| Worst PM in last 100 years on 14:11 - Oct 18 with 2637 views | Brightonhoop |
The Harrogate History mob are going to get a shock when the Hay Festival Ultras turn up on the 22nd. Carnage. |  | |  |
| Worst PM in last 100 years on 14:15 - Oct 18 with 2629 views | DaiHo0p |
#1 Thatcher
#2 Churchill
#3 Chamberlain |  | | |
| Worst PM in last 100 years on 14:17 - Oct 18 with 2618 views | loftboy |
#1 Blair
#2 Callaghan
# 3 Brown |  |
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| Worst PM in last 100 years on 14:24 - Oct 18 with 2601 views | BrianMcCarthy |
“I think Chamberlain could have personally prevented the second world war,” said Ashdown. “He was certainly warned by the German opposition what Hitler was and he chose to ignore it, and the consequence was eight million people dead. I don’t blame him for those deaths but I remain of the view that if he’d taken the right decision, as he was encouraged to when Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, the second world war would not have happened.”
What could Chamberlain honestly have done to stop Hitler and WW2? |  |
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| Worst PM in last 100 years on 14:34 - Oct 18 with 2581 views | SimonJames |
Hmm. Sensing a bit of a left wing bias there. Not even a nomination for Ramsay MacDonald (who was expelled from the Labour Party whilst still Prime Minister). |  |
| 100% of people who drink water will die. |
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| Worst PM in last 100 years on 15:01 - Oct 18 with 2527 views | TacticalR |
| Worst PM in last 100 years on 14:24 - Oct 18 by BrianMcCarthy |
“I think Chamberlain could have personally prevented the second world war,” said Ashdown. “He was certainly warned by the German opposition what Hitler was and he chose to ignore it, and the consequence was eight million people dead. I don’t blame him for those deaths but I remain of the view that if he’d taken the right decision, as he was encouraged to when Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, the second world war would not have happened.”
What could Chamberlain honestly have done to stop Hitler and WW2? |
Very poor from Ashdown, who obviously believes that policy is a matter of personality, and that international affairs can be solved amicably between men of goodwill. However, the idiosyncrasies of political leaders are a poor explanation for national policies. The creation of an empire in Eastern Europe and Russia was a goal of German foreign policy prior to Hitler. The antagonism between Japan and America was also a matter of long standing. That is why in 1914 the leader of Red Clydeside correctly predicted war between Japan and America, even though Japan was then an ally of Britain and America
'We all know that the commercial rivalry of Japan and the United States – similar to that between Britain and Germany – must lead to a war in the Pacific basin.'
John Maclean, The War and Its Outcome, (September, 1914)
https://www.marxists.org/archive/maclean/1914/09/17.htm
It's also why, whatever Trump's isolationist rhetoric, isolationism is not an option for America. |  |
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| Worst PM in last 100 years on 15:51 - Oct 18 with 2452 views | loftus77 |
Well, I personally think that Bonar Law geezer was rubbish... |  | | |
| Worst PM in last 100 years on 15:57 - Oct 18 with 2435 views | BazzaInTheLoft |
| Worst PM in last 100 years on 14:34 - Oct 18 by SimonJames |
Hmm. Sensing a bit of a left wing bias there. Not even a nomination for Ramsay MacDonald (who was expelled from the Labour Party whilst still Prime Minister). |
Ramsay out! |  | | |
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| Worst PM in last 100 years on 16:03 - Oct 18 with 2423 views | FredManRave |
What's it matter?! They were all just puppets serving the same master. |  |
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| Worst PM in last 100 years on 16:07 - Oct 18 with 2412 views | Rs_Holy |
#1 Tony Blair
#2 Tony Blair
# 3 Tony Blair |  | | |
| Worst PM in last 100 years on 18:02 - Oct 18 with 2280 views | robith |
| Worst PM in last 100 years on 14:34 - Oct 18 by SimonJames |
Hmm. Sensing a bit of a left wing bias there. Not even a nomination for Ramsay MacDonald (who was expelled from the Labour Party whilst still Prime Minister). |
Surely just numbers? 6 Labour PMs, 2 Liberal, 12 Conservative in that time |  | | |
| Worst PM in last 100 years on 18:09 - Oct 18 with 2271 views | Boston |
Not another bed wetter thread! Help. | |
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| Worst PM in last 100 years on 18:09 - Oct 18 with 2270 views | robith |
| Worst PM in last 100 years on 14:24 - Oct 18 by BrianMcCarthy |
“I think Chamberlain could have personally prevented the second world war,” said Ashdown. “He was certainly warned by the German opposition what Hitler was and he chose to ignore it, and the consequence was eight million people dead. I don’t blame him for those deaths but I remain of the view that if he’d taken the right decision, as he was encouraged to when Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, the second world war would not have happened.”
What could Chamberlain honestly have done to stop Hitler and WW2? |
By the time Chamberlain was PM, little. The chance to stop Hitler easily was early doors when the Nazis openly admitted they were running on bluster and would've collapsed if challenged by Britain or France.
Chamberlain is slightly harshly judged. This is not to exonerate him from blame (see how he sold France and Spain done the river in the Civil War), but he had public sentiment that was staunchly against another war, a Labour party of a similar inclination, and some of his backbenchers who argued they should see it as the "bulwark against godless communism". He kops the flak, but the only people advocating for war were Chuchill and a couple of the harder left of the labour party. | | | |
| Worst PM in last 100 years on 18:11 - Oct 18 with 2261 views | robith |
Recency outcome bias here, but has to be Cameron. I detest the impact Thatcher had, but she had an agenda and successfully implemented it. Cameron was a total chancer who has left a wave of domestic and foreign policy catastrophe in his wake. | | | |
| Worst PM in last 100 years on 18:27 - Oct 18 with 2233 views | macclesfieldman |
| Worst PM in last 100 years on 14:15 - Oct 18 by DaiHo0p |
#1 Thatcher
#2 Churchill
#3 Chamberlain |
1. Blair. 2. Heath 3.Wilson |  |
| Wild horses couldn't drag me away... |
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| Worst PM in last 100 years on 19:39 - Oct 18 with 2153 views | plasmahoop |
From the ones in my time, Callaghan, brown, major.
The guardian is just a load of old left wing bollocks though. Let's do survey of lefties, who slag off thatcher, like someone does in it everyday. Bit unfair to blame her for everything, when brown gets away scot free after his disastrous Chancellorship and premiership | | | |
| Worst PM in last 100 years on 21:52 - Oct 18 with 2029 views | Hooparoo |
Chamberlain unfairly judged as an appeaser after the Munich agreement but think what would have happened if he hadn't bought some time to rearm Britain in 1938-39. He immediately increased defence spending including production of spitfires, Hurricanes and the training of new pilots.
You wouldn't have won the Battle of Britain with no planes. Chamberlain clearly saw that he needed to buy some time. |  |
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| Worst PM in last 100 years on 22:11 - Oct 18 with 1989 views | BrianMcCarthy |
| Worst PM in last 100 years on 21:52 - Oct 18 by Hooparoo |
Chamberlain unfairly judged as an appeaser after the Munich agreement but think what would have happened if he hadn't bought some time to rearm Britain in 1938-39. He immediately increased defence spending including production of spitfires, Hurricanes and the training of new pilots.
You wouldn't have won the Battle of Britain with no planes. Chamberlain clearly saw that he needed to buy some time. |
That was my recollection of what we were taught about him too, Hooparoo, though I never studied history during my brief schooldays in England so I wasn't sure. | |
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| Worst PM in last 100 years on 22:16 - Oct 18 with 1976 views | SydneyRs |
1. Thatcher
2. Thatcher
3. Thatcher | | | |
| Worst PM in last 100 years on 22:25 - Oct 18 with 1955 views | CiderwithRsie |
| Worst PM in last 100 years on 14:24 - Oct 18 by BrianMcCarthy |
“I think Chamberlain could have personally prevented the second world war,” said Ashdown. “He was certainly warned by the German opposition what Hitler was and he chose to ignore it, and the consequence was eight million people dead. I don’t blame him for those deaths but I remain of the view that if he’d taken the right decision, as he was encouraged to when Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, the second world war would not have happened.”
What could Chamberlain honestly have done to stop Hitler and WW2? |
"The Blitzkrieg Legend" by Karl-Heinz Frieser (the current German Army's head of research into the two world wars) makes extraordinary reading in the first chapter. He quotes specific statements by Hitler to his generals in 1939 that the British would not fight, and that he, Hitler, was not stupid enough to start a war over Poland. When the news came though that Britain had declared war he is reported (by the translator of the declaration) as sitting in silence and then just saying "Now what?"
There's strong grounds for saying that any British PM could have prevented WW2 by making it clear to Hitler that we would go to war if he broke the Treaty of Versailles. We could have done so in 1935 when he introduced conscription - at which point he did not have an army to fight us with - in 1936 when he re-militarised the Rhineland (still with virtually no army: the Polish PM actually proposed to the French that if they declared war Poland would join in) in March '38 when he took over Austria, in September '38 when he started the Sudetenland crisis or even in March '39 when he took over the rest of Czechoslovakia.
Right up to 1939 the German Army was unprepared for war and most of the German High Command thought even in Sept 1939 that the war was a disastrous mistake - the commander-in-chief went to several meetings with a loaded pistol with a view to shooting Hitler to save the country from defeat, but bottled it. The Czechoslovak army would have been a tougher nut to crack than the Poles, firstly because the Germans were less well-prepared, secondly because there were mountain ranges in the way, thirdly because the Czechs had big tank industry - in 1940 three out of the ten German panzer divisions were largely equipped with tanks taken from the Czech army, and finally because one the the reasons for easy German victory over Poland was the ability to invade from Czechoslovakia.
So he could quite easily have prevented WW2, e.g. with a clear and unambiguous statement that the borders of Czechoslovakia were inviolable and any move by Hitler to the contrary would have led to war. Hitler would have backed down and lost prestige, who knows what would have happened next.
But you come to the hindsight thing, and in blaming him you have to notice that no-one else, apart from Churchill, called it right. Chamberlain only became PM in 1937, so the first two (and easiest) chances weren't on his watch - that was Stanley Baldwin, so maybe he should go down as the worst PM. Labour was also pacifist until 1937. And the various French leaders got it wrong too, and maybe were more to blame, as France was the bigger land power than Britain. | | | |
| Worst PM in last 100 years on 01:35 - Oct 19 with 1845 views | BazzaInTheLoft |
| Worst PM in last 100 years on 22:25 - Oct 18 by CiderwithRsie |
"The Blitzkrieg Legend" by Karl-Heinz Frieser (the current German Army's head of research into the two world wars) makes extraordinary reading in the first chapter. He quotes specific statements by Hitler to his generals in 1939 that the British would not fight, and that he, Hitler, was not stupid enough to start a war over Poland. When the news came though that Britain had declared war he is reported (by the translator of the declaration) as sitting in silence and then just saying "Now what?"
There's strong grounds for saying that any British PM could have prevented WW2 by making it clear to Hitler that we would go to war if he broke the Treaty of Versailles. We could have done so in 1935 when he introduced conscription - at which point he did not have an army to fight us with - in 1936 when he re-militarised the Rhineland (still with virtually no army: the Polish PM actually proposed to the French that if they declared war Poland would join in) in March '38 when he took over Austria, in September '38 when he started the Sudetenland crisis or even in March '39 when he took over the rest of Czechoslovakia.
Right up to 1939 the German Army was unprepared for war and most of the German High Command thought even in Sept 1939 that the war was a disastrous mistake - the commander-in-chief went to several meetings with a loaded pistol with a view to shooting Hitler to save the country from defeat, but bottled it. The Czechoslovak army would have been a tougher nut to crack than the Poles, firstly because the Germans were less well-prepared, secondly because there were mountain ranges in the way, thirdly because the Czechs had big tank industry - in 1940 three out of the ten German panzer divisions were largely equipped with tanks taken from the Czech army, and finally because one the the reasons for easy German victory over Poland was the ability to invade from Czechoslovakia.
So he could quite easily have prevented WW2, e.g. with a clear and unambiguous statement that the borders of Czechoslovakia were inviolable and any move by Hitler to the contrary would have led to war. Hitler would have backed down and lost prestige, who knows what would have happened next.
But you come to the hindsight thing, and in blaming him you have to notice that no-one else, apart from Churchill, called it right. Chamberlain only became PM in 1937, so the first two (and easiest) chances weren't on his watch - that was Stanley Baldwin, so maybe he should go down as the worst PM. Labour was also pacifist until 1937. And the various French leaders got it wrong too, and maybe were more to blame, as France was the bigger land power than Britain. |
LFW:
'Come for the Jimmy slagging, stay for the interesting posts about WW2 '
Great stuff : ) | | | |
| Worst PM in last 100 years on 06:29 - Oct 19 with 1796 views | Hooparoo |
| Worst PM in last 100 years on 22:25 - Oct 18 by CiderwithRsie |
"The Blitzkrieg Legend" by Karl-Heinz Frieser (the current German Army's head of research into the two world wars) makes extraordinary reading in the first chapter. He quotes specific statements by Hitler to his generals in 1939 that the British would not fight, and that he, Hitler, was not stupid enough to start a war over Poland. When the news came though that Britain had declared war he is reported (by the translator of the declaration) as sitting in silence and then just saying "Now what?"
There's strong grounds for saying that any British PM could have prevented WW2 by making it clear to Hitler that we would go to war if he broke the Treaty of Versailles. We could have done so in 1935 when he introduced conscription - at which point he did not have an army to fight us with - in 1936 when he re-militarised the Rhineland (still with virtually no army: the Polish PM actually proposed to the French that if they declared war Poland would join in) in March '38 when he took over Austria, in September '38 when he started the Sudetenland crisis or even in March '39 when he took over the rest of Czechoslovakia.
Right up to 1939 the German Army was unprepared for war and most of the German High Command thought even in Sept 1939 that the war was a disastrous mistake - the commander-in-chief went to several meetings with a loaded pistol with a view to shooting Hitler to save the country from defeat, but bottled it. The Czechoslovak army would have been a tougher nut to crack than the Poles, firstly because the Germans were less well-prepared, secondly because there were mountain ranges in the way, thirdly because the Czechs had big tank industry - in 1940 three out of the ten German panzer divisions were largely equipped with tanks taken from the Czech army, and finally because one the the reasons for easy German victory over Poland was the ability to invade from Czechoslovakia.
So he could quite easily have prevented WW2, e.g. with a clear and unambiguous statement that the borders of Czechoslovakia were inviolable and any move by Hitler to the contrary would have led to war. Hitler would have backed down and lost prestige, who knows what would have happened next.
But you come to the hindsight thing, and in blaming him you have to notice that no-one else, apart from Churchill, called it right. Chamberlain only became PM in 1937, so the first two (and easiest) chances weren't on his watch - that was Stanley Baldwin, so maybe he should go down as the worst PM. Labour was also pacifist until 1937. And the various French leaders got it wrong too, and maybe were more to blame, as France was the bigger land power than Britain. |
Some great points you made there mate.
Respect. | |
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| Worst PM in last 100 years on 07:59 - Oct 19 with 1731 views | BrianMcCarthy |
Fascinating post, Cider. | |
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| Worst PM in last 100 years on 08:18 - Oct 19 with 1714 views | ElHoop |
I've always thought that with some absolute nutjobs in charge of nations possessing the capacity to develop nuclear weapons, WW2 ended up pretty well really. If you wanted to change anything then it would be pretty foolish to assume that a far more destructive outcome might not have resulted sooner or later. Yes, Japan was nuked, millions died, but it could have been a whole lot worse.
The worst PMs? I think that's pretty impossible to judge. Circumstances have changed so much over the years -it's a different game now. When Thatcher came to power, WW2 seemed like a different age completely. Compared to now, the 1970's were just as much a foreigh country. Everything was massively different back then, and so were the demands upon politicians. It's no good bringing in a rottweiler and then later blaming it for not being a poodle. I think that in many cases a PM's reputation should stand or fall on the task he or she faced at a time of great difficulty - when we needed a tough job to be done. Arguably this was the type of situation faced by Churchill, Thatcher and Cameron. Once that job is done then it's the job of the opposition to say thanks very much and lets get on with something else now. A lot of the time that hasn't happened, as the opposition has disappeared up its own arse. So sometimes the rottweiler keeps barking long after its sell-by date has passed. [Post edited 19 Oct 2016 8:20]
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| Worst PM in last 100 years on 09:47 - Oct 19 with 1629 views | Benny_the_Ball |
I agree with Ashdown regarding Thatcher. The country was in a mess and needed restructuring. What she failed to do was tackle the 2nd part of restructuring which is rebuild and provide those areas affected by her policies with an alternative.
It should also be bourne in mind that Thatcher was a woman operating in a man's world. A lot is made even today about inequality. Imagine what it was like to be a woman vying for a top job in the 1970s? You wouldn't stand a chance unless you were tough. The Guardian, being a key protagonist for equality and inclusion, really ought to have set this context in its article. |  | | |
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