Worst UK Prime Minister in last 100 years?

Chagos · Nov 10, 2016

Lafayette said:
Preposterous.

She was an onlooker, just like everybody else, to the final self-destruction of a system that had been decaying for two decades..............................~

...................that finally bled out in an arms race and an economic race towards which Britain was totally incapable of contributing anything of note by either financial or military competition.

Lafayette · Nov 10, 2016

Chagos said:
...................that finally bled out in an arms race and an economic race towards which Britain was totally incapable of contributing anything of note by either financial or military competition.

A process that seems to keep repeating itself.

And why? Because it serves the profits of certain industrial groups.

We shall see the same very soon under Dimwit Donald - we have a massive debt to pay-off, and he thinks the Chinese are going to hold our T-Notes forever ... ?

flogger · Nov 13, 2016

Chagos said:
...................that finally bled out in an arms race and an economic race towards which Britain was totally incapable of contributing anything of note by either financial or military competition.

Interestingly the UK has used a similar percentage of its GDP on defence as the US in the 40 years after WW2 which reached 11% in the post war years and didn't drop below 5% till after 1987 by which time the cold war had effectively been won

Charts of Past Spending - UkPublicSpending.co.uk

Indeed it could be argued that it was this profligate spending on armaments that led to Britains decline viz a viz its major competitors. Spending on developing an independent UK bomb at a time of postwar austerity was almost certainly why the UK was still on rationing 9 years after the conflict. Ironically we threw our bomb away and bought the American Polaris system after all that national sacrifice had been squandered on its development

flogger · Nov 13, 2016

I always find it a bit ironic that Britain had rationing far longer than any of the defeated powers in WW2. Postwar rationing in Germany ended 4 years before it did in Britain yet we were supposedly the victors !

Maybe we felt guilty about starving the Germans by blockade until 1920 after the first world war ?

PeteEU · Nov 13, 2016

flogger said:
I always find it a bit ironic that Britain had rationing far longer than any of the defeated powers in WW2. Postwar rationing in Germany ended 4 years before it did in Britain yet we were supposedly the victors !

Maybe we felt guilty about starving the Germans by blockade until 1920 after the first world war ?

Because the colonies were draining a lot resources, and of course the conservative boneheaded ideology that kept governments from realizing that the end of empire was here. On top of that, industry was simply not geared for the new world order run by the Americans.

flogger · Nov 13, 2016

PeteEU said:
Because the colonies were draining a lot resources, and of course the conservative boneheaded ideology that kept governments from realizing that the end of empire was here. On top of that, industry was simply not geared for the new world order run by the Americans.

It certainly wasn't that because they were going anyay . It was Britains commitment to having a great power status without having the resources to pay for it that did the trick

PeteEU · Nov 13, 2016

flogger said:
It certainly wasn't that because they were going anyay . It was Britains commitment to having a great power status without having the resources to pay for it that did the trick

Well you did have the resources to pay for it.. problem was that they were in the colonies that were rebelling. Add to that, the massive debt the UK had with the US.. who effectively used that debt to castrate the UK effectively world wide (Suez canal crisis comes to mind), and you had an empire in decline run by a bunch of old farts that did not realize it. I mean one of the famous comments from Churchill and others, was "Lord Mountbatten, the man who gave away India".. which clearly showed their state of mind.

flogger · Nov 13, 2016

PeteEU said:
QUOTE]Well you did have the resources to pay for it.

No we didn't we were up to our eyeballs in post WW2 debt to the Americans. A debt that wasn't cleared until 2006. Despite that we chose to live well beyond our means for decades especially regarding our defence committments

They talk about a 'special relationship' with the US here but looking at our history and the 5 billion $ plus per annum handout Israel gets free gratis from the US its clear where the special relationship lies in the minds of the US establishment and its certainly not with the UK

PeteEU · Nov 14, 2016

flogger said:
No we didn't we were up to our eyeballs in post WW2 debt to the Americans. A debt that wasn't cleared until 2006. Despite that we chose to live well beyond our means for decades especially regarding our defence committments

They talk about a 'special relationship' with the US here but looking at our history and the 5 billion $ plus per annum handout Israel gets free gratis from the US its clear where the special relationship lies in the minds of the US establishment and its certainly not with the UK

Was not thinking of "money", but resources.... iron, coal, and so on.

flogger · Nov 14, 2016

PeteEU said:
Was not thinking of "money", but resources.... iron, coal, and so on.

Our steel mills and coal pits are nearly all gone, so Europe never had iron and coal then ?

Chagos · Nov 14, 2016

flogger said:
Our steel mills and coal pits are nearly all gone, so Europe never had iron and coal then ?

They're gone all over Europe (cheap Polish coal excepted which currently still sells well), the issue lies with where there were sustainable industrial replacements of what was on the way out anyway, and where there were not (or not in sufficiency).

Mac77 · Nov 14, 2016

Infinite Chaos said:
Let me be clear I disagree Margaret Thatcher was the worst Prime Minister we had in the last 100 years; in my view, she was one of the best and she turned the country from a basket case heading for more economic gloom into a powerhouse and one which stopped being the sick man of Europe. I partially agree with Paddy Ashdown who also disagrees the poll - Thatcher did destroy what really needed to be destroyed but yes, she didn't rebuild where she took things down.

She should have rebuilt council stock she allowed to be sold vs allowing poor and council home owners to own their own homes.

She didn't push hard enough for regeneration of areas where steel and coal mining were to die off - however these areas were also heavily subsidised and performed badly

On the other hand, she liberalised the stock markets and allowed weak industries to die. She was with Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul, instrumental in the freeing of the Eastern European Soviet Bloc countries and in the eventual downfall of the USSR. These outweigh the social and economic problems.

Second position - both David Cameron and Tony Blair have a lot more to answer for - Blair lied and took us into Iraq, we lost many good servicemen and became embroiled in the troubles of the middle east. Worse still he enabled Bush to create the mess in Iraq which still haunts us today with ISIS. Cameron, despite the regeneration of the economy to where it is now, did not do enough to spread wealth and then gambled with the economy when he set about the EU referendum

Neither of those two have anything in their positives folder anywhere near what Margaret Thatcher achieved.

Its no surprise that the academics rate Thatcher low

Liberal historians are goung to write history with a liberal spin in hopes of misleadong future generations.

flogger · Nov 16, 2016

Mac77 said:
Its no surprise that the academics rate Thatcher low

Liberal historians are goung to write history with a liberal spin in hopes of misleadong future generations.

I lived in one of the areas less 'favoured' by her policies so I don't think thats necessarily the case. There has never been as polarising a politician here over the last century and great bitterness remains in much of the country which as a consequence of her policies remains destitute after decades of neglect. The economic damage she wrought in these regions proved too expensive to repair for subsequent administrations so they were left to rot

Mac77 · Nov 16, 2016

flogger said:
I lived in one of the areas less 'favoured' by her policies so I don't think thats necessarily the case. There has never been as polarising a politician here over the last century and great bitterness remains in much of the country which as a consequence of her policies remains destitute after decades of neglect. The economic damage she wrought in these regions proved too expensive to repair for subsequent administrations so they were left to rot

I like thatcher for her leadership during the Cold War.

not being a Brit I cant comment on her domestic policies

But I do know the intellectual dishonesty of liberal historians in America

flogger · Nov 16, 2016

Mac77 said:
I like thatcher for her leadership during the Cold War.

not being a Brit I cant comment on her domestic policies

But I do know the intellectual dishonesty of liberal historians in America

Well lets put it this way. In Scotland 'Hey ho the wicked witch is dead' got to number 1 in the charts on her demise !