Best recent British PM?

[Arakhor]

I am sure you remember what I am talking about.
And tbf, if you don't want an actual left party, why not stick to voting tory/libtory?

I have never voted Tory in my life and don't even have the option of voting SNP. Stating that a person who spectacularly failed to become PM did just that doesn't then mean that I'm not left-wing, no matter how much you might wish that were true.

 

[Kyriakos]

I have never voted Tory in my life and don't even have the option of voting SNP. Stating that a person who spectacularly failed to become PM did just that doesn't then mean that I'm not left-wing, no matter how much you might wish that were true.

I honestly can't say why you hate him so much. Imagine if he had kicked out those he didn't like, like saint Keir did.
And by the way, you do know Keir will be Teresa May v2 when he campaigns in the general election, so there's that cringe to look forward to

 

[AmazonQueen]

I honestly can't say why you hate him so much. Imagine if he had kicked out those he didn't like, like saint Keir did.
And by the way, you do know Keir will be Teresa May v2 when he campaigns in the general election, so there's that cringe to look forward to

Not sharing your uncritical adulation of Corbyn isn't the same as hating him.

 

[Kyriakos]

Not sharing your uncritical adulation of Corbyn isn't the same as hating him.

There's somewhere in between the superlatives. I do feel Arakh actually hates Corbyn.
Anyway, I have no horse in the race, I don't expect Keir to be a good pm (if he becomes pm - though it'd be really hilarious if he loses even after 5 trillion tory scandals and rotated leaders).

 

[MrCynical]

I honestly can't say why you hate him so much. Imagine if he had kicked out those he didn't like, like saint Keir did.
And by the way, you do know Keir will be Teresa May v2 when he campaigns in the general election, so there's that cringe to look forward to

I'm not sure why you're taking that as hating Corbyn. I voted for Corbyn twice, but I'd agree he failed badly in the 2019 election. Honestly the surprise was he did as well as he did in 2017.

I'm not really getting the Keir Starmer - Theresa May comparison either. Is the implication that he's going to lose an election after being 15 points ahead in the polls, or that he's going to do some really terrible dancing?

 

[Kyriakos]

Maybe he'll have an iconic moment like that running through a field May one.

Anyway, I wish Mick Lynch would run. Maybe in the future.

 

[Gorbles]

It'll be interesting to see how badly Starmer is perceived in hindsight. I'm going to go out on a limb and say predict that people will find a way to claim he did as well as he could, contrasted to the coverage of Corbyn who has been made the single focal point of everything ever that was possibly wrong with the progressive wing of Labour. Speaking generally, not specifically about CFC OT.

(whether or not he was or should be, bearing in mind he was Party Leader - as Starmer now is - I'm just very darkly amused at how I think it's going to turn out)

 

[EnglishEdward]

I voted Major, is there anything I don't know about him that would make him worse than Blair or Brown?

John Major (as PM) had the UK join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, and at too high, the wrong, rate.
He later ignored sensible german advice to devalue that, because that would have meant a loss of personal face.
This was all a complete disaster and very arguably the prime cause of the severe UK 1990-92 recession.

This was much worse than the Liz Truss financial debacle which never quite happened (what actually happened
then was also in part a knock of US fed reserve policy) because she wasn't PM long enough to implement her ideas.

And John Major was all set to repeat his error having the UK join the EU and EURO; it was only a back bench
rebellion in Parliament that prevented the UK from hastily abandoning the pound for the Euro by including an opt
out delay clause in the Maastricht treaty. Nevertheless the decision to sign that treaty, upgrading EEC membership
into EU membership, without public consultation and public approval, led on to the Brexit situation and now.

 

[Gorbles]

This was much worse than the Liz Truss financial debacle which never quite happened

I really miss the laugh react.

But it's good to see the Truss revision in real-time, because it backs up my Starmer theory

 

[amadeus]

Well, if all PMs since and including Atlee and Churchill were an option, there would be an obvious answer.

Enoch!

 

[EvaDK]

Didn't Truss announcing her insane plans for transforming the UK into a 'Singapore on Thames' low regulations, low taxes Utopia, cause a total panic in the markets and the Pound to crash through the floorboards?

I'd say she flunked the assignment in a spectacular fashion. British politics is entertaining for sure, but damn...

 

[amadeus]

I thought the Truss Fund failure was like, how was she going to keep paying for the government that was going to be more or less around the same size?

 

[Kyriakos]

It'd be cool to have the prime minister be Lord Buckethead. Haven't paid any attention to Brown's pmship, and was too young to care about Major (only recall seeing him on tv during the first Gulf War) let alone Thatcher, but the rest seem to be crap.

 

[EnglishEdward]

I thought the Truss Fund failure was like, how was she going to keep paying for the government that was going to be more or less around the same size?

Yes; that was a key part of her debacle, but there were in my opinion; five other aspects:

(a) The US federal was ending quantative easing and raising interest rates, that would inevitably impact upon the UK

(b) She failed to bring the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) and the Bank of England (BoE) inside the tent

(c) Many UK pension funds had foolishly been seduced into the derivatives market by Black Rock and others of that ilk

(d) The idea that cutting taxes would lead to inward investment and instant growth, rather than asset price inflation,
was flawed as was already known from the failed Anthony Barber experiment in the 1970s.

(e) The conservative MPs didn't like her.

 

[Takhisis]

(a) The US federal was ending quantative easing and raising interest rates, that would inevitably impact upon the UK

Which happened when the UK had, uhm, left the EU, but since the UK had always kept its own currency then that had no bearing except for Brexit's utter economic and bureaucratic chaos having significantly weakened the pound, and anyway the USA fiddling with its currency would have impacted upon the UK regardless of its intention.

(b) She failed to bring the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) and the Bank of England (BoE) inside the tent

She just *couldn't* bring them inside the tent. They were already barred from doing so, they just couldn't agree.

(c) Many UK pension funds had foolishly been seduced into the derivatives market by Black Rock and others of that ilk

Only allowed because of the fanatical ideological drive towards deregulation.

(d) The idea that cutting taxes would lead to inward investment and instant growth, rather than asset price inflation,
was flawed as was already known from the failed Anthony Barber experiment in the 1970s.

See above about fanatical deregulatory ideology.

(e) The conservative MPs didn't like her.

That's a new ‘improvement’ on previous PMs. She was as boorish as Cameron and as insulting as Johnson with the charm of neither - add to it the fact that the Conservative Party is still sexist as ever and you'll get the scorn that was previously pre-emptively heaped upon May.

 

[Kyriakos]

Still, Truss was there for too little time to really establish if she'd have been worse than Boris.

 

[Arakhor]

You can say many, many things about Johnson's lack of character, but he didn't almost crash the entire economy inside six weeks.

 

[EvaDK]

The fact that Liz Truss became PM in the first place, is a symptom of just how far-right and crazy the Tories have become. They knew exactly what she stood for, when they elected her. It is beyond embarrassing that they had to fire her after 49 days; it seems letting an inmate run the asylum wasn't such a fabulous idea after all...

 

[Arakhor]

The Tory members elected her in the end, but yeah, the actual candidates were pretty abominable, so much so that Jeremy Hunt was perhaps the least extreme one there.