So who is the worst Prime Minister ever?

[Mr Prime]

Brown is a libility to this country. He claimed prudence whilst milking our economy with stealth taxes. His legacy to this country will be of an unelected idiot who's actions will have to be paid for by generations to come.

 

He was elected in 2005. We don't do presidents over here, this is not the USA.

 

As for the imbecile who said about the sinking of the Belgrano "it was only an Argentine ship", I suggest you do the honourable thing and stop wasting our oxygen.

[Tipex]

Some of the people on here are too young to remember previous prime ministers so it's obvious they're gonna pick maggie or brown.

[plekhanov]

I profoundly disagree with this assessment of Chamberlain, although I am aware why you and others subscribe to it. The reason why Chamberlain is so maligned relates almost entirely to his signing of the Munich agreement and his subsequent reputation as an 'appeaser'. Post-war history has, until fairly recently, been unfair to him and I think that in the longer run a much kinder evaluation of his record as PM will emerge.

 

For one thing, few people (other than professional historians) know that he was very active as a reformer in the field of social and industrial reform, introducing for example measures to improve working conditions (including paid holidays), health care and housing conditions during his premiership. He was without doubt more progressive in relation to social welfare policy than most other politicians at the time (and certainly more so than the man who followed him into number 10). Indeed, his domestic record as PM was outstandingly good.

 

For another, not even his enemies would describe him as anything other than a decent and humane man, deeply committed to peace. His determination to avoid war reflected the public mood at the time and derived from the memories of the horrors of WW1. From a moral perspective, I would say he was head and shoulders above Blair and even above Churchill (I won't elaborate here, but will, if I must).

 

Moreover, I don't think that he deserves the malign reputation he currently has in relation to Munich and its aftermath. As various 'revisionist' historians of the period have already pointed out, Britain was in no fit shape for war in 1938 and had we gone to war with Germany at this point, we would undoubtedly have been defeated. Moreover, throughout the late 1930s, Chamberlain was in fact building up the armed forces (admittedly from a low base), giving priority to air power and the needs of the RAF. So Munich bought us valuable time. Given our military weakness, the Munich agreement was perfectly rational from a British viewpoint. In fact, it was far more rational, and far less reckless, than a decision to go to war in either 1938 or 1939, when we still were still no match for the Germans. The fact that the Nazis were defeated eventually had nothing to do with the circumstances prevailing in Western Europe at the time and everything to do with Hitler's disastrous decision to invade the USSR and Japan's decision to attack Pearl harbour (neither of which could be foreseen with any certainty in the late 1930s).

He may well have been a profoundly moral and well meaning man but that doesn't mean he was horribly innefective which is why I regard him as a terrible PM. It's perfectly understandable that living through WWI might lead you to being determined to try and avoid war having admirable motives doesn't excuse a failure to act effectively.

 

It's not just Munich it's the whole of his foreign policy as regards Germany. In the build up to WWII the governments Chamberlain was a major figure in and then led repeatedly drew up agreements and lines in the sand which fascists paid lip service to and then violated with no consequence and pressured other countries to do the same leading Hitler to believe that they could keep on doing so and that the UK would always back down.

 

The Nazis wanted to avoid fighting the British Empire and Chamberlain's repeated giving way gave them the impression that they could continue to rampage around central Europe gathering territory cost free blithely trampling upon British treaties and still avoid war with the British Empire. They were just astonished when Chamberlain finally dug his heals in over Poland as from their perspective till then he'd given every indication that he would always back down.

[Riche]

Thatcher had something Brown & Company have never had, and never will.. Respect!

 

You don't have to like someone to respect them. I never liked Maggie but she was our greatest post war leader, she didn't start wars but new how to finish them.

[ricgem2002]

You don't have to like someone to respect them. I never liked Maggie but she was our greatest post war leader, she didn't start wars but new how to finish them.

so we won the falklands under thatcher ?this the same woman who broke the miners did away with the unions finished the steel industy off and took away free school milk for the kids yea lovely woman

[tynan]

Thatcher had something Brown & Company have never had, and never will.. Respect!

 

 

The Aretha Franklin record?

[Riche]

so we won the falklands under thatcher ?this the same woman who broke the miners did away with the unions finished the steel industy off and took away free school milk for the kids yea lovely woman

I look at it this way she stopped a generation of lads from going down the pit. I'd wouldn't want my kids to follow mi darn pit. My uncle got redundacy and started a building firm with 2 of his pit mates. They never looked down pall. And thier kids went to uni. and better things. Some ex miners did p*** their redundancy away in self pitty. The cream will always rise to the top.

[magman]

so we won the falklands under thatcher ?this the same woman who broke the miners did away with the unions finished the steel industy off and took away free school milk for the kids yea lovely woman

 

If everything she ever did was so wrong, why haven't New Labour ever found time to reverse any of these evil things? They had time to create numerous other new laws.

[ricgem2002]

I look at it this way she stopped a generation of lads from going down the pit. I'd wouldn't want my kids to follow mi darn pit. My uncle got redundacy and started a building firm with 2 of his pit mates. They never looked down pall. And thier kids went to uni. and better things. Some ex miners did p*** their redundancy away in self pitty. The cream will always rise to the top.

and good luck to him but she didnt stop them from going down the pits there s a couple still operating so where s the logic in that .and what about the steel industy i suppose she stopped a generation working there then ? you have your opinion of her i have mine

[Riche]

and good luck to him but she didnt stop them from going down the pits there s a couple still operating so where s the logic in that .and what about the steel industy i suppose she stopped a generation working there then ? you have your opinion of her i have mine

 

Whats happened to the steel industry is very bad but we cannot compete with CHINA. We in the west demand cheaper consumer products so something has to give. It isn't Maggies fault.