Who was the best prime minister of the UK?

[dimbat]

the current one, we only borrow £20,000,000 this month

[chorba]

These questions are normally futile. It's hard to measure 'talent' in the confines of historical context.

 

Churchill was good because there was a huge war going on. Take that war out of the equation and give him the economical problems of the Depression and he'd be a completely different story.

 

We all know that being at war is the most stable situation a country can be in.

 

We can't really give credit to someone for being able to handle a war, I mean it's just a detail isn't it.

 

 

 

It is an open question.

 

The idea is to start from general questions.

[Glennis]

Hharold Wilson's government were innovative, with the founding of the OU, equal rights legislation and seat belt laws etc etc

 

same could be said for the post-war Labour government, with the founding of the welfare state, NHS.

 

This doesn't really answer your specific question, but does one man work in isolation?

[Jeffrey Shaw]

Go on, then, I'll mention her: Mrs. Thatcher.

[alchresearch]

Why was he not reelected straight after the war? that is something I don't understand.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Later_life_of_Winston_Churchill

 

Although Churchill's role in World War II had generated him much support from the British population, he had many opponents. He also expressed contempt for a number of popular ideas, in particular creating a system of national public health care and improving public education.

[crookesey]

Hharold Wilson's government were innovative, with the founding of the OU, equal rights legislation and seat belt laws etc etc

 

same could be said for the post-war Labour government, with the founding of the welfare state, NHS.

 

This doesn't really answer your specific question, but does one man work in isolation?

 

Only one shout for a Labour PM on a very left wing forum, why is that then?

 

I might as well get my two penneth in.

 

Best wartime PM, Churchill

Best peacetime PM, Macmillan

Worst wartime PM, Blair

Worst peacetime PM, Brown

[onetwo07]

David Lloyd George - a bit of a cheat, scoundrel and womaniser but nevertheless an absolute machine politically, as both Chancellor and PM.

 

Curbed the power of the House of Lords - '500 men chosen accidentally from amongst the unemployed'

 

Won World War 1, Old Age Pensions, National Insurance

 

"It is rather hard that an old workman should have to find his way to the gates of the tomb, bleeding and footsore, through the brambles and thorns of poverty."

 

"The Landlord is a gentleman ... who does not earn his wealth. He has a host of agents and clerks that receive for him. He does not even take the trouble to spend his wealth. He has a host of people around him to do the actual spending. He never sees it until he comes to enjoy it. His sole function, his chief pride, is the stately consumption of wealth produced by others."

[Mister M]

Hharold Wilson's government were innovative, with the founding of the OU, equal rights legislation and seat belt laws etc etc

 

same could be said for the post-war Labour government, with the founding of the welfare state, NHS.

 

This doesn't really answer your specific question, but does one man work in isolation?

 

I agree Glennis. much of the legislation of that period was introduced with against a lot of opposition (decriminalsing homosexuality, abolition of death penalty, divorce reform, and I think toughening up laws against drink driving). Also that government embarked on a huge housebuilding programme, and income disparity became narrower not larger - such a shame subsequent Labour governments didn't achieve this.

 

However I have managed to dig this gem out - according to members of the Political Studies Association the Minimum Wage Legislation is the most successful policy in the last 30 years, beating Sure Start, Privatisation and devolution. Read about it here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11896971

 

Attlees reform programme takes some beating though

[Keith Rich]

Go on, then, I'll mention her: Mrs. Thatcher.

 

Mrs Thatcher for me as well.

 

She changed the face of Britain in the 80s.

[LeMaquis]

Churchill was pm during the war. The UK stayed away from the ideological drift that was happening in continental Europe. Thank you Churchill.

 

Why was he not reelected straight after the war? that is something I don't understand.

 

So, why was Churchill not a good politician?

 

Last point first. Churchill supported eugenics and advocated the sterilisation of the mentally ill. In 1915, he was one of the political and military engineers of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign during the First World War. He also advocated the use of tear gas on Kurdish tribesmen in Iraq, was paid by the oil lobby to plunder Middle Eastern reserves, put Britain back on the gold Standard in 1924causing a recession, praised Mussolini's fascism and Franco, and opposed Ghandi and Indian independence. He was a reactionary imperialist who might have been a good war leader for Britain but without Stalin and Roosevelt he certainly wouldn't have led Britain to victory.

 

In 1945 returning troops wanted a fresh start. Churchill was booed at open air speeches and heavily defeated. The war was over and his role in it wasn't enough to presuade people that the Conservatives should be allowed to rebuild the country. They turned to Attlee instead, who would get my vote for best PM.

 

The ideological drift in continental Europe was a few drifts - communism in the east, fascism in Germany and Italy, military rule in Spain and Potugal as well as liberal democracy in France and elsewhere.