Who has been the UK's worst PM?

stewaris

Tony Blair for the WMD as a starter, allowing Gordon Brown to abolish tax raid on pension schemes even although he had been warned by his own officials that it would inflict long term damage on savings and the start of privatisation of the NHS by extending the scope of outsourcing from non-clinical support services to include diagnostic services and elective hospital treatment.

Appalling behaviour from a Labour government.

I was in the NHS, and I don’t remember it as you portrayed it at all. Outsourcing of elective treatment and diagnostics wasn’t as a result of an ideological shift, it was one of many methods used to bring waiting lists down. That was a sensible pragmatic thing to do to help people who needed treatment. The NHS was in the best state it’s ever been when Labour left government in 2010.

I would love to say Johnson …. but no . It’s Thatcher!

Surely the most important judgement should be about a government's impact on a country as a whole. It can't just be about something they did that people didn't like.
It is about the impact of their policies on the economy, housing, transport infrastructure, education, health etc etc. Morality, seriousness, probity, attention to detail and hard work are important qualities in a leader, but it is the results that matter.

Tony Blair for the WMD as a starter, allowing Gordon Brown to abolish tax raid on pension schemes even although he had been warned by his own officials that it would inflict long term damage on savings and the start of privatisation of the NHS by extending the scope of outsourcing from non-clinical support services to include diagnostic services and elective hospital treatment.

Appalling behaviour from a Labour government.

Blair took us into a unnecessary war but he had got the NHS working after decades of lowering of standards. Now back to we’re the NHS was prior Blair. Schools got so much money, a head that I knew didn’t know what to spend it all on. I’m still think Ted Heath.

I really don't see why Blair's religious beliefs are particularly relevant. All the major varieties of Christianity in the UK support war... Apart from the Quakers.

Sorry volver I respect your religious views but “going to Rome” really is a standard expression.

I really do not understand why it is ‘off’ for a man to be influenced by his wife, even if he is the PM. Churchill certainly was and Johnson, Brown and Cameron and I most certainly are.

Whenever I voice my loathing of Thatcher it's assumed that i'm from a mining community. People have forgotten the decimation of the cotton and wool industry. Mills are now either housing estated or trendy apartment blocks.

Not seen anyone mentioned Ted Heath. Three day working week, power cuts, high inflation, high taxes, high unemployment and unions out of control. The country was in a mess. In my life time he gets my vote

Neilspurgeon0

It is the standard way of expressing such a move volver See John Henry Newman.

It is not at all unheard of for children and grand children to hold different views from their ancestors especially when married to other thinking, strong wives

More bullets.

1) I'm an atheist, I won't be seeing John Henry Newman or anybody else on this matter. Its of no consequence to me if Blair was an adherent of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

2) The comment about wives is a wee bit off, really.

Thatcher without a doubt. Huge interest rates on mortgages. Sold council houses but didn’t use the revenue to build more. Privatised all our important services such as gas and water etc. began the dismantling of the NHS. So many awful things were done or begun under her leadership.
We are all feeling the knock on effects now in one way or another.

Theresa May ….. unable or unwilling to delegate

It is the standard way of expressing such a move volver See John Henry Newman.

It is not at all unheard of for children and grand children to hold different views from their ancestors especially when married to other thinking, strong wives

I believe history will decide that Boris Johnson is undoubtedly the worst PM the UK has had, but Margaret Thatcher paved the way by emphasising individuality above the common good.

Tony Blair

When did he move to Adelaide?

Or are we using "Rome" metaphorically? Blair's grandad was an Orangeman, incidentally.

Maybe I can’t spell volver but Blair was brought up an Anglo Catholic in Scotland, he studied at Fettes, although he only formerly moved to Rome later.

I am not sure how many Catholic PMs Britain has had, and we have certainly fought many just wars, but never before I think an illegal one.

volver

1) I assume you mean Galtieri

2) Blair only became Catholic after he left office. Although I'm quite sure that Catholics have taken us into illegal wars before Blair arrived on the scene.

Not that I have brought his Catholicism into the equation but although he wasn't officially a Catholic, he was acting as a Catholic.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2007/jun/22/uk.religion1

I am not for one moment suggesting his actions in Iraq were anything to do with his religion but give this as a fuller picture to his Catholicism.

1) I assume you mean Galtieri

2) Blair only became Catholic after he left office. Although I'm quite sure that Catholics have taken us into illegal wars before Blair arrived on the scene.

I’ve always voted and will admit to being influenced by issues at the time of the GE. It’s only in recent years that I’ve actually started to follow things more intently. I’d like to go back in time with this interest now to make a better and wider comparison, but I can’t do that.
Boris Johnson is a strong contender from the few in charge since my new awareness, because of the blatant lies he has told. He seems to be riddled with some undesirable characteristics, too - Darius Guppy/journalist episode, the treatment of his former wife. He also picked Cabinet Ministers with, to my mind, some with very distasteful views regarding vulnerable people, including those on low incomes (Ms Coffey) and others who seem to have no grip on their brief (Ms Dorries).

Blossoming

David Cameron.

Interesting, Blossoming. I certainly found myself disliking Mr Cameron more than all the others put together...and that was before he ran the Brexit referendum then turned his back on the mess he had made (at that point yet to emerge)... and walked away.

Well volver I do not argue that your choices are pretty dire. Brown was indeed unsuited but, in his heart far from a bad human. Thatcher may well have sent me and a good few other servicemen to do the job for which we had been trained and, on the way, we all felt that the UN would have sorted it out long before we got there, but Galtiere would not budge and two hard headed leaders often clash and feel they cannot stand down, but does that make them bad? Or just inflexible?

Johnson has overweening ambition and has been damaged since his first days, but whilst he is weak I do not accept that he is inherently bad.

But Blair, pushed by Campbell, managed by Mandelson and out politicked by Bush, was so weak and so malleable that he went even against his own Catholicism and the advice of his AG. That, in my view, is the very definition of bad

Johnson and Thatcher

Tony Blair, for taking us into the Iraq war, and the devestating consequences following it.

@whitewavemk2
I could not agree more. A product of Thatcher to boot.