Worst British Prime Minister?
Posted: Tue Sep 15, 2009 2:42 am
Even though the recent 'best British Prime Minister' thread didn't go on for that many pages (clearly here in the UK we're not as obsessed at ranking our heads of government as our American cousins), I thought it might be worth trying a 'worst Prime Minister' thread.
I've intentionally left Blair and Brown off the poll, not as a comment on their policies, but only because I find including a sitting leader and his immediate predecessor tends to warp these things. I've also excluded Thatcher; while she's a deeply polarising figure, and one I personally have serious misgivings about, there can be little doubt that she was a consequential figure who achieved success in implementing her ideological vision. On that basis she has some claim to success, though I imagine that some will be able to argue that she was simultaneously one of the most successful and one of the worst Prime Ministers of the 20th century. But I felt there were far better candidates for being the 'worst' Prime Minister.
The bias towards the 20th century is also more or less intentional; for better or for worse, they tend to be the Prime Ministers we know best. The role has also evolved over the centuries to the extent that Henry Pelham, say, isn't really comparable to John Major.
So, erudite cosmopolitans of NSG - and the rest of you - who was the United Kingdom's worst Prime Minister, and why?
I've intentionally left Blair and Brown off the poll, not as a comment on their policies, but only because I find including a sitting leader and his immediate predecessor tends to warp these things. I've also excluded Thatcher; while she's a deeply polarising figure, and one I personally have serious misgivings about, there can be little doubt that she was a consequential figure who achieved success in implementing her ideological vision. On that basis she has some claim to success, though I imagine that some will be able to argue that she was simultaneously one of the most successful and one of the worst Prime Ministers of the 20th century. But I felt there were far better candidates for being the 'worst' Prime Minister.
The bias towards the 20th century is also more or less intentional; for better or for worse, they tend to be the Prime Ministers we know best. The role has also evolved over the centuries to the extent that Henry Pelham, say, isn't really comparable to John Major.
So, erudite cosmopolitans of NSG - and the rest of you - who was the United Kingdom's worst Prime Minister, and why?