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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Thatcher Worst PM in 100 Years
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betjemaniac
Shipmate
# 17618
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Posted
I think I agree with Paddy Ashdown on Thatcher.
My vote would go without hesitation to Eden FWIW.
I quite like Heath, he was generally right on most things but 20-odd years ahead of his time on all of them.
Not for nothing was the Good Friday Agreement memorably described as "Sunningdale for slow learners"...
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And is it true? For if it is....
Posts: 1481 | From: behind the dreaming spires | Registered: Mar 2013
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
Much as I think Thatcher was A Bad Thing, I feel Worst Prime Minister should be a title that commands widespread agreement. Eden springs to mind. But I think Cameron lands it.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
I would certainly vote some of the things Margaret Thatcher did as being the worst handling of those things in the 20th century. That's a long way from saying she was the worst PM. I'm honestly not sure who I would nominate.
Anyway, what is our criterion of judgement here? What affected me? What affected a subset of people? The whole population on average?
History tends to take the long view.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Here's a recent poll of British Politics academics's views of postwar PMs, which does put Eden bottom. I think that's possibly slightly unfair, as, lousy though he was, he wasn't very well at the time of Suez, which is why he rates so low. Also unfair to put Alec Douglas-Hume second to last, as he never really got his feet under the table. So I'd put Cameron bottom, Eden slightly above him.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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alienfromzog
Ship's Alien
# 5327
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Posted
Careful... someone will be along shortly to declare Mrs T the best PM ever.
Seriously though, I do think history is a much better judge that contemporary commentary. For example, I think historians will think very highly of Gordon Brown, much more so that the UK public did and do. Conversely I think history will not be kind to Cameron at all. He failed completely, even in his own terms and yet remained relatively popular.
AFZ
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Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
[Sen. D.P.Moynihan]
An Alien's View of Earth - my blog (or vanity exercise...)
Posts: 2150 | From: Zog, obviously! Straight past Alpha Centauri, 2nd planet on the left... | Registered: Dec 2003
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
I used to think Thatcher was the worst. Until Cameron arrived. Paddy seems to have a good take on Thatcher, and I would find some agreement.
Cameron did things that Thatcher would have considered far too radical. And his impact has been appalling (not just him, of course). And May is lining up to be even worse. Cameron was ineffectual and incompetent, whereas May seems to be malicious and dangerous.
Blair started all this. I don't think, as a PM I would rank him worse than Thatcher. As a person, I think Thatcher had a moral sense (even though I totally disagree with it) that Blair doesn't.
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Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Sarah G
Shipmate
# 11669
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Posted
Have we forgotten that Cameron was considered good enough to win a second term only last year?
Had Brexit gone the other way, he wouldn't even be considered for the bad end.
Posts: 514 | Registered: Jul 2006
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
In a way, that's true. But I'd say the Brexit fiasco wasn't out of character for him. He was a sloppy, unprepared chancer who always seemed to prefer trusting to luck and his ability to wing it rather than solid preparation or even normal basic precautions. That's why I think he was such a bad PM, and I thought it even before Brexit.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sarah G:
Have we forgotten that Cameron was considered good enough to win a second term only last year?
Had Brexit gone the other way, he wouldn't even be considered for the bad end.
Some of that was because his more radical policies were mediated by the coalition. I think most people (including myself) didn't realise how much of an impact the LibDems had.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
I would certainly vote some of the things Margaret Thatcher did as being the worst handling of those things in the 20th century. That's a long way from saying she was the worst PM. I'm honestly not sure who I would nominate.
Anyway, what is our criterion of judgement here? What affected me? What affected a subset of people? The whole population on average?
History tends to take the long view.
The criterion should not be on what was the policy of an elected leader, but how effective was the leader in the implementation of that policy. Much as I would never have voted for Thatcher, you'd have to admit that she went to the electorate with a raft of policies, got elected then re-elected and was pretty successful in implementing the platform. She also firmly reinstated the principle that it was the government which should run the country rather than an unelected outside group.
By the 1950's, Churchill's health was poor and he had started to lose his grip on things. None the less, he gathered a reasonably good set of Cabinet colleagues and his governments achieved quite a bit in bringing the UK onto the recovery road after WW II, while maintaining most of the Attlee reforms. Eden OTOH was not anywhere near successful save (as may be expected) in foreign policy.
Wilson had lots of great ideas, perhaps more than a bit influenced by Madison Ave types but did not get far with them in his 1960's governments. After 1974, what grasp he had seemed to have gone, and he and then Callaghan led the UK to a near complete breakdown.
Major was pretty irrelevant, a man in a position beyond his abilities. Like others, I'd say that Douglas-Home was there far too short a period to judge. I do recall a comment, perhaps in the Economist in the 60's that he was a potentially brilliant man, one who 150 years beforehand would have had an effortless rise to the position; that it was only his peerage which had diverted him from that path until it was too late.
My list would have Wilson, Callaghan and Major at the bottom, and of these 3, I'd be putting Callaghan last. After them comes Eden.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sarah G:
Have we forgotten that Cameron was considered good enough to win a second term only last year?
Had Brexit gone the other way, he wouldn't even be considered for the bad end.
Libya.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
If we are talking about the last hundred years we are talking about everyone from 1916 onwards. So that's the fag end of Asquith, Lloyd George, Bonar Law, Baldwin, MacDonald, Chamberlain, Churchill, Attlee, Eden, Macmillan, Home, Wilson, Heath, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron and May.
Out of that lot the only genuinely bad PMs were MacDonald who achieved nothing and wrecked his party in the process, Baldwin - "slums, unemployment and a cowardly foreign policy" to quote George Orwell, Chamberlain, ditto, and Major - I am tempted to add another ditto but it probably needs some kind of unpacking as to the ERM and his inaction over the former Yugoslavia. I have a soft spot for Sir Anthony Eden because of how he saved the Western Alliance over the collapse of the European Defence Community and was a good Foreign Secretary but history will judge him harshly as a PM. Cameron thought that leaving the EU was a disaster and set forth the train of events that will take us out of the EU. That's not a good look.
Then there are the PMs who were here today and gone tomorrow. Bonar Law failed to make much of an impact, but it was hardly his fault he died shortly after achieving office. Home did better than expected - it was not his fault that the Tories were played out by the time he took power. Ditto Callaghan. Brown, I think, deserves Tacitus' verdict on the Emperor Galba but, to be fair, helped save the global economy which probably eclipses his bullying the Downing Street clerical staff.
Then you have the "basically all right" Prime Ministers. Wilson, Macmillan and, Heath.
And then the Great Prime Ministers. Asquith was a great reformer, Lloyd George won WW1, Churchill WW2, Attlee installed the welfare state and NATO. Blair saw off Milosevic, sorted out peace in Northern Ireland and did sundry other good things, somewhat undermined by the Invasion of Iraq. But I think he squeaks into the top bracket.
I'd put Thatcher in the 'great' category. She inherited a country in serious trouble and left a country in large part in a better state than she found it. I'm not an unqualified admirer by any means and, in the one general election I was old enough to vote in I voted against her, but broadly speaking I agree with Lord Ashdown. Now I realise that is contentious. Thoughtful people of goodwill will want to place her lower down the scale. But I can't see how anyone can say that she was worse than all of the PMs in my "Bad PM" category.
(I haven't tried to rank Theresa May, you will have noticed. It's too early for that).
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
Thatcher destroyed the idea of the country as anything other than a piece of convenient marketing shorthand, so yes, I would vote for her as worst Prime Minister.
What makes this even worse than it could be was that it was a matter of conscious ideological choice, rather than a failure of governance. She set out to destroy the social fabric of the country, and succeeded.
This places her in the hottest part of my personal political hell.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
I wouldn't describe Thatcher as the worst prime minister the UK has ever had, but she was definitely the nastiest.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
ThunderBunk - I think that is precisely why current and recent administrations are worse. Having seen the long-term impacts of Thatchers policies (and, in a generous mood, I don't think she saw the real impacts her approach would have, especially in difficult times), they insist on going even further.
Thatcher pursued a political goal above short-term care and consideration. Cameron et-al pursue the same political goal in the face of the evidence.
To my mind, that is worse. That is not action that is politically motivated, but action that is action deliberately and knowingly targetting the worst off.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Rocinante
Shipmate
# 18541
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Posted
This sort of list is always skewed, some of us have clear memories of Thatcher, most of us of Blair but no-one alive now heard Lloyd-George speak. We've heard Churchill on scratchy recordings, those of us in the Labour movement have folk memories of MacDonald as Satan's right-hand man.
With that proviso, it's hard right now not to place Cameron at the bottom. What is there in the plus column for him? he only squeaked home in the last election because Labour were abjectly useless and the Lib Dems alienated their core vote. There was no great enthusiasm for him or his absurd, cruel austerity policies, which weren't even his, they were Osborne's.
At least a proportion of the population did well out of Thatcher's time in office. "Right to buy", whatever the rights and wrongs of it, (and there were a lot of wrongs), was a piece of political genius that made a lot of people much better off (at the expense of others, of course), and incidentally turned many of them into Tory voters. I think what I hate most about Thatcher is this sort of zero-sum calculation that she applied to almost everything.
If Blair had not joined in with the mad neo-con crusade in Iraq, he would be remembered as one of the better ones. But Iraq is all he'll be remembered for.
The description of Cameron as a mediocrity is about right. His natural level was probably a middle-ranking cabinet post, environment maybe. He won the leadership largely because he gave his hustings speech without notes, a very overrated skill IMO. He then went on to govern without notes, making it up as he went along, and look where that got us.
Posts: 384 | From: UK | Registered: Jan 2016
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sarah G:
Have we forgotten that Cameron was considered good enough to win a second term only last year?
Had Brexit gone the other way, he wouldn't even be considered for the bad end.
I think the referendum would be thought pathetic anyway. He presided over the least effective economic recovery in the last seventy years; and caused economic hardship for the less well off in society to no end.
He only won the second election because Clegg didn't realise how much Liberal Democrat support was based on tactical voting to keep the Tories out.
Clegg is an example of what happens to a political party when they confuse what the membership care about with what their voters care about. Not that there are any lessons there for any other party.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sarah G:
Have we forgotten that Cameron was considered good enough to win a second term only last year?
Had Brexit gone the other way, he wouldn't even be considered for the bad end.
Baldwin was Lord Of All He Surveyed in the 1930s. Major lasted a few months after the 1992 election before his reputation went the same way as Sterling on Black Wednesday, Eden won a General Election comfortably after being installed in Number 10, Brown was regarded as a political titan before the bottled election and the financial crash, even Chamberlain stood on the balcony of Buckingham Palace and waved to adoring crowds after Munich. No-one gets to be Prime Minister because people think they are a dud - Prime Ministerial duds get found out after they get the job.
Sic transit gloria mundi as Boris Johnson might say.
[ETA - saying someone wouldn't be considered a disaster were it not for the unmitigated disaster that happened on their watch is a bit akin to saying: "Apart from that Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?"
[ 19. October 2016, 11:54: Message edited by: Callan ]
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Rocinante:
Cameron ...won the leadership largely because he gave his hustings speech without notes, a very overrated skill IMO. He then went on to govern without notes, making it up as he went along, and look where that got us.
That's exactly right. I'd say he was the worst, at least since 1900, because he didn't take the job seriously. As you say, he made it up as he went along. I don't think you can say that of any of his 'bad' predecessors that we've discussed here. Some were over-promoted- Major possibly, Chamberlain (an excellent Minister of Health [& local govt, at that time] and that is not damning with faint praise)- or got there at the wrong time in their careers- Brown, maybe Eden and Callaghan. But Cameron consistently did the job negligently.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
When considering Cameron one has to consider that his team was probably the weakest of all time. That doesn't excuse him at all, but it illustrates the lack of talent in the House nowadays.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by alienfromzog:
Careful... someone will be along shortly to declare Mrs T the best PM ever.
What are we calling "worst"? Someone who is poorly skilled at being a PM, or someone who does things we don't like?
Because for my money, Margaret Thatcher was one of the more effective PMs of recent years. I'd mostly go along with Sir Paddy, although I have a slightly more favourable opinion of her policies than he does.
Tony Blair was also pretty effective, although I'd give quite a lot of the credit for his success to John Smith.
Cameron gets some credit for moving the Tories from their unelectable wilderness into Government, for managing the coalition, and for getting his party to support his more liberal social views (eg. SSM), but loses it all for the complete balls-up he made of the referendum.
Major is a nice man, but a pretty useless PM. Gordon Brown is to my mind similarly ineffective.
May? It's early days, but the signs aren't too good so far.
Posts: 5026 | From: USA | Registered: Feb 2013
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Teekeey Misha
Shipmate
# 18604
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Posted
It depends very much what one means by "worst", doesn't it?
- Bonar Law didn't achieve much - if a week is a long time in politics, he really ought to have achieved something in eight months - does that make him the worst?
- Chamberlain's administration didn't achieve much in three years apart from the realignment of certain European borders. So he's the worst?
- MacDonald? Expelled by his own party and described as "increasingly ineffective" towards the end of his administration. That sounds pretty bad so he must be the worst.
- Or Churchill? The grand old man who "won the war". He wasn't a bad PM during his second administration because he was scarcely PM at all - his administration ran despite him rather than because of him. That surely makes him the worst.
- Baldwin was criticised for re-arming between the wars (war monger - bad PM!) and then criticised for not re-arming enough once Hitler broke out (too pacifist - bad PM!) so he was the worst from both points of view!
- Eden, Brown and Home probably belong in the same class - they struggled to climb the "greasy pole" and finally achieved every career politician's dream in winning Number Ten... but then didn't really seem to know what to do once they got there. They didn't do anything of import (- or at least anything good. "What did your administration mean to the nation?" - "Umm... I lost Suez / gave away the gold reserve / oversaw the independence of Nyasaland.")
- Major was at least harmless (and doesn't get nearly the credit he deserves for the NI peace deal, for which Blair most unfairly takes all the credit, as Callan's post above shows!)
- Blair was at least as bad as Thatcher, but both had their good points, so I don't think either can count as the worse.
Weighing every conceivable criterion in the balance, my money would probably go on Callaghan. He achieved little that was good, did much that was bad, was neither popular nor effective; his administration was, essentially, three years of everybody's time wasted.
quote:
And Jesus taught them saying, 'Judge not, that ye be not judged. Except politicians. You can judge them, because they're all... y'know.'"
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Misha
Don't assume I don't care; sometimes I just can't be bothered to put you right.
Posts: 296 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2016
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
She's not the worst. But she fed the 'market forces' of fear and greed until they became an enormous monster, which continues to grow today.
To think I was pleased to have a woman PM when she was elected.
Total and utter disappointment, her name makes me angry to this day ![[Disappointed]](graemlins/disappointed.gif) ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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PaulTH*
Shipmate
# 320
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
To think I was pleased to have a woman PM when she was elected.
Were you happy about the basket case, "sick old man of Europe" which was the Britain of the 1970's. Banana republic inflation nearing 30%. Trade Union leaders dictating government policy. Needing a bail out from the IMF. Industrial relations in such a shambles that the "winter of discontent" left dead bodies piling up due to strike action. Thatcher may have done a lot wrong, but thank heavens we never went back to those dark days. We probably would under Corbyn.
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Yours in Christ
Paul
Posts: 6387 | From: White Cliffs Country | Registered: May 2001
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Robert Armin
All licens'd fool
# 182
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
She's not the worst. But she fed the 'market forces' of fear and greed until they became an enormous monster, which continues to grow today.
To think I was pleased to have a woman PM when she was elected.
Total and utter disappointment, her name makes me angry to this day
Boogie, you've described my feelings about her exactly. Are we separated twins?
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Keeping fit was an obsession with Fr Moity .... He did chin ups in the vestry, calisthenics in the pulpit, and had developed a series of Tai-Chi exercises to correspond with ritual movements of the Mass. The Antipope Robert Rankin
Posts: 8927 | From: In the pack | Registered: May 2001
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rolyn
Shipmate
# 16840
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Posted
Had the Task Force been scattered and sunk by Exocet missiles in 82 then Thatch's short time in No. 10 would undoubtedly gone down as the worst in 100yrs.
Had TB not had 9/11 and it's consequences, or a global banking crash then his tenour might well have been one of the best.
"Events dear boy, events"
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Change is the only certainty of existence
Posts: 3206 | From: U.K. | Registered: Dec 2011
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
Yes, I think if we'd lost the Falklands then Thatch's government's complicity-by-neglect in the invasion (announcing that Endurance would be withdrawn, talking about leaseback) would have been much more clearly remembered. (Callaghan, by contrast, did quietly see off an Argentinian threate in '77- and he gave her the chance, which she didn't take, to announce [untruthfully] in April 1982 that British submarines were on their way already, to deter any further moves.)
[ 19. October 2016, 23:13: Message edited by: Albertus ]
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
I wouldn't describe Thatcher as the worst prime minister the UK has ever had, but she was definitely the nastiest.
She certainly was very, very nasty. She was also very lucky to gain the boost she did from the Falklands War. As far as being a good PM though, she set out her programme and carried it into operation. To say that is not to judge the programme but her ability as PM.
There are 2 very positive things that she did though, both absolutely necessary. The first was to bring the UK back from the brink on which had barely clung under Callaghan, a largely ungovernable country. The second was to overcome the best efforts of Militant Tendency and its supporters to deny the legitimacy of the electoral process.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
We probably would under Corbyn.
Crap.
Yes, before Thatcher, we were in deep trouble. That is why (gulp) I actually voted for her in 1982, seeing how she had taken to sorting out the state of the country. I didn't want to return to power cuts and 3-day weeks.
Within a few years, I would never vote Tory again. As I saw more of the world, I saw what it was she had done and was doing. And it was vile.
Today we have a country where everything is seem in terms of how much money it could raise, how much profit people could take out of it. Corbyn wants to return to asking what service it could give, how can it provide a better service. OK, he may at some point go too far, but that is his dream. It is one that I can agree with more than the current government dream.
There are - as always - a lot of scare tactics about Labour. "Labour couldn't run the economy" (given the shit-pile that Osborne has made of it, I think an inebriated hedgehog could do better). "Labour will hand all the power to the unions" (as opposed to handing all the power to the bosses. I think more people having the power is probably a good thing). "Labour will turn us into a communist republic" (which, of course, is much worse than a fascist dictatorship).
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
To think I was pleased to have a woman PM when she was elected.
Were you happy about the basket case, "sick old man of Europe" which was the Britain of the 1970's. Banana republic inflation nearing 30%. Trade Union leaders dictating government policy. Needing a bail out from the IMF. Industrial relations in such a shambles that the "winter of discontent" left dead bodies piling up due to strike action. Thatcher may have done a lot wrong, but thank heavens we never went back to those dark days. We probably would under Corbyn.
Not for the first time you have posted falsehoods. There were never dead bodies in the street (about 150 bodies were stored in a factory on Merseyside during a local strike there) and it is moot whether Britain ever needed the IMF bailout (of £2.3bn) though
I'm with you on TU leaders and government policy though, but doesn't the City "influence" it as much if not more nowadays? In both instances the democratic process has been subverted.
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
Not only is there nothing wrong with a government consulting the TUC or its equivalent, peak employers groups and leaders in finance, it is a proper, sensible and regular procedure.
The problem in the UK under Callaghan is that the govt did not consult, and rarely took orders from the TUC. It allowed individual unions to say what would happen in the relevant industry quite outside the ordinary political process. British Leyland is simply the most public example of unions and more often their shop stewards to decide what would be done. There was all but no attempt by Callaghan's govt to try to rein this in. To a large extent, that is what the unions attempted to do when the Thatcher govt made very extensive changes to the coal mining industry. Thatcher stopped that, in a very nasty manner, reinstating the basic principle of parliamentary government.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Og: Thread Killer
Ship's token CN Mennonite
# 3200
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Posted
What Chamberlain didn't do AFTER war was declared is worthy of being in the top 3 worst. Britain was already in deep doo doo against a determined Nazi Germany. Chamberlain actively avoided managing things and thus made things much worse.
e.g. If it wasn't for some bureaucrats and military suppliers ignoring Chamberlain's "don't do anything to upset Hitler" policy (this is while the war was on, not before), there wouldn't have been any airplanes for those few who were owed so much.
Chamberlain's political legacy is the poisoning of appeasement as a political tool. But much of that hatred for appeasement was due to the disgust people at the time felt for how Chamberlain still attempted to appease throughout the winter of 39-40.
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I wish I was seeking justice loving mercy and walking humbly but... "Cease to lament for that thou canst not help, And study help for that which thou lament'st."
Posts: 5025 | From: Toronto | Registered: Aug 2002
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beatmenace
Shipmate
# 16955
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Posted
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
I'm with you on TU leaders and government policy though, but doesn't the City "influence" it as much if not more nowadays? In both instances the democratic process has been subverted.
Under the Wilson Government I recall Barbara Castle bringing forward proposals to limit the power of the Unions which were both more moderate and far more non-confrontational than the ones Thatcher's Government eventually brought in, and we are still stuck with.
This got torpedoed by the TUC and others on he Labour side. If this had been worked though British Political history might well have been quite different. [B][/B] quote:
[ 20. October 2016, 12:05: Message edited by: beatmenace ]
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"I'm the village idiot , aspiring to great things." (The Icicle Works)
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betjemaniac
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# 17618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by beatmenace:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
I'm with you on TU leaders and government policy though, but doesn't the City "influence" it as much if not more nowadays? In both instances the democratic process has been subverted.
Under the Wilson Government I recall Barbara Castle bringing forward proposals to limit the power of the Unions which were both more moderate and far more non-confrontational than the ones Thatcher's Government eventually brought in, and we are still stuck with.
This got torpedoed by the TUC and others on he Labour side. If this had been worked though British Political history might well have been quite different. [B][/B] quote:
And Barbara Castle's proposals were IIRC pretty similar to those of Heath's govt (or vice versa, I can never remember whether Castle's industrial relations stuff was Wilson's 1st or 2nd govt).
As someone who wasn't there, was the story of the 1970s govts of both colours putting forward sensible ideas only to have them shot down by the various interest groups?
Or does it just look like that in retrospect?
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And is it true? For if it is....
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Sioni Sais
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# 5713
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Posted
Barbara Castle's White Paper "In Place of Strife" was torpedoed (quite an accurate term, as the damage was done below the surface) by the TUC. It hardened the attitudes in the trade union movement against the Labout Government which in the longer term harmed the working people and the trade union movement itself.
Heath is also known for speaking against "The unacceptable face of capitalism". Nowadays the acts Heath objected to are pretty much the norm.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
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PaulTH*
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# 320
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
Barbara Castle's White Paper "In Place of Strife" was torpedoed (quite an accurate term, as the damage was done below the surface) by the TUC.
I never claimed that bodies were piled up in the street, only that some people went unburied due to the appalling state of industrial relations. The TUC has no right to torpedo measures an elected government brings in to lessen industrial strife. I remember that this was when my mother stopped being a lifelong Labour supporter. But of course Corbyn has threatened to undo all the "anti" union legislation by which our industrial relations today work quite smoothly. Apart from the dinosaurs of the RMT and their ilk.
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Yours in Christ
Paul
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andras
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# 2065
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Our industrial relations work smoothly, do they?
Tell that to the former staff of BHS!
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God's on holiday.
(Why borrow a cat?)
Adrian Plass
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Callan
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# 525
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The unions did require reigning in during the 1970s and Thatcher deserves some credit for doing that. But I am minded of Martin Luther's comment that human society resembles a drunk trying to mount a horse. No sooner has he fallen of one side of the horse, he promptly remounts and falls off the other.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
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PaulTH*
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# 320
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Callan:
The unions did require reigning in during the 1970s and Thatcher deserves some credit for doing that. But I am minded of Martin Luther's comment that human society resembles a drunk trying to mount a horse. No sooner has he fallen of one side of the horse, he promptly remounts and falls off the other
I agree completely, which is why I'm no fan of Thatcher. But I would hate this country to return to how it was in the 1970's, and I fear the Corbynistas would take us there.
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Yours in Christ
Paul
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PaulTH*
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# 320
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Andras:
Our industrial relations work smoothly, do they?
Tell that to the former staff of BHS!
OK so Green is about to have his knighthood taken away, quite rightly. And I believe he will eventually be shamed into making up the pensions shortfall. But I stand by my view that, apart from specific issues such as the RMT paralysing Southern Rail, we have only a tiny fraction of the industrial strife we had in the 1970's.
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Paul
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Enoch
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# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
The criterion should not be on what was the policy of an elected leader, but how effective was the leader in the implementation of that policy. Much as I would never have voted for Thatcher, you'd have to admit that she went to the electorate with a raft of policies, got elected then re-elected and was pretty successful in implementing the platform. ...
Sorry, no, that's completely wrong. On that score, except for the bit about being elected, that makes Joseph Stalin the best leader of all time.
The only real test as to whether a leader is good or bad is what is is like for the people that benefit or suffer from their government, whether,
quote:
8 Then did they till their ground in peace, and the earth gave her increase, and the trees of the field their fruit. 9 The ancient men sat all in the streets, communing together of good things, ... 10 He provided victuals for the cities, ... 11 He made peace in the land, and Israel rejoiced with great joy: 12 for every man sat under his vine and his fig tree, and there was none to fray them: 13 neither was there any left in the land to fight against them ...
(extracts from 1 Macc 10:8-13, Brenton's translation so as to avoid copyright issues)
Some leaders get a lighter run than others. Asquith, Lloyd George, Chamberlain and Churchill had to deal with major European wars. Had he played his hand competently, Chamberlain just might have prevented that. They other three were stuck with it. Lloyd George and Churchill rate highly for succeeding in bringing those wars to a successful conclusion, and in Lloyd George's case for producing an imperfect conclusion rather than no conclusion at all in Ireland.
The four leaders in the 1970s and 80s had to deal with civil disorder, a society that had become very turbulent and a difficult international environment. Some did better at it than others.
On the Maccabees test, though, Cameron, by setting two courses in motion that have ample potential to destroy all those good things, and now look as though they are going to succeed in that, fails spectacularly and, sadly, merits the castigation of all right thinking people.
He threw the dice and lost when he didn't have to throw them at all. That is, and I strongly suspect will remain, the verdict of history.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Enoch
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# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
... But I stand by my view that, apart from specific issues such as the RMT paralysing Southern Rail, we have only a tiny fraction of the industrial strife we had in the 1970's.
Having, unlike many shipmates, been alive then, I can confirm that. The 1970s were dreadful.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Gee D
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# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
... But I stand by my view that, apart from specific issues such as the RMT paralysing Southern Rail, we have only a tiny fraction of the industrial strife we had in the 1970's.
Having, unlike many shipmates, been alive then, I can confirm that. The 1970s were dreadful.
Having witnessed from a distance, I too can confirm that. Heath did not do too badly, Wilson seemed too tired to push matters far, and Callaghan either had no idea of what to do or was scuttled from within the Labour Party - probably both. He really was incompetent.
As to your post immediately above the bit about being elected is not an accurate way to put what I said. It's more than a bit, it's the important part. You go with a platform, the electorate by-and-large approves it, you implement it as you foreshadowed - that seems to me the mark of a good PM.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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PaulTH*
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# 320
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Having, unlike many shipmates, been alive then, I can confirm that. The 1970s were dreadful.
I too was there. Don't get me started on this subject! Red Robbo and the striking British Leyland factory with 523 wildcat walkouts between 1978 and 1979. And shoddy prduction standards. Shipbuilders who, when drilling holes through metal sheets welded to wood, had to use a member of the steel union to drill one side of it and a member of the carpenters union to drill from the opposite side. This made Britain the laughing stock of the industrialised world. In the 1950's a British car worker earned double that of his German counterpart. 20 years later, that position had been reversed. Because in Germany, every year, government, management and unions sat down together and agreed what pay rises the economy could afford. In Britain it was the likes of Red Robbo and his wildcats that destroyed the British car industry. Though I object to so much she did, I thank Thatcher for destroying that culture.
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Yours in Christ
Paul
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Teekeey Misha
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# 18604
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by PaulTH*:
And I believe he will eventually be shamed into making up the pensions shortfall.
Green may, indeed, eventually make up the shortfall, but I don't for one moment believe that he will ever be "shamed" into doing anything. He is, I think, far beyond incapable of grasping any concept of shame.
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Misha
Don't assume I don't care; sometimes I just can't be bothered to put you right.
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