This is in companion to the “Worst Presidents” thread…
Who do you think was the worst Prime Minister(s) of the following countries:
Great Britain
France
Germany
Belgium
Netherlands
Ireland
Italy
Japan
Australia
New Zealand
Canada
Anthony Eden for the UK, I’m sure some people will say Magaret Thatcher, John Major or Neville Chamberlain but:
a) MT did do long term damage to the public sector but she did have a few successes in other areas
b) John Major did a v.good job woth what was handed to hium and the econmy wasn’t in that bad a shape when left power. Most of the problems in his time as PM were caused by infighting within his own party.
c) Neville Chamberlain is sorely maligned as the architect of appeasment in popularist (as opposed to academic) history, but a few factors are often ignored such: 1) he had no means of stopping Hitler, the UK had a very small colonial army and no foothold on the continent 2) he could not rely on Frances help as the treaty between the two countries only covered mutual defense 3) He did not truly believe that he had acheived ‘Peace in our time’.
Tojo, Erm I would say Thatcher, but I think she was a blessing in disguise, she revitalised Britains Economy, before her rule, I think we had an inflation rate higher than Italys. So I say Callaghan
Oh, I forgot this:
Could you please explain why you made your selections?
For Canada, I imagine we’ll see a nearly unanimous vote for Brian Mulroney. He posted huge decifits, tried to cave to Quebec on multiple issues, and made nearly destroyed the national PC party. He also brought in the FTA, which I feel that Canada may eventually regret. It had obvious benefits to the Canadian economy, but it has also made us far too reliant on the US - if they were so inclined, they could attack our economy quite easily(not that I’m accusing anyone of anything…).
Callaghan, because he did nothing to curb the power of the millitant unions from 76-79, and forced us to take a loan from the IMF because the economic situtation had gotten so bad.
Bonar Law ? Surely the obscurist 20th century British PM.
Speaking as a Canadian, and I’m sure in this case I speak on behalf of all Canadians, Brian Mulroney. He wrecked our fucking country. We use him as a figure of speech to describe everyhing we hate so much that, every time we think of it, we burst into tears. When I die, my final words will be: “Fuck Mulroney.”
(Or, if I’m conscious: “Either Mulroney goes, or I do.”)
**) Neville Chamberlain is sorely maligned as the architect of appeasment in popularist (as opposed to academic) history, but a few factors are often ignored such: 1) he had no means of stopping Hitler, the UK had a very small colonial army and no foothold on the continent 2) he could not rely on Frances help as the treaty between the two countries only covered mutual defense 3) He did not truly believe that he had acheived ‘Peace in our time’.
**
He had no means because he resisted buliding up the military for years even though Churchill kept on warning the government of the threat.
Netherlands: Jan Peter Balkenende Because he’s a spine-less, anti-social creep.
I’ll keep mum about France…
NZ: Robert (piggy) Muldoon, his “think big” policies were a horrid thing and he was a bully. http://www.sybworld.com/views/entrytext/nz/person/Robert_Muldoon
He’d only been Prime Minister for a year. There was never any eay that Britain could of hoped to of defeated Germany single-handedly, at this point it still did have just about the largest navy in the world and a competent airforce, but it could not hope to muster a decent size army without conscription and even then it would be outnumbered by the Germans and have no continental base. During the period straight after appeasement, Britain did start to mobilize more.
He opposed it as an MP. Sure, maybe he wasn’t directly responsible for Britain’s sorry military state, but he was certainly on the side of those who did not take the threat seriously until country after country started to fall to the Nazis.
Hmm. Do you remember the posters: “Labour isn’t working” (we had unemployment at one and a quarter million)? Within her first term this had doubled, and rose to well over three million by the time she was ousted. Her legacy is the collapse of our Health and Education systems (which were all but universally recognised as being Good Things – the only detractors being the rabid monetartists); the laughable debacle that is our denationalised rail transport system; the abject destruction of out manufacturing base; and, an increasingly socially divided citizenship. I could go on.
Meanwhile, they funded their piss-poor strictly-for-the-privileged tax-cuts (“cuts” my arse, IIRC there was barely a year under her administration when the tax burden didn’t rise) by selling the family silver and squandering the not insignificant income stream from Norh Sea Oil (the investment burden of which had fallen on previous Labour administrations), all the while blaming the previous Labour government for all perceived ills, slapping themselves on the back for all perceived benefits (even into the Major administration more than 10 years after the last Labour govenment, more ironic when you consider that since the 40s Labour had held power in total for less time than Thatcher’s rule).
Fuck, this evil harridan won her second term by engaging in a nasty and unjustified war, her bought and paid-for media cronies trumpetting jingoistic and downright fascistic hatred to whip the credulous masses into a feeding frenzy (plus ça change).
Do you remember how the police became a political tool, they themselves above the law? How she introduced pernicious and Machiavellian laws to crush any credible oppostion? How gerrymandering and electoral corruption were gleefully embraced and covered-up? While all the time we just knew they were laughing their socks off at our malleability and wholesale petty-self-interested greed.
This megalomaniac, this demagogue, this tiny-minded, bigotted, small-town shopkeeper bitch, wins by a long chalk – it’s hardly any concellation that she is now a brain-addled old bat that embarrasses everyone, and probably pisses herself.
Well, while I’m not British, Fredrick, Lord North, was a pretty ineffective PM.
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He started his ministry by trying, unsuccessfully, to block the press from reporting on Parliamentary debates
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His ministry’s actions helped contribute to the American rebellion and then they failed to quash it, leaing to American independence.
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His ministry passed the Catholic Relief Act, allowing Catholics to join the armed forces. While that was probably a good thing, it also sparked the Gordon Riots, which led to a mob of 600,000 taking control of London, who only dispursed after the army fired on the crowd.
err, that’s 60,000, not 600.000.
But come off that fence Unwashed! What do you reallly think about Thatch? 
Actually I couldn’t have put it better myself. Her’s was a government that spent an entire decade lining the personal pockets of her party leadership, selling off vast chunks of public property at prices that were quite literally a steal. All time amazingly finding the front to convince enough of the population that it was for their own good.
It’s to the lasting shame of the UK that someone with such a petty, small-minded attitude got away with it for so long. Nothing about her was ‘big’.
Oh, BTW, please don’t use anyone who’s held office within the last 10 years.
I’m a conservative, but I gotta tell you, Brian Mulroney has got to be the choice in Canada. Mulroney tripled the national debt, destroyed the PC party, had perhaps the most corrupt Canadian government of the 20th century, wrecked the military even worse than Trudeau had, and, worst of all, resurrected Quebec separatism. The man actually put separatists in the federal cabinet.
Mulroney’s free trade agreement with the US was, IMHO, a terrific, positive thing. And it doesn’t even come close to making up for his incompetence in everything else. Most of all, his revitilization of the evil of separatism, as well as pumping new life into Western regionalism, was his biggest blunder.
I can’t think of any other Canadian PM who even approaches Mulroney’s damage. Most of our really incomptent ones lasted a year or less, like Joe Clark (har) and so can’t really be compared with the super-oaf.
You are right, of course, I really should learn to be more forthright, and how to spell “consolation”.