[Politics] Which British Prime Minister had the most profund effect on your life?

[Justice]

Has to be David Cameron, utter ****. and he has lots of very stiff competition.

He got stiff with a pig apparently.

 

[Baker lite]

Has to be David Cameron, utter ****. and he has lots of very stiff competition.

He did give us a referendum on the EU, For that I will be eternally grateful, he is a cock though,I’ll grant you that.[emoji636]


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[Ding Dong !]

Tory all the way for me, doesn't matter which one. Has allowed me to own my own home, work for myself, tell unions to go stuff themselves and has put food on the table without being told by socialists to share. It's all about me and my family you see, I don't want community or to be part of the greater good. I'll shop where I like, when I like and buy what I like. I don't give handouts nor would I expect them.
Righto, that should be just enough water thrown on the hot oil to see a few heads explode

Cameron delivered us the opportunity to vote in a democratic referendum and put it out to the people of this nation to decide. As others have said, the EU appears to be a total cluster f*ck with regards to the Vaccine debacle. Something the current PM & govt has got right to be fair.

 

[Soul Finger]

Grew up with Thatcher in power and very quickly realised that every, single thing she stood for, I didn't.

The haves and the have nots.

Still loathe them and always will.

 

[Live by the sea]

Probably Thatcher and Blair .

Didn’t agree with everything they did but both stood out to me as being what a PM should be; very articulate, intelligent, leading from the front and trustworthy.

 

[Shropshire Seagull]

Wilson - kept the UK out of the Vietnam war
Heath - took the UK into Europe but the lights went out
Thatcher - taught me that the capitalist market is king, work hard and you'll be fine, home ownership is good, Falklands worth saving, Unions were too powerful
Blair - Buck stops with him on the Gulf war - right-wing [New] Labour was what most folk wanted but it ran out of gas
Cameron / May / Johnson - collectively working to exit the EU

So, some for better, some for worse - but deep down, they're all a bunch of shysters.

 

[usernamed]

Johnson as we will be suffering from his incompetence for years to come.

To be fair, whoever gets to be PM, we suffer from their incompetence for years to come.

There’s so much opportunity for things to get ballsed up between idea and execution, especially when it runs through countless committees, civil servants, etc.

Even if none of those involved have their own agendas (rare) it’s still common that what emerges as operational reality bears little to no resemblance to the original idea.

Blair was the only time I have ever felt positive about a British government, and even that faded between the Iraq war and some of the dodgy pro-business but anti-human stuff that Mandelson was trying to sneak through toward the end.

For a short while though, life felt good.


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[Shropshire Seagull]

Did someone, somewhere, say he personally introduced Covid

He was late introducing lockdowns (3 times)
Late introducing testing
Didn't prioritise Carehomes
Late introducing quarantine for entries to the UK
Still waiting for a working track and trace
Put out numerous contracts out to suppliers with no history of anything except links to his Government
Put early orders in for vaccines

He decided to campaign to Leave the EU purely for his own career
He decided to push ahead with it in the middle of a Pandemic
He introduced a border between NI and the rest of the UK
He negotiated a 'deal' that is unimplementable
He has no plan for getting us out of this unsustainable position that he has now put us in
The economy continues to crash as a result of his deal
The economic impact of what he has done hasn't even started
Has just pushed through a law to allow us to trade with countries undertaking genocide (last night)

You're right though, he didn't personally introduce Covid

But then again, no surprise you're backing him in your post.

Gosh, you must have a Masters in hindsight?

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I am sorry but what you have written above is quite simply factually incorrect. We negotiated the deal with AZ whilst still operating under the rules and regulations of the EU. Exactly the same as Hungary, a full EU member who did and continue to do the same.

There is no doubt that the EU have cocked up badly on vaccines, but leaving the EU has had no effect on the UK's ability to order vaccines independently. This the third time this has been pointed out in the last couple of pages of posts. To state otherwise is quite simply a lie

This.

The only caveat, as I have stated several times, is that had we stayed in the EU we may well have wimped out over going it alone with the vaccine, even though we were perectly entitled to do so. But... thanking David Cameron for triggering the events that resulted in this is on a par with thanking the yorkshire ripper for the improvement in the way sex workers are now treated by the police and society.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Are you aware of just how quickly anyone can Google 'UK poverty 1979 to 2021' and confirm this to be completely incorrect?

Just Wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_Kingdom comes up with:

"From 1979 to 1987, the number of Britons living in poverty (defined as living on less than half the national average income) doubled, from roughly 10% to 20% of the whole population."

Arguing that the poor are better off only works if you completely discount the change in the value of money, the boom in credit and the reduction in cost of material goods created by technological advances. In reality the Thatcher government's policies had the exact opposite effect to the one you are suggesting.

Unsurprisingly, economic policies didn't magic up extra resources, so that everyone's share was larger. The rich got richer because their share of the total resources got larger. If you think about it, with resources being finite, that is the only possible way of it happening.

That isn't a definition of poverty (that makes any sense). It is a definition of inequality.



In the figure below the median is the value dividing the population in half. The mean is the average
The only way for less than half the nation to earn less than half the national average income is to ensure that median is bigger than the mean (negative skew, figure on the right). This mean stopping people getting very rich (old labour - tax the rich) and or ensuring that a sufficient number of people are kept much poorer than the mean (old tory). This is of course utter bollocks. If we all got ten times richer apart from a few who became 100 times richer then there would be more inequality, sure, but there would be less poverty because everyone would be richer.



The only sensible approach is to aim to have everyone better off.

ignore the figure below. I can't delete it.

 

[Muhammad - I’m hard - Bruce Lee]

Thatcher, I’ve never in my life hated anyone as much as that horrible piece of filth.

 

[Lincoln Imp]

The only answer to the question, for me and most people, should surely be Winston Churchill. His decision in 1940 to resist invasion or humiliation must have had a more profound effect on the lives of later generations than anything any of the subsequent 13 PMs did.

Peter Hennessy, as good a modern historian as you will find, said in his book The Prime Minister that only Attlee and Thatcher of post war prime ministers had much effect on the lives of ordinary British people. The others spent most of their careers veering between firemen and middle managers.

If I had to say which PM of my adult life has had the most profound effect I would say Boris Johnson. Although not in a good way.

 

[FIVESTEPS]

Rather a shame that you have built a philosophy based on a lie. This is what Margaret Thatcher said:

""They are casting their problems at society. And, you know, there's no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look after themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then, also, to look after our neighbours." – in an interview in Women's Own in 1987

Her point being, that it's no use looking at your neighbour who is struggling and thinking "society will help". You need to look at your neighbour and think "I will help". Society, as a means of helping people, does not exist; people, as a means of helping people, do exist.

Agree,when my brother in law died leaving my sister in law to cope with three girls under 8 and half finished building project we could have said society can sort it out.Instead we helped and held the family together something I'm proud of.looking to society is just passing the buck.

 

[Raleigh Chopper]

Pre pandemic i would not have agreed with you as sure we were better as one union, however given the utter farce that is ensuing with the vaccine debacle over there I’m so glad we are out. Yes our PM has made mistakes but he has certainly got the vaccination roll out brilliantly done.

The vaccine was created by scientists and dispersed and administered by the NHS with help from the military and volunteers, Johnson stands there in a white coat with the vaccine held aloft and all the mugs fall for him yet again.
But before the vaccine he did manage to kill thousands needlessly, ignore scientists, dithered, delayed and sent the economy down the drain and gave us the highest death toll in Europe and one of the highest in the world.
The very worst man in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

[beorhthelm]

That isn't a definition of poverty (that makes any sense). It is a definition of inequality.

unfortunately its the way its measured. throws up weird outcomes, like reducing GDP lowers poverty. thats before the manipulation of cohorts and demographic affects.

 

[Bodian]

"Most profound effect on your life" is quite an interesting question - especially when looking at some of the responses, which are as much about society and so on as a whole, rather than an individual effect.

Two pieces of legislation had a direct positive impact on me:

1) Countryside & Rights of Way Act - gave open access (more popularly known as the right to roam), leading me to get a job, which I am still happily in 20+ years later.
2) Scrapping our ridiculous licensing laws - giving us far more freedom and enjoyment in the pubs, a place I very much enjoy being.

Both passed relatively early in Blair's first term.

 

[Silverhatch]

Pre pandemic i would not have agreed with you as sure we were better as one union, however given the utter farce that is ensuing with the vaccine debacle over there I’m so glad we are out. Yes our PM has made mistakes but he has certainly got the vaccination roll out brilliantly done.

The government will deflect all criticism for the billions spent on consultants and (Dildo) Dido's Track & Trace and the PPE debacle. BJ & Handjob will claim the credit for the vaccine roll out - but they had little to do with it because the majority of the work was done by the vaccine task force (chaired by Kate Bingham) and some key NHS people and some key UK/NHS commercial suppliers. As (Specsavers) Cummings stated - the vaccine roll out was taken away from the smoking ruin that is the Dept of Health and that's why it is a success!

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

unfortunately its the way its measured. throws up weird outcomes, like reducing GDP lowers poverty. thats before the manipulation of cohorts and demographic affects.

Well, if so, it (the definition) is an enemy to progress. The idea that I am closer to poverty now than I was 30 years ago is laughable.

Having looked it up there is no accepted definition of poverty so the one mentioned (poverty equals inequality based on mean income) can easily be dismissed as old bollocks.

https://www.poverty.ac.uk/definitions-poverty

I think there is a debate to be had about inequality (the spread of income and the existence of the super rich) but poverty isn't part of it. I am opposed to Marxism (and the idea we should all be given what we 'need' and no more) so it means I am comfortable with 'an acceptable level of inequality'. Provided incentive is realistic and social and economic mobility are facilitated, what's not to like?

....so long as we are all* getting better off

*events, like Covid, can drastically reduce income for some, so I'm referring to the 'average' direction of travel over the long term.

 

[nwgull]

Cameron - gave us the opportunity to leave the EU, which we took. Lovely.

Gammon ****.

 

[nwgull]

Probably the longest lasting effect any PM in my lifetime will be Cameron’s decision to hold a referendum to leave the EU, to paper over the cracks in the Conservative party. This has led , so far, to the most right wing government in my lifetime, divisions in the country that will take decades to heal, and very possibly the breakup of the Union.
Add to this , the economic carnage that could follow, and it does appear that it is the biggest post war decision this countries government has made.

This is perfectly put. Leaving the EU itself is something that was very disappointing but that, personally, I will be able to mitigate the effects of. It has however opened a Pandora's box in empowering right-wing groups and, as you say, resulted in the most right-wing government of probably all of our lifetimes.