1- Winston Churchill, 2- William Gladstone, 3- Margaret Thatcher, 4- David Lloyd George, 5- Lord Salisbury, 6- Viscount Palmerston
7- Clement Attlee, 8- Robert Peel, 9- Earl Grey, 10- Benjamin Disraeli, 11- Henry Asquith, 12- Stanley Baldwin
13- James Callaghan, 14- Harold Macmillan, 15- Earl of Derby, 16- John Major, 17- Henry Campbell Bannerman, 18- Lord John Russell
19- Tony Blair, 20- Alec Douglas Home, 21- Andrew Bonar Law, 22- Harold Wilson, 23- Ramsay MacDonald, 24- Arthur Balfour
25- Lord Melbourne, 26- Edward Heath, 27- Earl of Aberdeen, 28- Lord Rosebery, 29- Neville Chamberlain, 30- Anthony Eden.
Obviously the great leader Gordon Brown can't yet be considered for this list until he completes his term but I think he might be in the top 30. Also for a few of the more obscure PM's my judgement on them is based on very few sources.
* Actually arbitrary is probably the wrong word, subjective is more like it.
7 comments:
Blair must be in equal last with the new bedfellow to be.
Hmm. Lloyd George* and Palmerston** might be too high and Chamberlain*** too low.
*Versailles? Peerage sales?
**Lots of pointless forts in Portsmouth area, collectively known and Palmerston's Folly.
***In an awkward position. Knew what total war meant. Bought time for preparation?
But who knows?
Bonar Law though, provided best pun in history. Julian & Sandy's solicitors practice: Bona Law.
If the question were the best *peacetime* Prime Ministers, what would you say then?
I would have to advocate a higher place for pre-1914 Asquith & a lower for 1951-55 Churchill in that case.
How did the dodgy dossier deliverer, cash for peerages perpetrator, pretty straight kinda guy, get into the list at 19?
"Hmm. Lloyd George* and Palmerston** might be too high and Chamberlain*** too low. ".
"I would have to advocate a higher place for pre-1914 Asquith & a lower for 1951-55 Churchill in that case.".
Lloyd George, Palmerston & Churchill were all excellent war leaders which is why they are ranked highly. Based purely on peace time leadership they would be ranked lower, so Gladstone would probably be number one. (Although I've seen it claimed that Palmerstone's Portsmouth fortifications were actually quite useful)
Lloyd George's sale of peerages was excessive, but not original. Parties had been doing that for years, of course as he had no party at that point the revenues wnt to him personally which made it somewhat worse but still.
"How did the dodgy dossier deliverer, cash for peerages perpetrator, pretty straight kinda guy,".
As I say, selling peerages has gone on since the advent of the party system. I gave Blair some credit for well executed interventions in Kosovo and Sierra Leone and for moving the Labour Party away from socialism.
Lloyd George was not a good war leader. He was continuely interfering with military decisions. At one stage he attempted to subordinate British troops to the French. This might have been defendable during 1914, when we only had the expeditionary force, but he was pressing for this in 1917 when the French army was riven by mutiny and had ceased to be an effective offensive force.
After the war he was in favour of large reparations including paying the pensions of servicemen:
We must have the uttermost farthing, and shall search their pockets for it. Then at Versaille he changed and attacked the French demand.
In his War Memoirs he blamed everyone but himself for the war conduct. The idea of lions led by Donkey's comes from him. Now that may be true or false but I am objecting to the buck passing and the way he painted his own legend.
He was virtually singlehandedly responsible for the collapse of the Liberal Party and its replacement by Labour.
His decision to force conscription on Ireland led to the rise of Sein Fein.
Certainly too high.
"He was continuely interfering with military decisions. "
So did Churchill, interfering isn't always bad, and some of the ideas he pursued were good ones, the use of convoys for example.
Llydon George had a lot of character flaw, he was dishonest, arrogant and disloyal. However he did tend to accomplish what he wanted to accomplish.
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