the country was in turmoil with high inflation and such. I also know that people say that Unemployment was at 3 million under Thatcher, but apparently, they based numbers on the amount of people claiming dole, and a suspected 1.5 million were claiming dole while working, messing up the numbers.
My least favourite? I have two who are equal. Edward Heath and Harold Wilson. Heath put us in the EU (EEC at the time), and Wilson brainwashed the people into accepting it.
Thatcher was such a poor PM even her own party had to boot her out and nowadays try their best to pretend she never existed.
Surely by now it is obvious just how unnecessary the pain she caused was. Blair, following similar economic ideas, has brought the UK into the 21st century without all the kicking and screaming Thatcher's incompetence created.
As to your questioning the numbers, far more than 3 million were thrown on the scrap heap during those dark times - convenient to be able to blame the victims. Or are you saying Thatcher was so incompetent she couldn't catch a few dole bulgers.
I would have though Lloyd George would get a look in as one of the best. At least he broke the power of the Lords and began Britain's slow march to democracy. Almost there!
I will admit that during the last years of her tenure she did make some bad decisions (Poll Tax for example), but during the earlier years she made a lot of changes, for example, raising taxes in the beginning to lower inflation, which benefited the country overall.
And to say they want to forget her is ludicrous, she has had the most affect within the party and in the general populous, with most parties adhering to the ideal of privatisation and a generally free-market approach.
However, Lloyd George was only Chancellor of the Exchequer during the Lords situation, and became PM in 1916.
Worst: Tony Blair
Best: Maggie Thatcher
I think that the worst by a wide margin is Neville Chaimberline. His appeasement of Hitler lead to the war being unecessarily extended years. I view the redressment of the Treaty of Versailles as the single biggest mistake in political history, the allowance of German troops into the Rhineland gave Hitler the impression that he was above european law and fuelled him to further disobey the traty.
As for the best, I would have to say Winston Churchill as he managed to steer the country through a what started out as a hopeless endeavour to ultimately emerge victorious. It is however his useen struggle to accquire allies and keep the spirits of the British people alive which he should be most credited for.
Much as I loathe and despise Tony Blair I can't really accuse him of being the worst, though he really was crap. I think John Major was probably the worst all round, though the effect his mistakes had was just to make hundreds of thousands of people lose their homes. Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler had, probably, a wider impact, but it is difficult to judge one man's actions in such a scenario so it's unfair to judge him based on the outcome.
Best was Gordon Brown, so far. He has made few mistakes as PM. Time will tell, of course.
| Bru, stuffce wrote: |
| Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler had, probably, a wider impact, but it is difficult to judge one man's actions in such a scenario so it's unfair to judge him based on the outcome. |
Yeah, I guess there were a lot of confounding factors involved in the start of the war so he is'nt completly to blame. I still stand by my decision though. | Bru, stuffce wrote: |
| Best was Gordon Brown, so far. He has made few mistakes as PM. Time will tell, of course. |
I think Gordon Brown should be discounted from this, simply because he's been the PM a few months, which is nowhere near enough to judge his abilities...
And breebree, although Chamberlain was naive, you have to admit that the extra year afforded to the UK gave them time to prepare for war, an opportunity it didn't have in WW1. However, he proved himself incapable of handling a crisis, and I thank the Lord Churchill came into power as opposed to letting Chamberlain remain.Margaret Thatcher did some pretty good things - she destroyed the power of the unions and stood firm over the Falklands, she didn't back down and she didn't mince her words, and as such I admire her. However, the best PM in my opinion has to be David Lloyd George. He was the PM that won WW1, and brought in a host of social reform, most noticeably the vote for women. Not bad for a Lib Dem.
Worst in my opinion was John Major. He had no clear structure, was surrounded by scandal and did almost nothing for the country. While we may say similar things about Blair, he did get two landslide victories, plus a third term, so he must have done something right. Major, on the other hand was just an incompetent fool who had no idea what to do when he got into office.
In my opinion, Margaret Thatcher was very wrong to demolish the power of the unions, because in doing so, she takes the power away from the ordinary person, which is the whole ideology of democracy 
This says 20th centuary but I guess blair started then. He IMO is the worst prime minister to plague this country.
IRAQ: Why did we go, soembody answer? I know - Blair and his 'We're with AMERICA(I love you Bushy Wushy, \England loves you, Im with you all the way, I do whatever you say Bushy Wushy)' approach to being a primeminster. Busgh may aswell have been the prime minister of the UK. We could have pulled out all the troops from Iraq long ago with a different prime minister. Now look how many died. Blair is another Hitler.
Best: Gordan Brown.
Why: He has not been in long and is only just getting he feet in place. He has had to recover all the screw up's of Blair. He has had to fix crime, school, hospital... (he whole UK) and he is getting there. He has pulled out the british troops from Iraq(atlast). I think when Brown has cleaned up all blairs crap, we will see a true leader of Britain immerge ready to make this country a great place and the superpower of the world it should be.
I truly cannot comprehend how people can say it's Brown. He was PM only a few weeks before Parliament recessed. I think people would be wiser to wait until he's done a whole parliamentary session. I suspect Brown's bounce in the polls (Which is falling anyway. Yay 
) will return them to the pre-brown levels once he gets back into the commons. They may have a new leader, but it's still the same old new labour, the original grievances people had with them when Blair left aren't magically going to disappear. I see Winston Churchill as a sort of hero; in my mind, he saved the world. Through his leadership and motivational speeches, he managed to maintain the British stand against Germany during WWII. Without him, who knows what could have happened? The nazis may have conquered Europe, and then the world...maybe I wouldn't exist right now.
As a left-leaning Scot I am almost contractually obliged to nominate Thatcher as the worst. Indeed, Thatcher coming to power in 1979 was my first political memory (I was still in primary school), and for me and many other Scots the wounds of Thatcherism are still raw. Mass unemployment, willful destruction of working class communities, patent neglect of the democratic wishes of people at home and abroad, hobnobbing with tyrants such as Pinochet, wasting billions of oil revenues on dole and weapons of mass destruction, attack after attack on ordinary workers and their trade unions - where do you want me to stop?
But the worst Prime Minister? Maybe in terms of outcome, yes, but in terms of administrative ability and steadfast commitment to her chosen causes she was respected even by those who hated her. Chamberlain would certainly be a possibility as others have pointed out, but there was many more well-intentioned like him who sued for peace throughout the 1930s. For me the worst has to be Eden, whose serial misjudgements over Suez were so profound they remain breathtaking.
The best? A no-brainer. Attlee, whose achievements are summed up in three letters: NHS. Yes I know it grew out of National Government sponsored report written by a liberal. But Attlee delivered.
