British Prime Ministers Under Queen Elizabeth II Realm - Poll

[Brovion]

More realistically it would be a better sample of whom you think is bestest PM, if you gave your reasons why. At the moment the lefties are just voting for their own, and not giving an unbiased opinion, unlike the reasonable right.
So for me, you can only give a true opinion of a PM under whom you have lived and paid taxes too. Otherwise it's just a hearsay opinion from your parents or news written or otherwise of the time, or worse still from opinion makers writing with hindsight from people who were in nappies at the time.
So for me Maggie, 10. For curing a sick country and giving it back some self respect.

No we're not, quite a few have given a high rating to Macmillan and not just Tories. (Typical Tory behaviour: lying and twisting the facts! *joke*)

 

[BensGrandad]

My top three would be

Maggie 10
Harold McMillan 9
Winston Churchill 8

the rest can fight it out among themselves with Tony Bliar and Brown in the bottom 2 places.

 

[Goldstone Rapper]

I agree with most of this, and would also add that it is only relevant for their first, and possibly second terms. By the third they were both liabilities and, IMHO, Blair must go down in British political history as the most corrupt individual ever to be Prime Minister. His Wikipedia entry also makes amusing reading; the man has clearly lost the plot!

It's long forgotten now but Blair's first term was a very contented time in the country, with broad and popular support for the government of the day. They kept their modest but tangible election promises, and didn't mistake their huge majority for a license for doing whatever the hell they wanted. If only they had carried on in the same vein, we would have been spared the war against Iraq, public spending running out of control and Cameron and Clegg wouldn't be in power.

 

[Dandyman]

You mean apart from the first, Robert Walpole. He was notorious for his corruption and venality in any age when it was taken for granted that politicians were dodgy. He was jailed for corruption and satirised as a highwayman by Gay. There were plenty of crims and sleazeballs in the first 100 years of premierships.

Staggered by some high scores of Churchill - by 1953 he was nearly gaga and the UK drifted hopelessly while the rest of his cabinet jostled for succession - possibly the worst government since the 19th century.

Churchill was also responsible for overthrowing the closet thing Iran had to a progressive democratic government - an awful peacetime PM.

 

[tweenster]

My scores on the doors are as follows:

Winston Churchill 1952-1955 5 - Not a great peacetime PM.
Sir Anthony Eden 1955-1957
Harold Macmillan 1957-1963
Sir Alec Douglas-Home 1963-1964
Harold Wilson 1964-1970 & 1974-1976 3 - I remember the dark days of the 70s.
Edward Heath 1970-1974 3 - ditto
James Callaghan 1976-1979 3 Although the fact that was in my early teens means I wasn't paying that much attention!
Margaret Thatcher 1979-1990 Moral dilemma; 9 for the early years, 5, for the latter years. So 7.
John Major 1990-1997 6, just because he managed to conduct an affair with Edwina Curry for so long without being found out!
Tony Blair 1997-2007 Another dilemma; decisive early leadership (albeit with an overwhelming majority) but a morally corrupt individual. So 4.
Gordon Brown 2007-2010. I'm embarrassed that this man became PM of my country. To want something so much for so long and then to make a such a complete dog's dinner of it must be utterly embarrassing. I did actually meet him once and he was OK. But it's still only a 2.
David Cameron 2010-present Anyone who inherited the mess that Brown et al left was never going to have an easy ride. My jury is still out but I voted Conservative at the last election so it's a tentative 6.

I've not voted for a few because I have no real opinion of them due to being before my time.

 

[Brovion]

Churchill was also responsible for overthrowing the closet thing Iran had to a progressive democratic government - an awful peacetime PM.

Indeed. Churchill was wrong about almost everything in his political career: the Dardenelles, Ireland, India (indeed the empire/commonwealth generally), the Gold Standard, the list is almost endless and he was undoubtedly the worst peacetime politician ever. He was right when it really mattered though and for that reason alone I have an overall favourable opinion of the daft old goat.

 

[BensGrandad]

Didn't Churchill say that Europe would be governed by Germany and that has turned out to be right.

 

[HOFNSKIN]

Harold Wilson 10 solely for standing up to Lyndon Johnson and refused to send British troops to Vietnam. For this alone he should be top of the poll.

Imagine the carnage to British families if he had made the opposite decision.

 

[Nibble]

Harold Wilson 10 solely for standing up to Lyndon Johnson and refused to send British troops to Vietnam. For this alone he should be top of the poll.

Imagine the carnage to British families if he had made the opposite decision.

Unfortunately over the past 25 years we don't have to stretch our imaginations toimagine what it would be like