B B C Poll: Guess Who Made It To The Top Of Best P M List?

[Realistbear]

Maggie and TB.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...vc&refer=uk

[laurejon]

Thatcher, Attlee Top U.K.'s Best Prime Ministers List, BBC Says

By Chris Peterson

Aug. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Margaret Thatcher, nicknamed ``The Iron Lady'' by her enemies, and Clement Attlee, who headed Britain's first post-World War II government, were named the country's best prime ministers in the past 100 years, in a list compiled by the British Broadcasting Corp.

Thatcher, the Conservative leader who was prime minister from 1979 to 1990 and who was credited with regaining control over the Falkland Islands from Argentina and breaking the power of the trade union movement, topped the list of 20 put together by historian Francis Beckett using a points system.

Attlee, whose Labour Party defeated Sir Winston Churchill's Conservatives in July 1945 and which introduced Britain's state- run National Health Service, as well as bringing key industries into state ownership, scored the same number of points as Thatcher, and was described by Beckett as heading the most significant reforming administration of 20th-century Britain.

Churchill, Britain's wartime leader, who once described Attlee as ``a modest man, who has much to be modest about,'' was ranked in second place, along with fellow Conservatives Edward Heath and Harold Macmillan and Liberal reformer Henry Campbell- Bannerman, who died in 1908, just before the government introduced state old-age pensions.

Bottom of the list, with no points at all, were Anthony Eden, the Conservative prime minister who led Britain into the ill-fated Suez invasion of 1956, and fellow Conservative Neville Chamberlain, who negotiated an appeasement pact with Germany's Adolf Hitler a year before World War II broke out.

Beckett emphasized that points were awarded on how well policies had been implemented, not on the rights or wrongs of the policies themselves.

Tony Blair, the current Labour Party leader, who has been prime minister since 1997, rated only three points, with Beckett saying the unpopularity of the decision to invade Iraq, and subsequent events there, had ``undermined Blair's ability to implement his vision, probably permanently.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Peterson in London at cpeterson@bloomberg.net

Edited August 29, 2006 by laurejon

[Willy Weasel]

Maggie and TB.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...vc&refer=uk

Not quite - PMs were rated between 0 and 5 points. TB was given 3 points. A couple of PM's were given 0.

I heard the author of the piece on the radio this morning and he basically said the reason he gave TB 3 points was because the rating was all about how well they had achieved the implementation of their own philosophy and TB didn't have one.

[fatso]

Hopefully Blair will be joining Princess Di in the near future.

[Realistbear]

I wonder if a few more people are looking back at Maggie's days and comparing them with the Miracle Economy and Big Brother and are saying I wish she was a bit younger...................... IMO, sadly, David "Scotty" Cameron is a bit wet.

[Guest mattsta1964]

I wonder if a few more people are looking back at Maggie's days and comparing them with the Miracle Economy and Big Brother and are saying I wish she was a bit younger...................... IMO, sadly, David "Scotty" Cameron is a bit wet.

Cameron is the nutritional equivalent of a cheesy Wotsit

[PropertyGuru]

Hopefully Blair will be joining Princess Di in the near future.

I do declare. It's Marketeer from the Singing Pig!

Welcome, fellow entrpreneur! How's the used car biz???

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

Shows you how pathetic the Brits are don't it. Anyone who thinks Blue Bitch was a good PM needs an IQ transplant!

[Broken Fan]

Shows you how pathetic the Brits are don't it. Anyone who thinks Blue Bitch was a good PM needs an IQ transplant!

She put a stop to that disgusting buisness of going down a dirty hole in the ground to dig up that filthy coal. Anyone who does something to protect the environment and stamp out dickension workpractises is a hero in my books.

[Realistbear]

Yup--I liked her too because she brought back a sense of reality after years of jack boot socialism that was in danger of dragging us into the poor man of Europe slot--the feat Gordon will have successfully carried off after his HPI-MEW bubble pops.

A true working class hero from a poor shopkeeper background to the top job unlike some of the pseudo-Champagne Socialist toffs we have in power these days.

[laurejon]

She had the peoples ear, and had a hell of a task on her hands since taking power from Labour who had bankrupt the nation from borrowing too much money and had to go cap in hand to the IMF for a handout.

Thank God Old Labour has been removed, and New Labour are more Tory than the Tories (Or so they would have us to believe).

I think most people have woken up to the fact that New Labour are in fact old Labour with a media machine at taxpayers expense to hide their staunch socialist principle of rewarding those who wish to live off the backs of the working classes and their unfortunate children.

[jp1]

Tony Blair was aptly described on Radio 4's Today programme as "Britains best ever government Press Officer"

[Michael]

Neville Chamberlain.........wasn't judged badly when he got back from Munich!