# Greatest and Worst British Prime Minister **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 25, 2010, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-and-worst-british-prime-minister/565379 "2010-12-25T21:56:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2010, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-and-worst-british-prime-minister/565379/1 "2010-12-25T21:56:40Z")
I make no claims in this thread since I am fairly unknowledgable about British history but who in your opinion were the greatest and worst British Prime Ministers in terms of how they did their jobs as Prime Minister and why? ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2010, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-and-worst-british-prime-minister/565379/2 "2010-12-25T22:18:15Z")
Lord Aberdeen’s ministry was pretty poor, for getting Britain into a poorly planned Crimean War. Ramsay MacDonald had no effective response to the economic crisis of the Depression. His decision to go into a National Government coalition with the Conservatives saw him expelled from his own party, and his mental powers declined as the decade progressed. His memory remains excoriated by members of the Labour Party even today. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-and-worst-british-prime-minister/565379/3 "2010-12-26T00:05:43Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > I make no claims in this thread since I am fairly unknowledgable about British history … Being unknowledgeable has never stopped you before. The greatest, in my across the pond opinion, has to be Churchill, for reasons which I hope are obvious. His (also obvious) failings pale in comparison to the glory that was his war leadership. The worst, Chamberlain, also for obvious reasons. I’m amenable to argument on the latter choice. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-and-worst-british-prime-minister/565379/4 "2010-12-26T00:50:55Z")
(breaks beer bottle) **LORD PALMERSTON!** ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-and-worst-british-prime-minister/565379/5 "2010-12-26T01:02:02Z")
Quick answer to both: Maggie, depending on who you ask. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-and-worst-british-prime-minister/565379/6 "2010-12-26T01:37:20Z")
**Disraeli** Helped the empire grow to levels not seen before and for good or evil helped setup the advantageous position of Great Britain before the great wars of the 20th century. At home, his democratic reforms enfranchised the urban male working class in England and Wales. But considering the knowledge reported by the OP… [QUOTE=Family Guy] _ **Lois** _: Peter! He’s charming! All British men are! _ **Peter** _: Yeah right… that’s what they said about Benjamin Disraeli. — (cut to man writing at a desk circa 1850) — _ **Benjamin Disraeli** _: [to the camera] You don’t even know who I am. [/QUOTE] 🙂 This better not be a homework assignment. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-and-worst-british-prime-minister/565379/7 "2010-12-26T02:27:59Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > Quick answer to both: Maggie, depending on who you ask. Nah. I don’t think any serious rightie historian thinks she was the greatest. And given the long history of the institution, you have to be pretty bad to be the worst. But yeah, I thought about making a joke sort of like that too. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-and-worst-british-prime-minister/565379/8 "2010-12-26T02:40:22Z")
I’d vote for Churchill as best. Gladstone, Disraeli, Walpole, Thatcher and Blair are way up there IMHO, but Churchill tops them all. Not so sure about the worst; Lord Aberdeen certainly has a fair claim to the title, although Lord North, for being a virtual lackey to George III and thereby losing the American colonies, was pretty bad too. Related threads: > **[Greatest British prime minister ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=341449)** > > I know, I know: Wade Boggs said it was Pitt the Elder, while Barney insisted it was Lord Palmerston (The Simpsons, “Homer at the Bat”). I have to disagree - I’d vote for Winston Churchill. He gave courage to Great Britain when all seemed lost... > **[Blair: Great PM, or the \_Greatest\_ PM?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=420291)** > > Since he’s now set a date to step down, I thought it might be a good time to see what people thought about his time in office. What good things can be attributed to him and his government? What bad things? What do you think his legacy will be? > **[Mt Rushmore UK](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=325815)** > > If you were to do a Mt Rushmore in the U.K., who would you put on it (we’ll allow 6 faces) and where would you site it? Churchill, Cromwell, and Wellington are obvious picks, but what about the others? Mrs Thatcher isn’t dead yet; Disraeli,... ---
**Author:** ![The\_Amazing\_Hanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@The\_Amazing\_Hanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Amazing_Hanna)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-and-worst-british-prime-minister/565379/9 "2010-12-26T02:58:13Z")
Jim Hacket was probably the best, and Mr. Saxon the worst. Serious answer: Disraeli was the best, because he proved that the United Kingdom could be a meritocracy. Brown really didn´t have much business being PM. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-and-worst-british-prime-minister/565379/10 "2010-12-26T06:09:40Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > (breaks beer bottle) **LORD PALMERSTON!** Pitt the Elder! But I am a big fan of Disraeli. As for worst, there’s something to be said for Lord North or Lord Aberdeen, but my choice is Lord Goderich. To be fair to him, he was effective in the other ministries he was involved in, and probably nobody other than Canning could have kept Canning’s coalition together, but as PM, he was indecisive, and there’s just something pitiful about having to borrow a handkerchief from the King to cry into while he’s firing you. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-and-worst-british-prime-minister/565379/11 "2010-12-26T07:52:11Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > …and there’s just something pitiful about having to borrow a handkerchief from the King to cry into while he’s firing you. Oh, I don’t know. Blow a big gob of snot into it and then stuff it back into the King’s pocket. Go out in style, I say. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-and-worst-british-prime-minister/565379/12 "2010-12-26T10:16:12Z")
> [@Frank](#): > > The worst, Chamberlain, also for obvious reasons. > > I’m amenable to argument on the latter choice. Chamberlain was a fine and honourable man and did much to assist Churchill. Unfortunately that much seems to be forgotten. I think he was dealt an unlucky hand with the situation of the late 30’s. I’m not sure anyone could really have foreseen quite how reckless the Nazi’s were going to be. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 11:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-and-worst-british-prime-minister/565379/13 "2010-12-26T11:43:51Z")
Chamberlain’s foreign policy in Europe was largely bequeathed him by Baldwin, who should be seen as the real architect of appeasement. He had been a effective Minister of Health who had achieved a good deal. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-and-worst-british-prime-minister/565379/14 "2010-12-26T12:48:58Z")
We are living withgt e consequencies of Maggie T ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-and-worst-british-prime-minister/565379/15 "2010-12-26T13:11:09Z")
Churchill best Chamberlain worst is the stereotypical answer. Personally Gladstone and the Earl Gray as the best. Eden as the worst. ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-and-worst-british-prime-minister/565379/16 "2010-12-26T13:18:24Z")
We are living with the consequencies of Maggie Thatchers legacy, both good and bad, she is the one who gave the priority to fincnial services above manufacturing, yet Germany, with a higher waged economy managed to retain and expand its manufacturing. So when the banks went belly up, we had no choice but to support them. In my opinion though, she also did much to bolster democracy in the UK by facing down trade union power - you really cannot have a democracy when one group of workers can decide how long a term a government should serve, and thats what teh miners were doing.The cost of democracy though was high, there are entire regions in the UK that have not recovered. The population of Liverpool, for example, has declined by almost one third as folk have been forced to move out to find work. Churchill was not a good peacetime leader, and during WW1 he made some pretty disastrous military decisions whilst working in the Admiralty, and his Gallipolli campaign was probably based on a racist view of the Turks who he expected to simply roll over, since they were just ‘Johnny Turks’. His main legacy was to keep us in WW2 when all round, such as Lord Halifax, wanted to negotiate terms with Germany - it would have been so much easier to do the wrong thing in the short term - you could make a case for him keeping freedom alive whilst under dire threat in Europe. He haas been propagandised into what he is seen today, but his actions in supression of legitimate demands by workers for better conditions has to also be taken into account - like most PMs, there’s two sides to him. iI think you would have to consider Earl Gray as being on of the most important leaders Britain ever had, he is the one that reformed the largely corrupt parliamentary system with his 1832 reform act, this meant that many of the great cities had parliamentary representation for the first time, and he did this in the face of immensevested corrupt interests, he had to resign his government and make this reform an election issue. This was an immense step toward democracy, its the change that enabled all the other changes to take place. Its also reasonable to say that this reform reduced the extreme danger of a revolution in Britain, which was a very real threat, you only have to look at the rise of fre press and organised labour collectives to see that it was pretty close, close enough for anti-chartist laws and to be enacted and did lead to troops out and killing workers for their activities. Couple of others we should note, Herbert Asquith - WW1 PM, but just prior to that, he brought in reform acts that limited the abuse of the parliamentary system by the Tory supporting House of Lords which was instutionally corrupt - the rule had been that any act passed by the Commons could be blocked by the Lords on a whim, this again took a resignation of the government and an election based almost soley upon this issue, and even when re-elected the Lords tried to block this reform, this was an incredibly bitter fight, and it took Asquith to win it. He should also be noted for his introduction fo the state pension, reforms to income taxation. He also tried to bring in devolved governance to Ireland but events overtook him in terms of WW1 - this is a shame, had he been succesful then a huge tragedy in Ireland might have been averted. Clement Atlee - took Britain from the dire state it was in post WW2 and reformed the state in almost every aspect, from the implementation of the welfare state through to the de-colonialisation of the British Empire,he led a team of extremely strong personalities who were very effective but had to be managed well - I doubt that anyone else could have held them together, I would probably put him right at the top of the heap ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-and-worst-british-prime-minister/565379/17 "2010-12-26T16:35:36Z")
I’ll also put in a word for David Lloyd George, who IIRC did a pretty good job during WWI. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2010, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-and-worst-british-prime-minister/565379/18 "2010-12-26T20:53:14Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Eden as the worst. The other day I was reading the Wikpedia bio of [Liddell-Hart](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liddell_Hart), and enjoyed this: > [@](#): > > During the planning for the Suez Crisis, Hart had been asked by Anthony Eden to submit plans for a campaign against Egypt. After his first four drafts were rejected for a combination of contradictory reasons, Hart was nettled and sent back the original when asked for a fifth version. Eden liked it this time; he called for Hart and patronizingly said; “Captain Liddell Hart, here I am at a critical moment in Britain’s history, arranging matters which might mean the life of the British Empire. And what happens? I ask you to do a simple military chore for me, and it takes you five attempts — plus my vigilance amid all my worries — before you get it right.” Hart replied, “But sir, it hasn’t taken five attempts. That version, which you now say is just what you wanted, is the original version.” According to Leonard Mosley, there was a nasty silence while the prime minister’s face reddened. Then he reached for an antique inkstand and, maddened, threw it at Hart. Hart sat still for a moment and then, with a tactician’s instinct for the devastating counterstrike, stood up, seized a wastepaper basket, and jammed it over Eden’s head. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2010, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-and-worst-british-prime-minister/565379/19 "2010-12-27T02:40:22Z")
Limiting myself to the 20th century, Attlee the best & Thatcher the worst. ---
**Author:** ![Busy\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d78d45/32.png) [@Busy\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Busy_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2010, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-and-worst-british-prime-minister/565379/20 "2010-12-27T08:12:39Z")
Atlee thirded - as far as the 20th century goes. He led a cabinet of heavy hitters through a period of radical change in the aftermath of the war - basically set the agenda for British politics for the next 30 years. Compare Atlee’s cabinet (Bevan, Cripps, Bevin etc) to the glorified HR administrators who enter politics today - they certainly don’t make em like they used to. Churchill stands apart - the unique circumstances of his government makes it hard to compare him to peace time PMs. It seems a clear case of ‘Cometh the hour, cometh the man’ - no one else could have led the UK with such authority and panache at that time - Churchill is not generally remembered as an alcholic loon for instance. He probably would be if he had governed for a substantial term in peace time. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/greatest-and-worst-british-prime-minister/565379.md?page=2)