Margaret Thatcher

Team Brian GB

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The greatest peace time Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for over a century?

Discuss.
 
I almost did a thread on the matter a few weeks ago, we can all see where the thread on Tunisia is going to end up, this way we go to the heart of the matter and leave those who want to put Tunisia front and centre to do so.
 
Team Brian GB said:
The greatest peace time Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for over a century?

Discuss.
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I think you mean the worst.

Clement Attlee was the greatest Prime Minister for over a century, by far.
 
Can you give us a list of the other nominees for best PM please?
 
Frosty said:
I'll throw Churchill, Lloyd George and Earl Grey in to the mix.
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Churchill was a sexist, racist drunkard who only rose to PM because he was born into money. He spent the best part of WW2 pissed off his face, taking credit for everyone else's work.
 
Thatcher is disqualified as a peacetime PM since she got us into a completely avoidable war with Argentina. Fail.
 
mjs020294 said:
Can you give us a list of the other nominees for best PM please?
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Since 1900 this is the list of PMs, in bold are those which were notable for one reason or another.

Marquess of Salisbury
Arthur Balfour
Henry Campbell-Bannerman
Herbert Asquith
David Lloyd George
Andrew Bonar Law
Stanley Baldwin
Ramsay McDonald
Neville Chamberlain
Winston Churchill
Clement Atlee
Anthony Eden
Harold Macmillan
Alec Douglas-Home
Harold Wilson
Ed Heath
Jim Callaghan
Margaret Thatcher
John Major
Tony Blair
Gordon Brown
David Cameron
 
peterstorey said:
Thatcher is disqualified as a peacetime PM since she got us into a completely avoidable war with Argentina. Fail.
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Lol, the build-up was avoidable I'll give you that, but once that happened war as inevitable.

And on a wider point you will struggle to find a PM who didn't start or continue with a war.
 
Winston was the best war time PM.

Blair was a very good politician, that is if he didn't do the political thinking himself, his charisma combined with a good cabinet made him seem great for a while.
 
Team Brian GB said:
Since 1900 this is the list of PMs, in bold are those which were notable for one reason or another.

Marquess of Salisbury
Arthur Balfour
Henry Campbell-Bannerman
Herbert Asquith
David Lloyd George
Andrew Bonar Law
Stanley Baldwin
Ramsay McDonald
Neville Chamberlain
Winston Churchill
Clement Atlee
Anthony Eden
Harold Macmillan
Alec Douglas-Home
Harold Wilson
Ed Heath
Jim Callaghan
Margaret Thatcher
John Major
Tony Blair
Gordon Brown
David Cameron
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Attlee
Wilson
Lloyd George
 
Frosty said:
You may jest, but I wonder whether he will be viewed positively due to credit given for Northern Ireland in 40-50 years.
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That's to Blair's credit though it was driven by the tide of history (like many of the other accomplishments/demerits of 'great' men and women). He's disqualified since he led us into a war in Iraq.
 
rednev said:
Churchill was a sexist, racist drunkard who only rose to PM because he was born into money. He spent the best part of WW2 pissed off his face, taking credit for everyone else's work.
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Would you have rathered Lord Halifax become PM in 1940? He would have commenced armistice negotiations with Germany within a week.
 
peterstorey said:
That's to Blair's credit though it was driven by the tide of history (like many of the other accomplishments/demerits of 'great' men and women). He's disqualified since he led us into a war in Iraq.
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He isn't disqualified, because as I say, this is based on what PMs do outside of leading a country in wartime.
 
Leading a country into war is a pretty shit 'peacetime' achievement which probably leaves Atlee as the architect of the welfare state and a man who didn't start a war as a clear winner.
 
rednev said:
I think you mean the worst.

Clement Attlee was the greatest Prime Minister for over a century, by far.
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First things first, he did very little to stop the Labour Party talking down Churchill during the Second World War, he didn't wait until WWII was over before bringing the national government to an end calling for an election whilst hundreds of thousands of men were still engaged against the Japanese.

As a PM the economy went into a nosedive, rationing became far more severed than at anytime during the war, and he precipitated a change in national philsophy which set Britain on a downward trend in terms of leading the way in economic development. If it wasn't for Thatcher 35 years down the line carrying out an extremely controversial agenda, who knows where we would have ended up?
 
peterstorey said:
Leading a country into war is a pretty shit 'peacetime' achievement which probably leaves Atlee as the architect of the welfare state and a man who didn't start a war as a clear winner.
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It was the likes of Atlee as Leader of the Opposition that most verociously opposed re-arming in the thirties, and Labour did what they could to block it at every opportunity - Baldwin on numerous occasions had to downscale his plans for RAF expansion because of Labour opposition forced him into it. If we had fallen in 1940, Atlee would have been the reason why we were unable to defend ourselves.
 
For a peacetime thread you are talking an awful lot about war Brian. You just can't help yourself. The only thing you like more than hypothetical war games, are real wars.

Also, if we're discussing 'best PM' then that is limited to what someone did or did not do in their term as PM, not before and after office.
 
So we can't hold the Balfour Declaration against him? Probably provided the longest lasting pain the ass of any of the PMs.
 
MikeUpNorth said:
For a peacetime thread you are talking an awful lot about war Brian. You just can't help yourself. The only thing you like more than hypothetical war games, are real wars.
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I wasn't the one who brought up Churchill's war record into play, I wasn't the one who brought Thatcher's war record into play, I wasn't the one who brought Blair's war record into play, and I wasn't the one who claimed that Atlee was great in part due to not starting a war - I want this to be about peacetime feats but I'll counter any claims regarding war.

Selective reading as usual.
 
Thatcher was very poor for the PR of the nation, because in all fairness she was a bit of a cnut. As a leader and representative of the nation this was a major flaw. Above someone mentioned Northern Ireland as Blairs chance through historical revision, conversely it ranks Maggie as despicable.
 
MikeUpNorth said:
Also, if we're discussing 'best PM' then that is limited to what someone did or did not do in their term as PM, not before and after office.
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That is a fair point, though you can extend it to a PMs other political experience.

The reason why I said peacetime prime minister is because I wanted to take Churchill out of the reckoning, there is a huge difference between leading a total war effort and running the country at any other time, both requiring different skills and attributes - Churchill's record before and after WWII not really being exactly stellar alludes to this.
 
Team Brian GB said:
I wasn't the one who brought up Churchill's war record into play, I wasn't the one who brought Thatcher's war record into play, I wasn't the one who brought Blair's war record into play, and I wasn't the one who claimed that Atlee was great in part due to not starting a war - I want this to be about peacetime feats but I'll counter any claims regarding war.

Selective reading as usual.
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Well give us a list of peacetime PMs and we'll pick and chose. All the ones above are by definition not peacetime are they?
 
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