14alice Posted August 3, 2010 Share Posted August 3, 2010 ... in a poll of 100 academics The list in order: 1 Attlee 2.Thatcher 3.Blair 4.Macmillan 5.Wilson 6.Churchill 7.Callaghan 8.Major 9.Heath 10.Brown 11. Douglas-home 12.Eden. Attlee is at number 1 because his government introduced the National Health Service and Welfare Reform and kept unemployment at just 3% of the population. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordChaverly Posted August 3, 2010 Share Posted August 3, 2010 This is a silly exercise, because even if the same criteria are used to evaluate prime ministerial performances, each person was operating in a unique set of circumstances, so we are not really comparing like with like. Moreover, it has to be a largely subjective judgement in each case. However, on balance I think they are right about Attlee and Thatcher (they would have been my two top choices). At the other end of the scale, I would put Eden and Blair for involving us in completely unnecessary military interventions. Both also lied repeatedly in order to justify these interventions and neither showed any remorse for what they did. I would have put Heath at the very bottom, because he made a complete mess of everything he touched, but on reflection his saving grace was that he was not a warmonger. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bedders Posted August 3, 2010 Share Posted August 3, 2010 How can Thatcher & Blair be above Churchill? Churchill help defeat the might of Nazi ideology, so democracy (not dictatorship & racism) could continue. Baffles me that one! I'd put Attlee at number 1 for the NHS & welfare state, but for me Churchill is second all day! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordChaverly Posted August 3, 2010 Share Posted August 3, 2010 How can Thatcher & Blair be above Churchill? Churchill help defeat the might of Nazi ideology, so democracy (not dictatorship & racism) could continue. Baffles me that one! I'd put Attlee at number 1 for the NHS & welfare state, but for me Churchill is second all day! They are referring to PMs in peace time (i.e. post-1945). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bedders Posted August 3, 2010 Share Posted August 3, 2010 They are referring to PMs in peace time (i.e. post-1945). There was no link to read the article from the OP, and the OP didn't put it was post 1945. Still not sure of the order on there even now I know that!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeadingNorth Posted August 3, 2010 Share Posted August 3, 2010 There was no link to read the article from the OP, and the OP didn't put it was post 1945. Fair points. Assuming that the list of 12 is the whole list, it does indeed only cover PMs from 1945 onwards. Most people agree that Eden was largely a disaster as PM. History may yet be kind to him, at least by moving Brown below him in the pecking order of "Worst Prime Minister We Ever Should Not Have Had." Callaghan never had a chance. He took over in the middle of total financial collapse, and his party wouldn't allow him to fix it whether he wanted to or not. Douglas-Home wasn't in power for long enough to do anything much, as I recall. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vague_Boy Posted August 3, 2010 Share Posted August 3, 2010 Nice to see Crash Gordon down among the real losers in the bottom part of the table although really he should be at No. 12. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bedders Posted August 4, 2010 Share Posted August 4, 2010 To be honest on that list, other than Attlee, you can keep the rest for me. Only Attlee has a real true 'Legacy' that he can be proud of in his term in office. All the others have have contributed along the way with one thing or another, that has made the UK into the mess it currently finds itself in today: whether that be failed military conflicts, strikes & civil unrest, selling off lock stock of nationalised industries, greed & self interest, badly thought out & hugely unpopular taxation methods, poor handling of the economy / mismanagement....the list goes on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
14alice Posted August 4, 2010 Author Share Posted August 4, 2010 There was no link to read the article from the OP, and the OP didn't put it was post 1945. Still not sure of the order on there even now I know that!! It was an article carried by the FT.com on 1 august 2010 however i didn't link it because many of their articles including this one are viewed on a subscriber only basis. Yes apologies as i did omit to mention that the survey was covering post war terms only, hence, Churchill's lowish ranking reflecting what they thought of his 1950's period in office not his wartime service. I suspect Gordon Brown's ranking will change in the years to come as we are too close to the event to give a fair assessment of his achievements, the same with Blair as the nation reflects on his passion for military interventions in far away lands, and of course it is much to early to pass any judgement on the Cameron. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HeadingNorth Posted August 4, 2010 Share Posted August 4, 2010 All the others have have contributed along the way with one thing or another, that has made the UK into the mess it currently finds itself in today ... selling off lock stock of nationalised industries Memories are so short. The UK was in a hundred times worse a mess in the 1970s, and went bankrupt, because of the nationalised industries. Offloading them was our salvation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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