In broad terms, the Conservatives represent provincial England, and to a lesser extent, provincial Wales and Scotland. They do well in rural areas (apart from the Celtic fringe) Market towns, suburbs, and are competitive in large towns and small cities. Labour dominate London, big cities, university constituencies, and some industrial areas where they were historically strong. May is probably a better fit for Conservative Britain than Corbyn is for Labour Britain.
Thanks, Sean.
I'd agree on Corbyn up to a point though I think "traditional working class" Labour is not what some nostalgically remember. It is changing and becoming less deferential to and less respectful of the economic order (one of the consequences of 2008 perhaps). As the moderate centre left economics seemed to fail so disastrously, more radical solutions have gained credence and are represented by Corbyn/McDonnell.
As for May, you are a conservative and I'll take your word on that. I have my doubts - I begin to suspect her and Corbyn's relationship is entirely symbiotic. When one goes the other will swiftly follow.
Conversely, May probably plays better to the nostalgic notion of what conservatism was as distinct from what it is or could be. I consider her interventionist on a scale Heath and Heseltine would appreciate and her willingness to use the mechanisms of the State to force through policy seems a world away from Thatcherite notions of self-reliance and self-responsibility and a small State.
She is far too authoritarian for me and I'm surprised so many so-called "liberal" Conservatives are comfortable with her use of State power but all you have to say is "Corbyn" and everyone falls into line.
May feels like a stopgap leader, like Callaghan, Brown, and arguably Heath. We await what will follow.
Was Heath the most influential Prime Minister since Atlee? Not only did he close more grammar schools than anyone else through his Ed Sec Margaret Thatcher (two threads yesterday iirc), he also took us into Europe (without a referendum btw).
If judged by the number and volume of pb threads dominated by his legacies, Edward Heath is surely the greatest Prime Minister of all time.
Heath is also the only post-war party leader to win an overall working majority from a party that also had an overall working majority. That was GE1970. No one else has achieved that.
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
In broad terms, the Conservatives represent provincial England, and to a lesser extent, provincial Wales and Scotland. They do well in rural areas (apart from the Celtic fringe) Market towns, suburbs, and are competitive in large towns and small cities. Labour dominate London, big cities, university constituencies, and some industrial areas where they were historically strong. May is probably a better fit for Conservative Britain than Corbyn is for Labour Britain.
Thanks, Sean.
I'd agree on Corbyn up to a point though I think "traditional working class" Labour is not what some nostalgically remember. It is changing and becoming less deferential to and less respectful of the economic order (one of the consequences of 2008 perhaps).
As for May, you are a conservative and I'll take your word on that. I have my doubts - I begin to suspect her and Corbyn's relationship is entirely symbiotic. When one goes the other will swiftly follow.
Conversely, May probably plays better to the nostalgic notion of what conservatism was as distinct from what it is or could be. I consider her interventionist on a scale Heath and Heseltine would appreciate and her willingness to use the mechanisms of the State to force through policy seems a world away from Thatcherite notions of self-reliance and self-responsibility and a small State.
She is far too authoritarian for me and I'm surprised so many so-called "liberal" Conservatives are comfortable with her use of State power but all you have to say is "Corbyn" and everyone falls into line.
May feels like a stopgap leader, like Callaghan, Brown, and arguably Heath. We await what will follow.
Was Heath the most influential Prime Minister since Atlee? Not only did he close more grammar schools than anyone else through his Ed Sec Margaret Thatcher (two threads yesterday iirc), he also took us into Europe (without a referendum btw).
If judged by the number and volume of pb threads dominated by his legacies, Edward Heath is surely the greatest Prime Minister of all time.
Heath is also the only post-war party leader to win an overall working majority from a party that also had an overall working majority. That was GE1970. No one else has achieved that.
When Heath lost in February and October 1974 to Wilson it was also on topic the last time a majority of working class voters beat a majority of middle class voters until Brexit
In 1979, the Conservatives made no overall gain among middle class voters (Southern gains being offset by Northern losses). Their gain was among working class voters.
The big story here isn't that the latest poll might be an MoE out in its sub-sample findings, but that this trend is real, started well before Brexit was on the horizon, and is slowly changing the shape of British politics. I suspect it is also the driver for the loss of voter loyalty and greater volatility of election results that we have seen over recent years (cf. the rise and fall of the LibDems, UKIP, and the SNP) - voting behaviour is no longer so rooted in immutable family traditions going back generations.
The big questions therefore are whether it is (long term) temporary, or permanent re-alignment, and whether Brexit reflects its culmination or will bring about an acceleration. If the latter in both cases then we will see a shift in politics as dramatic as the one in the US that switched the geography of Republican and Democratic support in the 20th century, with rich and poor states switching places..
In the US the divide is more a racial one e.g. the Republicans have won the white vote at every Presidential election since 1964 and the Democrats have won the black and hispanic vote at every Presidential election over the same period.
The Democrats therefore win huge majorities in poor minority dominated inner city areas and the Republicans now win big majorities in white working class rural and small town areas like West Virginia and Arkansas which were once Democratic.
The suburbs though which have a more mixed racial grouping of middle class voters tend to decide elections. Just as the Republicans now have their strongest support amongst the white working class which Trump has reinforced so the Democrats can also now on occasion win educated and wealthy areas which were once staunchly Republican e.g. Hillary won Orange County in California in 2016 which has voted Republican at presidential elections for decades
The referendum informed the decision to trigger Article 50, but it was the Parliamentary vote based on it that formally did the deed with the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017. Sympathetic as I am to the writer, it has to be accepted that the UK’s actions do satisfy the need to arrive at the decision by the UK’s constitutional requirements. Ironically, if Gina Miller hadn’t intervened, the UK’s government’s fatal error would have stood and, the fraud exposed, the EU would not have accepted that the UK had legitimately served Article 50
Heart of stone etc.
As I said at the time, and to the derision of many on here, Gina Miller has been the Leavers' best friend.
I always felt there was no reason that parliament shouldn't be the ones to trigger A50 - and I saw no reason they would vote against it even though they could - and found the case she brought to be very helpful in clarifying an aspect of our constitutional requirements, and nullifying arguments over the referendum. Whatever her motivations, and whatever her other pronouncements, the A50 case had a lot of merit.
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
It was Rab Butler, a Tory, who really established the idea of grammar schools and technical schools etc and Harold Wilson, Shirley Williams and Tony Crosland, all Labour who began the process of closing them.
Although Rab Butler was a Conservative, The Education Act of 1944, which established the tripartite system, enjoyed broad cross-party support, and the committee that designed it had representatives from all the parties.
In broad terms, the Conservatives represent provincial England, and to a lesser extent, provincial Wales and Scotland. They do well in rural areas (apart from the Celtic fringe) Market towns, suburbs, and are competitive in large towns and small cities. Labour dominate London, big cities, university constituencies, and some industrial areas where they were historically strong. May is probably a better fit for Conservative Britain than Corbyn is for Labour Britain.
Thanks, Sean.
I'd agree on Corbyn up to a point though
As for ay is "Corbyn" and everyone falls into line.
May feels like a stopgap leader, like Callaghan, Brown, and arguably Heath. We await what will follow.
Was Heath the most influential Prime Minister since Atlee? Not only did he close more grammar schools than anyone else through his Ed Sec Margaret Thatcher (two threads yesterday iirc), he also took us into Europe (without a referendum btw).
If judged by the number and volume of pb threads dominated by his legacies, Edward Heath is surely the greatest Prime Minister of all time.
Heath is also the only post-war party leader to win an overall working majority from a party that also had an overall working majority. That was GE1970. No one else has achieved that.
That’s very interesting, and shows how finely balanced the electorate has been post-war.
In that sense, the last ten years of non-majorities (2015 aside) can be seen as a return to the norm after the outstanding achievements of Thatcher, then Blair.
Small leads were the norm, up till 1983 (even in 1945, Labour only led by 8%). But, with few seats going to the SNP or Liberals, and the Unionists taking the Conservative whip, a lead of just 2% was enough for a working majority.
Since WW2 we have had only 6 general elections with majorities of 100+ ie 1945, 1959, 1983, 1987, 1997 and 2001 out of 20 general elections in total so landslides occur less than a third of the time.
In broad terms, the Conservatives represent provincial England, and to a lesser extent, provincial Wales and Scotland. They do well in rural areas (apart from the Celtic fringe) Market towns, suburbs, and are competitive in large towns and small cities. Labour dominate London, big cities, university constituencies, and some industrial areas where they were historically strong. May is probably a better fit for Conservative Britain than Corbyn is for Labour Britain.
Thanks, Sean.
I'd agree on Corbyn up to a point though I think "traditional working class" Labour is not what some nostalgically remember. It is changing and becoming less deferential to and less respectful of the economic order (one of the consequences of 2008 perhaps).
As for May, you are a conservative and I'll take your word on that. I have my doubts - I begin to suspect her and Corbyn's relationship is entirely have to say is "Corbyn" and everyone falls into line.
May feels like a stopgap leader, like Callaghan, Brown, and arguably Heath. We await what will follow.
Was Heath the most influential Prime Minister since Atlee? Not only did he close more grammar schools than anyone else through his Ed Sec Margaret Thatcher (two threads yesterday iirc), he also took us into Europe (without a referendum btw).
If judged by the number and volume of pb threads dominated by his legacies, Edward Heath is surely the greatest Prime Minister of all time.
Heath is also the only post-war party leader to win an overall working majority from a party that also had an overall working majority. That was GE1970. No one else has achieved that.
When Heath lost in February and October 1974 to Wilson it was also on topic the last time a majority of working class voters beat a majority of middle class voters until Brexit
In 1979, the Conservatives made no overall gain among middle class voters (Southern gains being offset by Northern losses). Their gain was among working class voters.
Yes it was Thatcher who really began the Tory gains amongst C2DEs and Blair who really began the Labour gains amongst ABC1s
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
There's tough competition, but he'd definitely be bottom three.
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
Wilson won 3 general elections and got largest party in a 4th with only 1 loss.
That was a rather better record than Heath's 3 general election losses and 1 win.
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
There's tough competition, but he'd definitely be bottom three.
Eden, Callaghan, Brown and yes Heath were all worse PMs than Wilson in my view.
May feels like a stopgap leader, like Callaghan, Brown, and arguably Heath. We await what will follow.
Was Heath the most influential Prime Minister since Atlee? Not only did he close more grammar schools than anyone else through his Ed Sec Margaret Thatcher (two threads yesterday iirc), he also took us into Europe (without a referendum btw).
If judged by the number and volume of pb threads dominated by his legacies, Edward Heath is surely the greatest Prime Minister of all time.
Heath is also the only post-war party leader to win an overall working majority from a party that also had an overall working majority. That was GE1970. No one else has achieved that.
When Heath lost in February and October 1974 to Wilson it was also on topic the last time a majority of working class voters beat a majority of middle class voters until Brexit
Much of the Remainer anger is an echo of Margo Leadbetter's bewailing of the state of Britain "since the fall of the Conservative government".
May feels like a stopgap leader, like Callaghan, Brown, and arguably Heath. We await what will follow.
Was Heath the most influential Prime Minister since Atlee? Not only did he close more grammar schools than anyone else through his Ed Sec Margaret Thatcher (two threads yesterday iirc), he also took us into Europe (without a referendum btw).
If judged by the number and volume of pb threads dominated by his legacies, Edward Heath is surely the greatest Prime Minister of all time.
Heath is also the only post-war party leader to win an overall working majority from a party that also had an overall working majority. That was GE1970. No one else has achieved that.
When Heath lost in February and October 1974 to Wilson it was also on topic the last time a majority of working class voters beat a majority of middle class voters until Brexit
Much of the Remainer anger is an echo of Margo Leadbetter's bewailing of the state of Britain "since the fall of the Conservative government".
Indeed. Of those still alive who voted in 1974 I would expect more Heath and Thorpe voters voted Remain while more Wilson voters voted Leave.
It is posh Remainers who have been whinging the most about Brexit, not that you could ever tell from pb of course
The referendum informed the decision to trigger Article 50, but it was the Parliamentary vote based on it that formally did the deed with the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Act 2017. Sympathetic as I am to the writer, it has to be accepted that the UK’s actions do satisfy the need to arrive at the decision by the UK’s constitutional requirements. Ironically, if Gina Miller hadn’t intervened, the UK’s government’s fatal error would have stood and, the fraud exposed, the EU would not have accepted that the UK had legitimately served Article 50
Heart of stone etc.
As I said at the time, and to the derision of many on here, Gina Miller has been the Leavers' best friend.
Now, will this be enough to allow the Republicans to hold on to the West Virginia Third Congressional District? No.
But it does suggest the Republicans might hold the House.
Without skin in the game it is tough to be as emotionally involved. But you have to think the Democrats haven't been helping themselves with their wailing about Trump.
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
There's tough competition, but he'd definitely be bottom three.
Any particular reasons ?
Its widely thought that the 1960s Wilson government failed to reform the economy and trade unions which led to the problems in the 1970s.
It should be remembered though that Wilson's 1960s government was massively unpopular at the time and suffered annihilatory defeats in local elections. I wonder if it had, despite its large majority, the political capital to make economic and union reforms.
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
There's tough competition, but he'd definitely be bottom three.
Eden, Callaghan, Brown and yes Heath were all worse PMs than Wilson in my view.
Callaghan? I think he was dealt a very difficult hand, and played it as well as he could have done. I'd put him in the top half of the table.
Eden for Suez, yes.
Brown: hmmm, difficult one. I think we probably need to allow more time to go by to make a definite judgement.
Heath: much of the 1970 Conservative manifesto holds up well. Stopping government support for failing industries, power sharing in Northern Ireland, and even privatization. But his tenure must be seen as a failure.
Now, will this be enough to allow the Republicans to hold on to the West Virginia Third Congressional District? No.
But it does suggest the Republicans might hold the House.
Without skin in the game it is tough to be as emotionally involved. But you have to think the Democrats haven't been helping themselves with their wailing about Trump.
Personal view: the US economy continues to hum along, and Trump scored a policy success with North Korea.
I think the risk to Trump is not so much Mueller going forward, but Cohen (which is a New York Attorney General investigation, and cannot be stopped by Trump).
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
There's tough competition, but he'd definitely be bottom three.
Any particular reasons ?
Its widely thought that the 1960s Wilson government failed to reform the economy and trade unions which led to the problems in the 1970s.
It should be remembered though that Wilson's 1960s government was massively unpopular at the time and suffered annihilatory defeats in local elections. I wonder if it had, despite its large majority, the political capital to make economic and union reforms.
Britain in the 1960s coasted on its historic successes, and thought the world owed it a living. Substantial flows from overseas investments allowed it to outspend its income, which would have been fine if it had been investing, but it wasn't. And at the same time, the government made the labour market increasingly rigid, and ingrained a policy of bailing out failing industries.
Wilson was the architect of many - perhaps most - of the failures of Britain in the 1970s.
The perfect storm of a long disused email address, a long forgotten password and a system upgrade resulting in stored passwords being binned. Anyway, I've been looking to get a more dynamic user name for ages.
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
There's tough competition, but he'd definitely be bottom three.
Any particular reasons ?
Its widely thought that the 1960s Wilson government failed to reform the economy and trade unions which led to the problems in the 1970s.
It should be remembered though that Wilson's 1960s government was massively unpopular at the time and suffered annihilatory defeats in local elections. I wonder if it had, despite its large majority, the political capital to make economic and union reforms.
Britain in the 1960s coasted on its historic successes, and thought the world owed it a living. Substantial flows from overseas investments allowed it to outspend its income, which would have been fine if it had been investing, but it wasn't. And at the same time, the government made the labour market increasingly rigid, and ingrained a policy of bailing out failing industries.
Wilson was the architect of many - perhaps most - of the failures of Britain in the 1970s.
"Britain in the 1960s coasted on its historic successes, and thought the world owed it a living"
50 years later - nothing much has changed. OK, now it is, Europe owes us a living. [ In fact, the EU cannot do without us ]
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
There's tough competition, but he'd definitely be bottom three.
Any particular reasons ?
Its widely thought that the 1960s Wilson government failed to reform the economy and trade unions which led to the problems in the 1970s.
It should be remembered though that Wilson's 1960s government was massively unpopular at the time and suffered annihilatory defeats in local elections. I wonder if it had, despite its large majority, the political capital to make economic and union reforms.
Britain in the 1960s coasted on its historic successes, and thought the world owed it a living. Substantial flows from overseas investments allowed it to outspend its income, which would have been fine if it had been investing, but it wasn't. And at the same time, the government made the labour market increasingly rigid, and ingrained a policy of bailing out failing industries.
Wilson was the architect of many - perhaps most - of the failures of Britain in the 1970s.
Attlee was the architect of many of Britain's post-war failings, all the way through to Brexit.
Now, will this be enough to allow the Republicans to hold on to the West Virginia Third Congressional District? No.
But it does suggest the Republicans might hold the House.
Without skin in the game it is tough to be as emotionally involved. But you have to think the Democrats haven't been helping themselves with their wailing about Trump.
Personal view: the US economy continues to hum along, and Trump scored a policy success with North Korea.
I think the risk to Trump is not so much Mueller going forward, but Cohen (which is a New York Attorney General investigation, and cannot be stopped by Trump).
Why do you think Ivanka and Kushner are not seen or heard much these days ?
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
There's tough competition, but he'd definitely be bottom three.
Any particular reasons ?
Its widely thought that the 1960s Wilson government failed to reform the economy and trade unions which led to the problems in the 1970s.
It should be remembered though that Wilson's 1960s government was massively unpopular at the time and suffered annihilatory defeats in local elections. I wonder if it had, despite its large majority, the political capital to make economic and union reforms.
Britain in the 1960s coasted on its historic successes, and thought the world owed it a living. Substantial flows from overseas investments allowed it to outspend its income, which would have been fine if it had been investing, but it wasn't. And at the same time, the government made the labour market increasingly rigid, and ingrained a policy of bailing out failing industries.
Wilson was the architect of many - perhaps most - of the failures of Britain in the 1970s.
Attlee was the architect of many of Britain's post-war failings, all the way through to Brexit.
Attlee the architect of Brexit. That would make a great PhD thesis.
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
Until the Iraq intervention, I might have thought so. Nevertheless Wilson made the correct call on Vietnam while Blair, an otherwise competent PM, made the disastrously wrong one on Iraq. The same will apply to Cameron for accidentally taking the UK out of the European Union. More disastrous than Iraq in foreign and domestic policy terms. He also has less going for him than Blair in terms of social policy. I would say Cameron has a good chance for the worst postwar PM slot.
Making the right call on the big issues defines a prime minister. Wilson made the right call on Vietnam; Brown on the credit crunch; Blair the wrong call on Iraq; Cameron on the EU.
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
Until the Iraq intervention, I might have thought so. Nevertheless Wilson made the correct call on Vietnam while Blair, an otherwise competent PM, made the disastrously wrong one on Iraq. The same will apply to Cameron for accidentally taking the UK out of the European Union. More disastrous than Iraq in foreign and domestic policy terms. He also has less going for him than Blair in terms of social policy. I would say Cameron has a good chance for the worst postwar PM slot.
Making the right call on the big issues defines a prime minister. Wilson made the right call on Vietnam; Brown on the credit crunch; Blair the wrong call on Iraq; Cameron on the EU.
Whisper it, but May has the potential to go down as one of the greatest if she can find a way to abandon Brexit without splitting the Tory party.
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
Until the Iraq intervention, I might have thought so. Nevertheless Wilson made the correct call on Vietnam while Blair, an otherwise competent PM, made the disastrously wrong one on Iraq. The same will apply to Cameron for accidentally taking the UK out of the European Union. More disastrous than Iraq in foreign and domestic policy terms. He also has less going for him than Blair in terms of social policy. I would say Cameron has a good chance for the worst postwar PM slot.
Making the right call on the big issues defines a prime minister. Wilson made the right call on Vietnam; Brown on the credit crunch; Blair the wrong call on Iraq; Cameron on the EU.
Whisper it, but May has the potential to go down as one of the greatest if she can find a way to abandon Brexit without splitting the Tory party.
Give it up Bill. We're leaving.
Abandoning Brexit would destroy public trust in the political system. And it would destroy theTory party.
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
Until the Iraq intervention, I might have thought so. Nevertheless Wilson made the correct call on Vietnam while Blair, an otherwise competent PM, made the disastrously wrong one on Iraq. The same will apply to Cameron for accidentally taking the UK out of the European Union. More disastrous than Iraq in foreign and domestic policy terms. He also has less going for him than Blair in terms of social policy. I would say Cameron has a good chance for the worst postwar PM slot.
Making the right call on the big issues defines a prime minister. Wilson made the right call on Vietnam; Brown on the credit crunch; Blair the wrong call on Iraq; Cameron on the EU.
Did Major make the right call on his big decision?
The perfect storm of a long disused email address, a long forgotten password and a system upgrade resulting in stored passwords being binned. Anyway, I've been looking to get a more dynamic user name for ages.
Welcome. There are a couple more twisted firestoppers out there?
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
Until the Iraq intervention, I might have thought so. Nevertheless Wilson made the correct call on Vietnam while Blair, an otherwise competent PM, made the disastrously wrong one on Iraq. The same will apply to Cameron for accidentally taking the UK out of the European Union. More disastrous than Iraq in foreign and domestic policy terms. He also has less going for him than Blair in terms of social policy. I would say Cameron has a good chance for the worst postwar PM slot.
Making the right call on the big issues defines a prime minister. Wilson made the right call on Vietnam; Brown on the credit crunch; Blair the wrong call on Iraq; Cameron on the EU.
Did Major make the right call on his big decision?
No. He shouldn't have gone for an opt-out to the Euro, and instead should have held a referendum on the Maastricht treaty including a commitment to the single currency. It would probably have avoided the scale of the subsequent Blair landslide too.
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
Until the Iraq intervention, I might have thought so. Nevertheless Wilson made the correct call on Vietnam while Blair, an otherwise competent PM, made the disastrously wrong one on Iraq. The same will apply to Cameron for accidentally taking the UK out of the European Union. More disastrous than Iraq in foreign and domestic policy terms. He also has less going for him than Blair in terms of social policy. I would say Cameron has a good chance for the worst postwar PM slot.
Making the right call on the big issues defines a prime minister. Wilson made the right call on Vietnam; Brown on the credit crunch; Blair the wrong call on Iraq; Cameron on the EU.
Whisper it, but May has the potential to go down as one of the greatest if she can find a way to abandon Brexit without splitting the Tory party.
Give it up Bill. We're leaving.
Abandoning Brexit would destroy public trust in the political system. And it would destroy theTory party.
I've said it before, and I'l say it again: the only things that would stop Brexit are a major recession or a European war. The possibility of the first happening by the end of March 2019 is rapidly receding, while the risk of the latter is remote.
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
Until the Iraq intervention, I might have thought so. Nevertheless Wilson made the correct call on Vietnam while Blair, an otherwise competent PM, made the disastrously wrong one on Iraq. The same will apply to Cameron for accidentally taking the UK out of the European Union. More disastrous than Iraq in foreign and domestic policy terms. He also has less going for him than Blair in terms of social policy. I would say Cameron has a good chance for the worst postwar PM slot.
Making the right call on the big issues defines a prime minister. Wilson made the right call on Vietnam; Brown on the credit crunch; Blair the wrong call on Iraq; Cameron on the EU.
Did Major make the right call on his big decision?
You mean crashing out of the ERM? You can only react in those situations. I'm not sure there's a call to be made. The original decision to join was Thatcher's. In general I think Major an underrated PM. He was unlucky to come at the end of an increasingly unpopular and dysfunctional Tory regime.
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
Until the Iraq intervention, I might have thought so. Nevertheless Wilson made the correct call on Vietnam while Blair, an otherwise competent PM, made the disastrously wrong one on Iraq. The same will apply to Cameron for accidentally taking the UK out of the European Union. More disastrous than Iraq in foreign and domestic policy terms. He also has less going for him than Blair in terms of social policy. I would say Cameron has a good chance for the worst postwar PM slot.
Making the right call on the big issues defines a prime minister. Wilson made the right call on Vietnam; Brown on the credit crunch; Blair the wrong call on Iraq; Cameron on the EU.
Brown virtually bankrupt the country with his overspending and lax borrowing rules pre 2008.
Cameron at least got the finances more in order and in Iraq Blair can at least say it is now a democracy not a dictatorship
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
There's tough competition, but he'd definitely be bottom three.
Eden, Callaghan, Brown and yes Heath were all worse PMs than Wilson in my view.
Callaghan? I think he was dealt a very difficult hand, and played it as well as he could have done. I'd put him in the top half of the table.
Eden for Suez, yes.
Brown: hmmm, difficult one. I think we probably need to allow more time to go by to make a definite judgement.
Heath: much of the 1970 Conservative manifesto holds up well. Stopping government support for failing industries, power sharing in Northern Ireland, and even privatization. But his tenure must be seen as a failure.
Both Heath and Callaghan let inflation run riot and neither could control the unions, it took Thatcher to deal with both
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
Until the Iraq intervention, I might have thought so. Nevertheless Wilson made the correct call on Vietnam while Blair, an otherwise competent PM, made the disastrously wrong one on Iraq. The same will apply to Cameron for accidentally taking the UK out of the European Union. More disastrous than Iraq in foreign and domestic policy terms. He also has less going for him than Blair in terms of social policy. I would say Cameron has a good chance for the worst postwar PM slot.
Making the right call on the big issues defines a prime minister. Wilson made the right call on Vietnam; Brown on the credit crunch; Blair the wrong call on Iraq; Cameron on the EU.
Did Major make the right call on his big decision?
You mean crashing out of the ERM? You can only react in those situations. I'm not sure there's a call to be made. The original decision to join was Thatcher's. In general I think Major an underrated PM. He was unlucky to come at the end of an increasingly unpopular and dysfunctional Tory regime.
Major could have chosen to withdraw from the ERM instead he chose a policy of 'hurting but not working' backed up by an early project fear.
The Oddschecker graphs show the Eurovision markets are absurd. Cyprus is 5/4 favourite but 66/1 a fortnight back. Third-favourites Ireland were 200/1 as recently as Tuesday.
There is most disagreement amongst the bookmakers about France -- 10/1 or 20/1 -- so it might be worth value-seeking Eurovision fans having another listen to the French entry.
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
Until the Iraq intervention, I might have thought so. Nevertheless Wilson made the correct call on Vietnam while Blair, an otherwise competent PM, made the disastrously wrong one on Iraq. The same will apply to Cameron for accidentally taking the UK out of the European Union. More disastrous than Iraq in foreign and domestic policy terms. He also has less going for him than Blair in terms of social policy. I would say Cameron has a good chance for the worst postwar PM slot.
Making the right call on the big issues defines a prime minister. Wilson made the right call on Vietnam; Brown on the credit crunch; Blair the wrong call on Iraq; Cameron on the EU.
Did Major make the right call on his big decision?
No. He shouldn't have gone for an opt-out to the Euro, and instead should have held a referendum on the Maastricht treaty including a commitment to the single currency. It would probably have avoided the scale of the subsequent Blair landslide too.
And such a referendum would have been lost.
Not that the Conservative party would have accepted a commitment to join the single currency.
Good points. Also quite good to remember that joining Europe was a Tory idea and setting up grammar schools a Labour one.
Is that the latest version of the Conservative re-writing of history, Mr Recidivist? The Conservatives were strongly opposed to any kind of involvement with the European project throughout the 50s and 60s. Europe was one of the main selling points of the Liberal Party throughout this period. Mr Heath took it up when the Liberals started wining byelectione in the early 70s, and he realised that the Conservatives were looking stale and uninspiring.
Now, will this be enough to allow the Republicans to hold on to the West Virginia Third Congressional District? No.
But it does suggest the Republicans might hold the House.
Other polls have the Democrats with bigger House leads and Senate polls suggest the Democrats could even get a majority there too.
The Republicans have a shot at holding the House and Senate, however the Democrats also have a shot at giving Trump the biggest thumping of any President in their first midterms since Bill Clinton in 1994 and winning both chambers of Congress
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
Until the Iraq intervention, I might have thought so. Nevertheless Wilson made the correct call on Vietnam while Blair, an otherwise competent PM, made the disastrously wrong one on Iraq. The same will apply to Cameron for accidentally taking the UK out of the European Union. More disastrous than Iraq in foreign and domestic policy terms. He also has less going for him than Blair in terms of social policy. I would say Cameron has a good chance for the worst postwar PM slot.
Making the right call on the big issues defines a prime minister. Wilson made the right call on Vietnam; Brown on the credit crunch; Blair the wrong call on Iraq; Cameron on the EU.
Did Major make the right call on his big decision?
No. He shouldn't have gone for an opt-out to the Euro, and instead should have held a referendum on the Maastricht treaty including a commitment to the single currency. It would probably have avoided the scale of the subsequent Blair landslide too.
And such a referendum would have been lost.
I'm not sure it would have been. It was before Euroscepticism really became a popular cause and given the likelihood that Thatcher would have been against it, it would have risked becoming a referendum on her. (And it may have offered the party the closure it needed to move on properly from the events of her downfall.)
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
There's tough competition, but he'd definitely be bottom three.
Eden, Callaghan, Brown and yes Heath were all worse PMs than Wilson in my view.
Callaghan? I think he was dealt a very difficult hand, and played it as well as he could have done. I'd put him in the top half of the table.
Eden for Suez, yes.
Brown: hmmm, difficult one. I think we probably need to allow more time to go by to make a definite judgement.
Heath: much of the 1970 Conservative manifesto holds up well. Stopping government support for failing industries, power sharing in Northern Ireland, and even privatization. But his tenure must be seen as a failure.
Both Heath and Callaghan let inflation run riot and neither could control the unions, it took Thatcher to deal with both
To be fair the oil crisis of 1973 was a major factor , in the inflation problem.
Inflation was improving by ,1978 , down to 8% from a peak of 24% in 1975 .
However it started to rise again in 1979 , due in part to the near doubling of VAT.
Good points. Also quite good to remember that joining Europe was a Tory idea and setting up grammar schools a Labour one.
Is that the latest version of the Conservative re-writing of history, Mr Recidivist? The Conservatives were strongly opposed to any kind of involvement with the European project throughout the 50s and 60s. Europe was one of the main selling points of the Liberal Party throughout this period. Mr Heath took it up when the Liberals started wining byelectione in the early 70s, and he realised that the Conservatives were looking stale and uninspiring.
I think you're the one trying to rewrite history or perhaps don't know it at all.
Heath was always in favour of joining the EEC and that was part of the Conservative manifesto in the 1970 general election.
A general election which saw 330 Conservative MPs elected plus a grand total of 6, six, Liberals.
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
Until the Iraq intervention, I might have thought so. Nevertheless Wilson made the correct call on Vietnam while Blair, an otherwise competent PM, made the disastrously wrong one on Iraq. The same will apply to Cameron for accidentally taking the UK out of the European Union. More disastrous than Iraq in foreign and domestic policy terms. He also has less going for him than Blair in terms of social policy. I would say Cameron has a good chance for the worst postwar PM slot.
Making the right call on the big issues defines a prime minister. Wilson made the right call on Vietnam; Brown on the credit crunch; Blair the wrong call on Iraq; Cameron on the EU.
Did Major make the right call on his big decision?
You mean crashing out of the ERM? You can only react in those situations. I'm not sure there's a call to be made. The original decision to join was Thatcher's. In general I think Major an underrated PM. He was unlucky to come at the end of an increasingly unpopular and dysfunctional Tory regime.
Major could have chosen to withdraw from the ERM instead he chose a policy of 'hurting but not working' backed up by an early project fear.
Fair enough. The euro would never have worked for the UK because we wouldn't accept short term (actually extensive medium term) pain for long term gain.
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
There's tough competition, but he'd definitely be bottom three.
Any particular reasons ?
Its widely thought that the 1960s Wilson government failed to reform the economy and trade unions which led to the problems in the 1970s.
It should be remembered though that Wilson's 1960s government was massively unpopular at the time and suffered annihilatory defeats in local elections. I wonder if it had, despite its large majority, the political capital to make economic and union reforms.
Britain in the 1960s coasted on its historic successes, and thought the world owed it a living. Substantial flows from overseas investments allowed it to outspend its income, which would have been fine if it had been investing, but it wasn't. And at the same time, the government made the labour market increasingly rigid, and ingrained a policy of bailing out failing industries.
Wilson was the architect of many - perhaps most - of the failures of Britain in the 1970s.
Mentioning income from overseas should remind us that thanks to privatisation and foreign takeovers, profits flow abroad -- and to add insult to deficit injury, often underwritten by the British taxpayer. Harold Macmillan was right when he warned against selling off the family silver.
The perfect storm of a long disused email address, a long forgotten password and a system upgrade resulting in stored passwords being binned. Anyway, I've been looking to get a more dynamic user name for ages.
Browsers usually have an option to reveal all saved passwords, so you can probably recover it from there.
US could end up going to mid east war by deliberately ignoring the mistakes of the past. Sobering reading:
"How is this possible? How is it possible that Trump—who during the presidential campaign boasted about his supposed opposition to the Iraq War—has now embraced an outlook so similar to the one that guided Bush in 2002 and 2003?"
Good points. Also quite good to remember that joining Europe was a Tory idea and setting up grammar schools a Labour one.
Is that the latest version of the Conservative re-writing of history, Mr Recidivist? The Conservatives were strongly opposed to any kind of involvement with the European project throughout the 50s and 60s. Europe was one of the main selling points of the Liberal Party throughout this period. Mr Heath took it up when the Liberals started wining byelectione in the early 70s, and he realised that the Conservatives were looking stale and uninspiring.
Macmillan wanted to join the EEC but De Gaulle vetoed entry
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
Until the Iraq intervention, I might have thought so. Nevertheless Wilson made the correct call on Vietnam while Blair, an otherwise competent PM, made the disastrously wrong one on Iraq. The same will apply to Cameron for accidentally taking the UK out of the European Union. More disastrous than Iraq in foreign and domestic policy terms. He also has less going for him than Blair in terms of social policy. I would say Cameron has a good chance for the worst postwar PM slot.
Making the right call on the big issues defines a prime minister. Wilson made the right call on Vietnam; Brown on the credit crunch; Blair the wrong call on Iraq; Cameron on the EU.
Did Major make the right call on his big decision?
No. He shouldn't have gone for an opt-out to the Euro, and instead should have held a referendum on the Maastricht treaty including a commitment to the single currency. It would probably have avoided the scale of the subsequent Blair landslide too.
And such a referendum would have been lost.
I'm not sure it would have been. It was before Euroscepticism really became a popular cause and given the likelihood that Thatcher would have been against it, it would have risked becoming a referendum on her. (And it may have offered the party the closure it needed to move on properly from the events of her downfall.)
The 'once the merits of the single currency are explained people will support it' idea.
Similar to the idea that once the single currency had been introduced there would be overwhelming support to join it.
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
There's tough competition, but he'd definitely be bottom three.
Eden, Callaghan, Brown and yes Heath were all worse PMs than Wilson in my view.
Callaghan? I think he was dealt a very difficult hand, and played it as well as he could have done. I'd put him in the top half of the table.
Eden for Suez, yes.
Brown: hmmm, difficult one. I think we probably need to allow more time to go by to make a definite judgement.
Heath: much of the 1970 Conservative manifesto holds up well. Stopping government support for failing industries, power sharing in Northern Ireland, and even privatization. But his tenure must be seen as a failure.
Both Heath and Callaghan let inflation run riot and neither could control the unions, it took Thatcher to deal with both
Yes: Heath presided over the Barber boom. I have him as one of the three failures.
In the case of Callaghan, don't forget that he faced an oil crisis almost as severe as the one faced by Heath - that was going to drive up inflation irrespective of any government action. (Mrs Thatcher, by contrast, had the benefit of surging North Sea oil production to balance the effects of high oil prices.) Callaghan also recognised the bankruptcy of Keynesian economics:
We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step. - to say that to the Labour Party conference was a gutsy call.
I would put Callaghan in the top flight of Labour leaders post War.
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
Until the Iraq intervention, I might have thought so. Nevertheless Wilson made the correct call on Vietnam while Blair, an otherwise competent PM, made the disastrously wrong one on Iraq. The same will apply to Cameron for accidentally taking the UK out of the European Union. More disastrous than Iraq in foreign and domestic policy terms. He also has less going for him than Blair in terms of social policy. I would say Cameron has a good chance for the worst postwar PM slot.
Making the right call on the big issues defines a prime minister. Wilson made the right call on Vietnam; Brown on the credit crunch; Blair the wrong call on Iraq; Cameron on the EU.
Did Major make the right call on his big decision?
You mean crashing out of the ERM? You can only react in those situations. I'm not sure there's a call to be made. The original decision to join was Thatcher's. In general I think Major an underrated PM. He was unlucky to come at the end of an increasingly unpopular and dysfunctional Tory regime.
Major could have chosen to withdraw from the ERM instead he chose a policy of 'hurting but not working' backed up by an early project fear.
Fair enough. The euro would never have worked for the UK because we wouldn't accept short term (actually extensive medium term) pain for long term gain.
Can you explain to us the long term gain of losing influence over monetary policy?
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
Until the Iraq intervention, I might have thought so. Nevertheless Wilson made the correct call on Vietnam while Blair, an otherwise competent PM, made the disastrously wrong one on Iraq. The same will apply to Cameron for accidentally taking the UK out of the European Union. More disastrous than Iraq in foreign and domestic policy terms. He also has less going for him than Blair in terms of social policy. I would say Cameron has a good chance for the worst postwar PM slot.
Making the right call on the big issues defines a prime minister. Wilson made the right call on Vietnam; Brown on the credit crunch; Blair the wrong call on Iraq; Cameron on the EU.
Did Major make the right call on his big decision?
You mean crashing out of the ERM? You can only react in those situations. I'm not sure there's a call to be made. The original decision to join was Thatcher's. In general I think Major an underrated PM. He was unlucky to come at the end of an increasingly unpopular and dysfunctional Tory regime.
Major could have chosen to withdraw from the ERM instead he chose a policy of 'hurting but not working' backed up by an early project fear.
Of course, we wouldn't have had inflation running away, and even the pressure to join the ERM, if Nigel Lawson had not insisted on disastrously shadowing the Deutschemark.
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
Until the Iraq intervention, I might have thought so. Nevertheless Wilson made the correct call on Vietnam while Blair, an otherwise competent PM, made the disastrously wrong one on Iraq. The same will apply to Cameron for accidentally taking the UK out of the European Union. More disastrous than Iraq in foreign and domestic policy terms. He also has less going for him than Blair in terms of social policy. I would say Cameron has a good chance for the worst postwar PM slot.
Making the right call on the big issues defines a prime minister. Wilson made the right call on Vietnam; Brown on the credit crunch; Blair the wrong call on Iraq; Cameron on the EU.
Did Major make the right call on his big decision?
No. He shouldn't have gone for an opt-out to the Euro, and instead should have held a referendum on the Maastricht treaty including a commitment to the single currency. It would probably have avoided the scale of the subsequent Blair landslide too.
And such a referendum would have been lost.
Not that the Conservative party would have accepted a commitment to join the single currency.
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
There's tough competition, but he'd definitely be bottom three.
Eden, Callaghan, Brown and yes Heath were all worse PMs than Wilson in my view.
Callaghan? I think he was dealt a very difficult hand, and played it as well as he could have done. I'd put him in the top half of the table.
Eden for Suez, yes.
Brown: hmmm, difficult one. I think we probably need to allow more time to go by to make a definite judgement.
Heath: much of the 1970 Conservative manifesto holds up well. Stopping government support for failing industries, power sharing in Northern Ireland, and even privatization. But his tenure must be seen as a failure.
Both Heath and Callaghan let inflation run riot and neither could control the unions, it took Thatcher to deal with both
To be fair the oil crisis of 1973 was a major factor , in the inflation problem.
Inflation was improving by ,1978 , down to 8% from a peak of 24% in 1975 .
However it started to rise again in 1979 , due in part to the near doubling of VAT.
The near-doubling of VAT was remarkable for two reasons: first, the Conservatives had in the election campaign denied they would double it; second and perhaps more remarkably is for all Mrs Thatcher's fixation on inflation, she did not seem to realise that doubling VAT meant she was the one putting up prices.
The legacy is we now accept high VAT and low income tax as normal whereas it used to be the other way round. Now there is almost no political awareness of any tax aside from income tax. I wonder if politics would be different if shops adopted the American system of displaying prices without tax, and then added 20 per cent at the till.
Callaghan on tariffs and protectionism: They benefit some home industries at the expense of the livelihood of everyone working in exports. We would be robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
Until the Iraq intervention, I might have thought so. Nevertheless Wilson made the correct call on Vietnam while Blair, an otherwise competent PM, made the disastrously wrong one on Iraq. The same will apply to Cameron for accidentally taking the UK out of the European Union. More disastrous than Iraq in foreign and domestic policy terms. He also has less going for him than Blair in terms of social policy. I would say Cameron has a good chance for the worst postwar PM slot.
Making the right call on the big issues defines a prime minister. Wilson made the right call on Vietnam; Brown on the credit crunch; Blair the wrong call on Iraq; Cameron on the EU.
Did Major make the right call on his big decision?
You mean crashing out of the ERM? You can only react in those situations. I'm not sure there's a call to be made. The original decision to join was Thatcher's. In general I think Major an underrated PM. He was unlucky to come at the end of an increasingly unpopular and dysfunctional Tory regime.
Major could have chosen to withdraw from the ERM instead he chose a policy of 'hurting but not working' backed up by an early project fear.
Fair enough. The euro would never have worked for the UK because we wouldn't accept short term (actually extensive medium term) pain for long term gain.
There was extensive pain from the ERM without any prospect of long term gain and the UK economy did very well in the years after leaving it.
Now where things started going wrong was when we began shaking the magic money tree for over £100bn per year and using it to buy a lifestyle we hadn't earned.
Good points. Also quite good to remember that joining Europe was a Tory idea and setting up grammar schools a Labour one.
Is that the latest version of the Conservative re-writing of history, Mr Recidivist? The Conservatives were strongly opposed to any kind of involvement with the European project throughout the 50s and 60s. Europe was one of the main selling points of the Liberal Party throughout this period. Mr Heath took it up when the Liberals started wining byelectione in the early 70s, and he realised that the Conservatives were looking stale and uninspiring.
I think you're the one trying to rewrite history or perhaps don't know it at all. Heath was always in favour of joining the EEC and that was part of the Conservative manifesto in the 1970 general election. A general election which saw 330 Conservative MPs elected plus a grand total of 6, six, Liberals.
So what about the Tory manifestos in all the general elections in the 50s and 60s? It was only Heath who got it into the 1970 manifesto. Probably it was a slow dawning in the Conservative ranks that they had been wrong all along. This is, after all, par for the course with Tories.
But to claim that "Europe was a Tory idea" is far from the mark.
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
Until the Iraq intervention, I might have thought so. Nevertheless Wilson made the correct call on Vietnam while Blair, an otherwise competent PM, made the disastrously wrong one on Iraq. The same will apply to Cameron for accidentally taking the UK out of the European Union. More disastrous than Iraq in foreign and domestic policy terms. He also has less going for him than Blair in terms of social policy. I would say Cameron has a good chance for the worst postwar PM slot.
Making the right call on the big issues defines a prime minister. Wilson made the right call on Vietnam; Brown on the credit crunch; Blair the wrong call on Iraq; Cameron on the EU.
Did Major make the right call on his big decision?
You mean crashing out of the ERM? You can only react in those situations. I'm not sure there's a call to be made. The original decision to join was Thatcher's. In general I think Major an underrated PM. He was unlucky to come at the end of an increasingly unpopular and dysfunctional Tory regime.
Major could have chosen to withdraw from the ERM instead he chose a policy of 'hurting but not working' backed up by an early project fear.
Fair enough. The euro would never have worked for the UK because we wouldn't accept short term (actually extensive medium term) pain for long term gain.
There was extensive pain from the ERM without any prospect of long term gain and the UK economy did very well in the years after leaving it.
Now where things started going wrong was when we began shaking the magic money tree for over £100bn per year and using it to buy a lifestyle we hadn't earned.
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
Until the Iraq intervention, I might have thought so. Nevertheless Wilson made the correct call on Vietnam while Blair, an otherwise competent PM, made the disastrously wrong one on Iraq. The same will apply to Cameron for accidentally taking the UK out of the European Union. More disastrous than Iraq in foreign and domestic policy terms. He also has less going for him than Blair in terms of social policy. I would say Cameron has a good chance for the worst postwar PM slot.
Making the right call on the big issues defines a prime minister. Wilson made the right call on Vietnam; Brown on the credit crunch; Blair the wrong call on Iraq; Cameron on the EU.
Whisper it, but May has the potential to go down as one of the greatest if she can find a way to abandon Brexit without splitting the Tory party.
The dysfunction of this government is total. It doesn't allow parliament to process Brexit while the clock is counting down because it thinks it will be defeated on policy - even though it doesn't know itself what policy it wants at the basic level
: Heath presided over the Barber boom. I have him as one of the three failures.
In the case of Callaghan, don't forget that he faced an oil crisis almost as severe as the one faced by Heath - that was going to drive up inflation irrespective of any government action. (Mrs Thatcher, by contrast, had the benefit of surging North Sea oil production to balance the effects of high oil prices.) Callaghan also recognised the bankruptcy of Keynesian economics:
We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step. - to say that to the Labour Party conference was a gutsy call.
I would put Callaghan in the top flight of Labour leaders post War.
I would agree apart from :
Callaghan in the cabinet of 1969 , went against the the PM , Harold Wilson and Barbara Castle for the policy In Place of Strife.
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
Until the Iraq intervention, I might have thought so. Nevertheless Wilson made the correct call on Vietnam while Blair, an otherwise competent PM, made the disastrously wrong one on Iraq. The same will apply to Cameron for accidentally taking the UK out of the European Union. More disastrous than Iraq in foreign and domestic policy terms. He also has less going for him than Blair in terms of social policy. I would say Cameron has a good chance for the worst postwar PM slot.
Making the right call on the big issues defines a prime minister. Wilson made the right call on Vietnam; Brown on the credit crunch; Blair the wrong call on Iraq; Cameron on the EU.
Did Major make the right call on his big decision?
You mean crashing out of the ERM? You can only react in those situations. I'm not sure there's a call to be made. The original decision to join was Thatcher's. In general I think Major an underrated PM. He was unlucky to come at the end of an increasingly unpopular and dysfunctional Tory regime.
Major could have chosen to withdraw from the ERM instead he chose a policy of 'hurting but not working' backed up by an early project fear.
Of course, we wouldn't have had inflation running away, and even the pressure to join the ERM, if Nigel Lawson had not insisted on disastrously shadowing the Deutschemark.
With Nigel Lawson now a Leaver.
I'm surprised nobody has claimed its part of the worldwide Jewish conspiracy.
On a related note I wonder if the housing bubble which Lawson stoked through too low interest rates, tax cuts and MIRAS changes has had an effect on political memory.
In that rising house prices became one of the images associated with the Thatcher government. So that it became 'natural' for Cameron and Osborne to view higher house prices as a 'good thing' even though the concurrent falls in home ownership were doing long term damage to the Conservatives.
: Heath presided over the Barber boom. I have him as one of the three failures.
In the case of Callaghan, don't forget that he faced an oil crisis almost as severe as the one faced by Heath - that was going to drive up inflation irrespective of any government action. (Mrs Thatcher, by contrast, had the benefit of surging North Sea oil production to balance the effects of high oil prices.) Callaghan also recognised the bankruptcy of Keynesian economics:
We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step. - to say that to the Labour Party conference was a gutsy call.
I would put Callaghan in the top flight of Labour leaders post War.
Callaghan in the cabinet of 1969 , went against the the PM , Harold Wilson and Barbara Castle for the policy In Place of Strife.
Fair enough. The euro would never have worked for the UK because we wouldn't accept short term (actually extensive medium term) pain for long term gain.
There was extensive pain from the ERM without any prospect of long term gain and the UK economy did very well in the years after leaving it.
Now where things started going wrong was when we began shaking the magic money tree for over £100bn per year and using it to buy a lifestyle we hadn't earned.
The long term gain is feeding through now for those that joined the euro. It's taken it's time and I agree with you it wouldn't have worked for the UK. I have moved from negative to neutral on the euro in general.
Who was best Prime Minister at PMQs? This academic study from 2012 suggests substance beats spin.
This article provides a comparative analysis of the opening sessions of Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs) for the last five Prime Ministers in order to test a general perception that PMQs has become increasingly a focal point for shallow political point scoring rather than serious prime ministerial scrutiny. Our data appear to confirm that PMQs has become both rowdier and increasingly dominated by the main party leaders. It also indicates that Prime Ministers are increasingly expected to be able to respond to a wider range of questions, female MPs are as likely to ask helpful questions but less likely to ask unanswerable questions than male counterparts, and MPs are less likely to ask helpful questions and more likely to ask unanswerable questions the longer their parliamentary tenure. More surprisingly perhaps, our findings also suggest that, at the beginning of their premierships at least, Thatcher and Brown appear the most accomplished in terms of the fullness of their answers, and Blair and Cameron the least accomplished.
Eden, Macmillan, Home, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and May didn't have the opportunity to achieve that.
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
Shouldn't you compare his achievement with leaders of the opposition facing majority governments?
If you wish to compare Heath as LotO with the other LotO.
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
Until the Iraq intervention, I might have thought so. Nevertheless Wilson made the correct call on Vietnam while Blair, an otherwise competent PM, made the disastrously wrong one on Iraq. The same will apply to Cameron for accidentally taking the UK out of the European Union. More disastrous than Iraq in foreign and domestic policy terms. He also has less going for him than Blair in terms of social policy. I would say Cameron has a good chance for the worst postwar PM slot.
Making the right call on the big issues defines a prime minister. Wilson made the right call on Vietnam; Brown on the credit crunch; Blair the wrong call on Iraq; Cameron on the EU.
Whisper it, but May has the potential to go down as one of the greatest if she can find a way to abandon Brexit without splitting the Tory party.
The dysfunction of this government is total. It doesn't allow parliament to process Brexit while the clock is counting down because it thinks it will be defeated on policy - even though it doesn't know itself what policy it wants at the basic level
It's just occurred to me that the reason May wanted a bigger majority was not to get her policy through parliament, but to get away with shielding her policy from parliament.
I don't buy the idea at all that she sees it as her duty to deliver Brexit. She's far too cynical for that.
There's tough competition, but he'd definitely be bottom three.
Eden, Callaghan, Brown and yes Heath were all worse PMs than Wilson in my view.
Callaghan? I think he was dealt a very difficult hand, and played it as well as he could have done. I'd put him in the top half of the table.
Eden for Suez, yes.
Brown: hmmm, difficult one. I think we probably need to allow more time to go by to make a definite judgement.
Heath: much of the 1970 Conservative manifesto holds up well. Stopping government support for failing industries, power sharing in Northern Ireland, and even privatization. But his tenure must be seen as a failure.
Both Heath and Callaghan let inflation run riot and neither could control the unions, it took Thatcher to deal with both
To be fair the oil crisis of 1973 was a major factor , in the inflation problem.
Inflation was improving by ,1978 , down to 8% from a peak of 24% in 1975 .
However it started to rise again in 1979 , due in part to the near doubling of VAT.
The near-doubling of VAT was remarkable for two reasons: first, the Conservatives had in the election campaign denied they would double it; second and perhaps more remarkably is for all Mrs Thatcher's fixation on inflation, she did not seem to realise that doubling VAT meant she was the one putting up prices.
The legacy is we now accept high VAT and low income tax as normal whereas it used to be the other way round. Now there is almost no political awareness of any tax aside from income tax. I wonder if politics would be different if shops adopted the American system of displaying prices without tax, and then added 20 per cent at the till.
We didn't have VAT until 1973. We had a purchase tax. VAT was imposed by the EU.
I don't understand why the EU bothered to invent such a tax as VAT. It's far more work than a sales tax and there's a lot of cross-border fraud because a business in another EU country can charge 0% VAT if the buyer gives them a VAT number.
HMRC of course couldn't care less that some businesses must employ extra staff to do the VAT records. Transferring costs from tax collectors to tax payers counts as a win for the treasury, even if total costs increase. It would be good for UK PLC if such changes were banned.
It'd be interesting to see a plot of the class subsamples over time. Hard to tell if the recent poll was an outlier or not.
There was a tweet with this data that was shared on PB very recently. In the 1970s poltiics was firmly class based, but the pattern gradually unwinds with Thatcher's pursuit of the Cs, Blair's of the ABs, and now Brexit.
Thanks! I must have missed that. Although I was thinking specifically of the yougov subsamples, it'd be interesting to look at a more historic series.
I've only gone back to the start of the year, but hopefully this is of use:
Fair enough. The euro would never have worked for the UK because we wouldn't accept short term (actually extensive medium term) pain for long term gain.
There was extensive pain from the ERM without any prospect of long term gain and the UK economy did very well in the years after leaving it.
Now where things started going wrong was when we began shaking the magic money tree for over £100bn per year and using it to buy a lifestyle we hadn't earned.
The long term gain is feeding through now for those that joined the euro. It's taken it's time and I agree with you it wouldn't have worked for the UK. I have moved from negative to neutral on the euro in general.
There doesn't seem to be much long term gain for southern Europe.
The Euro was probably a reasonable idea for the German economic bloc but the more it was extended the greater the internal difficulties would be.
: Heath presided over the Barber boom. I have him as one of the three failures.
In the case of Callaghan, don't forget that he faced an oil crisis almost as severe as the one faced by Heath - that was going to drive up inflation irrespective of any government action. (Mrs Thatcher, by contrast, had the benefit of surging North Sea oil production to balance the effects of high oil prices.) Callaghan also recognised the bankruptcy of Keynesian economics:
We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step. - to say that to the Labour Party conference was a gutsy call.
I would put Callaghan in the top flight of Labour leaders post War.
Callaghan in the cabinet of 1969 , went against the the PM , Harold Wilson and Barbara Castle for the policy In Place of Strife.
: Heath presided over the Barber boom. I have him as one of the three failures.
In the case of Callaghan, don't forget that he faced an oil crisis almost as severe as the one faced by Heath - that was going to drive up inflation irrespective of any government action. (Mrs Thatcher, by contrast, had the benefit of surging North Sea oil production to balance the effects of high oil prices.) Callaghan also recognised the bankruptcy of Keynesian economics:
We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step. - to say that to the Labour Party conference was a gutsy call.
I would put Callaghan in the top flight of Labour leaders post War.
Callaghan in the cabinet of 1969 , went against the the PM , Harold Wilson and Barbara Castle for the policy In Place of Strife.
We didn't have VAT until 1973. We had a purchase tax. VAT was imposed by the EU.
I don't understand why the EU bothered to invent such a tax as VAT. It's far more work than a sales tax and there's a lot of cross-border fraud because a business in another EU country can charge 0% VAT if the buyer gives them a VAT number.
HMRC of course couldn't care less that some businesses must employ extra staff to do the VAT records. Transferring costs from tax collectors to tax payers counts as a win for the treasury, even if total costs increase. It would be good for UK PLC if such changes were banned.
From a purely economic point of view, VAT and sales/purchase taxes act as taxes on consumption. However, the economic effects of VAT are somewhat less distorting, and it is significantly harder to evade. Also, VAT effectively works by taking a small share everywhere along the economic value chain, which is a positive.
I would prefer us to move a genuine consumption tax (albeit one with a large tax free element), but I don't think that is likely on any reasonable time horizon.
Brilliant and as ever a well thought out article by David. Thank you.
If the Tory voting coalition is getting poorer, older still and less Uni educated what might be the long term (long after May and Corbyn are gone) policy implications? and vice versa for Labour?
An ageing and poorer voting block will need more spending on the NHS and Social care so Tories will seek to increase funding for these whilst cutting in work Benefits. Whilst Labour will probably seek to protect in work benefits and actually seek to increase housing benefit significantly to even those considered high earners. Whilst also looking to restrict NHS funding as they have recently.
There are many policy implications and we will see the parties change their tunes on many of them.
On a related note I wonder if the housing bubble which Lawson stoked through too low interest rates, tax cuts and MIRAS changes has had an effect on political memory.
The bursting of the Lawson bubble and the temporary interest rate rises in the last frantic days before we crashed out of the ERM (the two were not at the same time) caused two things: house price changes flattened for a few years and some unfortunate people lost their houses. This underpinned and was (IMHO) the main driver of the Conservative's loss of reputation for economic competence and consequent 1997 loss.
You are right: this has entered political memory, and arguably in three specific cases. Firstly, the little house price wrinkle. Round about 2004(?) demand softened and Brown, mindful of the upcoming election, did not raise interest rates (I know, BOE independence, yadda yadda). A minor correction then would have saved a lot of pain later, but there's Brown for you.
Secondly, the big house price crash of 2008. Withdrawal of mortgages underpinned by CDOs meant that for about a year the mortgage market contracted, and 100% mortgages almost vanished (for new customers they did vanish). House prices fell by about 20% in one year, a staggering change. Brown and Straw changed the law to make it almost impossible to evict people who couldn't pay their mortgages: from memory it even got down to halting individual court cases. The fall stemmed and in 2009 prices rose by about 10% and stabilised.
Thirdly, the Help To Buy excresence of Gideon. Between 2009 and around 2013 house prices were flattish in E&W. George Osborne introduced Help to Buy (there are various versions) and, as was predictable when you add money to a system with inelastic demand, prices started to rise again.
So yes: house prices have entered political memory, it is cross-party, and the intent is to prevent a house price crash at all costs. Life being what it is, these interventions only serve to keep them rising.
(as ever, Scotland and NI have their own house price patterns that are not covered here)
We didn't have VAT until 1973. We had a purchase tax. VAT was imposed by the EU.
I don't understand why the EU bothered to invent such a tax as VAT. It's far more work than a sales tax and there's a lot of cross-border fraud because a business in another EU country can charge 0% VAT if the buyer gives them a VAT number.
HMRC of course couldn't care less that some businesses must employ extra staff to do the VAT records. Transferring costs from tax collectors to tax payers counts as a win for the treasury, even if total costs increase. It would be good for UK PLC if such changes were banned.
From a purely economic point of view, VAT and sales/purchase taxes act as taxes on consumption. However, the economic effects of VAT are somewhat less distorting, and it is significantly harder to evade. Also, VAT effectively works by taking a small share everywhere along the economic value chain, which is a positive.
I would prefer us to move a genuine consumption tax (albeit one with a large tax free element), but I don't think that is likely on any reasonable time horizon.
"VAT effectively works by taking a small share everywhere along the economic value chain"
Does it? The consumer pays +20%. That's one large share, on the end user.
Businesses charge and reclaim VAT along the way, but that doesn't change what the consumer pays.
Fair enough. The euro would never have worked for the UK because we wouldn't accept short term (actually extensive medium term) pain for long term gain.
There was extensive pain from the ERM without any prospect of long term gain and the UK economy did very well in the years after leaving it.
Now where things started going wrong was when we began shaking the magic money tree for over £100bn per year and using it to buy a lifestyle we hadn't earned.
The long term gain is feeding through now for those that joined the euro. It's taken it's time and I agree with you it wouldn't have worked for the UK. I have moved from negative to neutral on the euro in general.
There doesn't seem to be much long term gain for southern Europe.
The Euro was probably a reasonable idea for the German economic bloc but the more it was extended the greater the internal difficulties would be.
If your economic model was based around an inflexible labour market offset by constant devaluations (Italy, Greece, Portugal and Spain), then entering into an arrangement where you could not devalue was always going to cause problems.
That being said, Spain (and to a lesser extent Portugal) have decided to change their economic models to one based around exports and a flexible labour force. They may come out the other side.
Italy and Greece, however, are trying to keep their old models and will continue to suffer horribly.
We didn't have VAT until 1973. We had a purchase tax. VAT was imposed by the EU.
I don't understand why the EU bothered to invent such a tax as VAT. It's far more work than a sales tax and there's a lot of cross-border fraud because a business in another EU country can charge 0% VAT if the buyer gives them a VAT number.
HMRC of course couldn't care less that some businesses must employ extra staff to do the VAT records. Transferring costs from tax collectors to tax payers counts as a win for the treasury, even if total costs increase. It would be good for UK PLC if such changes were banned.
From a purely economic point of view, VAT and sales/purchase taxes act as taxes on consumption. However, the economic effects of VAT are somewhat less distorting, and it is significantly harder to evade. Also, VAT effectively works by taking a small share everywhere along the economic value chain, which is a positive.
I would prefer us to move a genuine consumption tax (albeit one with a large tax free element), but I don't think that is likely on any reasonable time horizon.
"VAT effectively works by taking a small share everywhere along the economic value chain"
Does it? The consumer pays +20%. That's one large share, on the end user.
Businesses charge and reclaim VAT along the way, but that doesn't change what the consumer pays.
We would be better off with a wealth tax and less VAT
We didn't have VAT until 1973. We had a purchase tax. VAT was imposed by the EU.
I don't understand why the EU bothered to invent such a tax as VAT. It's far more work than a sales tax and there's a lot of cross-border fraud because a business in another EU country can charge 0% VAT if the buyer gives them a VAT number.
HMRC of course couldn't care less that some businesses must employ extra staff to do the VAT records. Transferring costs from tax collectors to tax payers counts as a win for the treasury, even if total costs increase. It would be good for UK PLC if such changes were banned.
From a purely economic point of view, VAT and sales/purchase taxes act as taxes on consumption. However, the economic effects of VAT are somewhat less distorting, and it is significantly harder to evade. Also, VAT effectively works by taking a small share everywhere along the economic value chain, which is a positive.
I would prefer us to move a genuine consumption tax (albeit one with a large tax free element), but I don't think that is likely on any reasonable time horizon.
"VAT effectively works by taking a small share everywhere along the economic value chain"
Does it? The consumer pays +20%. That's one large share, on the end user.
Businesses charge and reclaim VAT along the way, but that doesn't change what the consumer pays.
Ah ha, and that's where you are both right and wrong
The retailer offsets the VAT he paid on his cost of buying goods, so the burden of payment is split between his supplier and him, and in turn the suppliers to the supplier, all the way down the value chain. By breaking it down like this, it minimises the risk tax leakage.
The Wilson government started the removal of school milk.
Thus ending the suffering of many millions of pupils.
Wasn't Mrs Thatcher "the milk snatcher" in the early Seventies.
The removal of school milk was done in stages by three different governments with three different prime ministers and three different education ministers.
Thatcher was the second education minister - here are some of the details released under the 30 year rule:
May feels like a stopgap leader, like Callaghan, Brown, and arguably Heath. We await what will follow.
Was Heath the most influential Prime Minister since Atlee? Not only did he close more grammar schools than anyone else through his Ed Sec Margaret Thatcher (two threads yesterday iirc), he also took us into Europe (without a referendum btw).
If judged by the number and volume of pb threads dominated by his legacies, Edward Heath is surely the greatest Prime Minister of all time.
Heath is also the only post-war party leader to win an overall working majority from a party that also had an overall working majority. That was GE1970. No one else has achieved that.
When Heath lost in February and October 1974 to Wilson it was also on topic the last time a majority of working class voters beat a majority of middle class voters until Brexit
Much of the Remainer anger is an echo of Margo Leadbetter's bewailing of the state of Britain "since the fall of the Conservative government".
There would be much less angst over a 52/48 Brexit vote, had wealthy voters backed Leave, and poor voters backed Remain.
Comments
So really Heath achieved it while Churchill, Wilson and Cameron didn't.
I'll let others discuss the relative merits of Heath compared to Churchill, Wilson and Cameron.
The Democrats therefore win huge majorities in poor minority dominated inner city areas and the Republicans now win big majorities in white working class rural and small town areas like West Virginia and Arkansas which were once Democratic.
The suburbs though which have a more mixed racial grouping of middle class voters tend to decide elections. Just as the Republicans now have their strongest support amongst the white working class which Trump has reinforced so the Democrats can also now on occasion win educated and wealthy areas which were once staunchly Republican e.g. Hillary won Orange County in California in 2016 which has voted Republican at presidential elections for decades
Or you could reverse the equation and say Harold Wilson was the only PM of a government with a working majority which lost an election which enabled the opposition to form a government with a working majority.
Does that make Wilson the worst PM since 1945 ?
That was a rather better record than Heath's 3 general election losses and 1 win.
Three days ago, Reuters had the 'generic' candidate lead for the Democrats drop to just one point: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/docs/2018_Reuters_Tracking_-_Core_Political_05_09_2018.pdf
CNN also posted a poll showing the lead narrowing to three points: http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2018/images/05/09/rel5d.-.2018.pdf
Now, will this be enough to allow the Republicans to hold on to the West Virginia Third Congressional District? No.
But it does suggest the Republicans might hold the House.
It is posh Remainers who have been whinging the most about Brexit, not that you could ever tell from pb of course
Its widely thought that the 1960s Wilson government failed to reform the economy and trade unions which led to the problems in the 1970s.
It should be remembered though that Wilson's 1960s government was massively unpopular at the time and suffered annihilatory defeats in local elections. I wonder if it had, despite its large majority, the political capital to make economic and union reforms.
Not a bad salary for a donkey.
Eden for Suez, yes.
Brown: hmmm, difficult one. I think we probably need to allow more time to go by to make a definite judgement.
Heath: much of the 1970 Conservative manifesto holds up well. Stopping government support for failing industries, power sharing in Northern Ireland, and even privatization. But his tenure must be seen as a failure.
I think the risk to Trump is not so much Mueller going forward, but Cohen (which is a New York Attorney General investigation, and cannot be stopped by Trump).
Wilson was the architect of many - perhaps most - of the failures of Britain in the 1970s.
Anyway, I've been looking to get a more dynamic user name for ages.
50 years later - nothing much has changed. OK, now it is, Europe owes us a living. [ In fact, the EU cannot do without us ]
Making the right call on the big issues defines a prime minister. Wilson made the right call on Vietnam; Brown on the credit crunch; Blair the wrong call on Iraq; Cameron on the EU.
Abandoning Brexit would destroy public trust in the political system. And it would destroy theTory party.
Cameron at least got the finances more in order and in Iraq Blair can at least say it is now a democracy not a dictatorship
There is most disagreement amongst the bookmakers about France -- 10/1 or 20/1 -- so it might be worth value-seeking Eurovision fans having another listen to the French entry.
Not that the Conservative party would have accepted a commitment to join the single currency.
The Republicans have a shot at holding the House and Senate, however the Democrats also have a shot at giving Trump the biggest thumping of any President in their first midterms since Bill Clinton in 1994 and winning both chambers of Congress
Brexit needs to actually mean Brexit, or we will still be stuck with stupid edicts like this:
https://news.sky.com/story/british-theatres-under-threat-from-eu-plans-to-ban-lighting-11368603
Inflation was improving by ,1978 , down to 8% from a peak of 24% in 1975 .
However it started to rise again in 1979 , due in part to the near doubling of VAT.
Heath was always in favour of joining the EEC and that was part of the Conservative manifesto in the 1970 general election.
A general election which saw 330 Conservative MPs elected plus a grand total of 6, six, Liberals.
Browsers usually have an option to reveal all saved passwords, so you can probably recover it from there.
"How is this possible? How is it possible that Trump—who during the presidential campaign boasted about his supposed opposition to the Iraq War—has now embraced an outlook so similar to the one that guided Bush in 2002 and 2003?"
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/05/iraq-war-iran-deal/559844/
Similar to the idea that once the single currency had been introduced there would be overwhelming support to join it.
Its like having a trip back to the 1990s.
In the case of Callaghan, don't forget that he faced an oil crisis almost as severe as the one faced by Heath - that was going to drive up inflation irrespective of any government action. (Mrs Thatcher, by contrast, had the benefit of surging North Sea oil production to balance the effects of high oil prices.) Callaghan also recognised the bankruptcy of Keynesian economics:
We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step. - to say that to the Labour Party conference was a gutsy call.
I would put Callaghan in the top flight of Labour leaders post War.
The legacy is we now accept high VAT and low income tax as normal whereas it used to be the other way round. Now there is almost no political awareness of any tax aside from income tax. I wonder if politics would be different if shops adopted the American system of displaying prices without tax, and then added 20 per cent at the till.
Now where things started going wrong was when we began shaking the magic money tree for over £100bn per year and using it to buy a lifestyle we hadn't earned.
But to claim that "Europe was a Tory idea" is far from the mark.
: Heath presided over the Barber boom. I have him as one of the three failures.
In the case of Callaghan, don't forget that he faced an oil crisis almost as severe as the one faced by Heath - that was going to drive up inflation irrespective of any government action. (Mrs Thatcher, by contrast, had the benefit of surging North Sea oil production to balance the effects of high oil prices.) Callaghan also recognised the bankruptcy of Keynesian economics:
We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step. - to say that to the Labour Party conference was a gutsy call.
I would put Callaghan in the top flight of Labour leaders post War.
I would agree apart from :
Callaghan in the cabinet of 1969 , went against the the PM , Harold Wilson and Barbara Castle for the policy In Place of Strife.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Place_of_Strife
A major detriment against him in my opinion.
Wilson has outstanding achievements namely The Open University and not joining the USA in Vietnam , saving a generation of young British men.
I'm surprised nobody has claimed its part of the worldwide Jewish conspiracy.
On a related note I wonder if the housing bubble which Lawson stoked through too low interest rates, tax cuts and MIRAS changes has had an effect on political memory.
In that rising house prices became one of the images associated with the Thatcher government. So that it became 'natural' for Cameron and Osborne to view higher house prices as a 'good thing' even though the concurrent falls in home ownership were doing long term damage to the Conservatives.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Place_of_Strife
A major detriment against him in my opinion.
Wilson has outstanding achievements namely The Open University and not joining the USA in Vietnam , saving a generation of young British men.
Excellent points. However, I am only look at actions while Prime Minister, and I don't think Wilson's minor successss outweigh his failures.
This article provides a comparative analysis of the opening sessions of Prime Minister's Questions (PMQs) for the last five Prime Ministers in order to test a general perception that PMQs has become increasingly a focal point for shallow political point scoring rather than serious prime ministerial scrutiny. Our data appear to confirm that PMQs has become both rowdier and increasingly dominated by the main party leaders. It also indicates that Prime Ministers are increasingly expected to be able to respond to a wider range of questions, female MPs are as likely to ask helpful questions but less likely to ask unanswerable questions than male counterparts, and MPs are less likely to ask helpful questions and more likely to ask unanswerable questions the longer their parliamentary tenure. More surprisingly perhaps, our findings also suggest that, at the beginning of their premierships at least, Thatcher and Brown appear the most accomplished in terms of the fullness of their answers, and Blair and Cameron the least accomplished.
https://academic.oup.com/pa/article-abstract/67/2/253/1474258
I don't buy the idea at all that she sees it as her duty to deliver Brexit. She's far too cynical for that.
"Why do mirrors flip horizontally (but not vertically)?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBpxhfBlVLU
I don't understand why the EU bothered to invent such a tax as VAT. It's far more work than a sales tax and there's a lot of cross-border fraud because a business in another EU country can charge 0% VAT if the buyer gives them a VAT number.
HMRC of course couldn't care less that some businesses must employ extra staff to do the VAT records. Transferring costs from tax collectors to tax payers counts as a win for the treasury, even if total costs increase. It would be good for UK PLC if such changes were banned.
The Euro was probably a reasonable idea for the German economic bloc but the more it was extended the greater the internal difficulties would be.
The Wilson government started the removal of school milk.
Thus ending the suffering of many millions of pupils.
http://enormo-haddock.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/spain-pre-qualifying-2018.html
Backed Bottas for pole at 3.9, hedged at 1.5. There was a hundredth between his second fastest time and Hamilton's fastest in third practice.
Thus ending the suffering of many millions of pupils.
Wasn't Mrs Thatcher "the milk snatcher" in the early Seventies.
Good afternoon, everybody.
I would prefer us to move a genuine consumption tax (albeit one with a large tax free element), but I don't think that is likely on any reasonable time horizon.
If the Tory voting coalition is getting poorer, older still and less Uni educated what might be the long term (long after May and Corbyn are gone) policy implications? and vice versa for Labour?
An ageing and poorer voting block will need more spending on the NHS and Social care so Tories will seek to increase funding for these whilst cutting in work Benefits. Whilst Labour will probably seek to protect in work benefits and actually seek to increase housing benefit significantly to even those considered high earners. Whilst also looking to restrict NHS funding as they have recently.
There are many policy implications and we will see the parties change their tunes on many of them.
Your left arm in reality is near your left arm in the mirror. Your head in reality is near your head on the mirror. Repeat ad nauseum.
Lovely.
You are right: this has entered political memory, and arguably in three specific cases. Firstly, the little house price wrinkle. Round about 2004(?) demand softened and Brown, mindful of the upcoming election, did not raise interest rates (I know, BOE independence, yadda yadda). A minor correction then would have saved a lot of pain later, but there's Brown for you.
Secondly, the big house price crash of 2008. Withdrawal of mortgages underpinned by CDOs meant that for about a year the mortgage market contracted, and 100% mortgages almost vanished (for new customers they did vanish). House prices fell by about 20% in one year, a staggering change. Brown and Straw changed the law to make it almost impossible to evict people who couldn't pay their mortgages: from memory it even got down to halting individual court cases. The fall stemmed and in 2009 prices rose by about 10% and stabilised.
Thirdly, the Help To Buy excresence of Gideon. Between 2009 and around 2013 house prices were flattish in E&W. George Osborne introduced Help to Buy (there are various versions) and, as was predictable when you add money to a system with inelastic demand, prices started to rise again.
So yes: house prices have entered political memory, it is cross-party, and the intent is to prevent a house price crash at all costs. Life being what it is, these interventions only serve to keep them rising.
(as ever, Scotland and NI have their own house price patterns that are not covered here)
"VAT effectively works by taking a small share everywhere along the economic value chain"
Does it? The consumer pays +20%. That's one large share, on the end user.
Businesses charge and reclaim VAT along the way, but that doesn't change what the consumer pays.
That being said, Spain (and to a lesser extent Portugal) have decided to change their economic models to one based around exports and a flexible labour force. They may come out the other side.
Italy and Greece, however, are trying to keep their old models and will continue to suffer horribly.
(I think he made a good case for brambles being slow-motion carnivores, btw)
The retailer offsets the VAT he paid on his cost of buying goods, so the burden of payment is split between his supplier and him, and in turn the suppliers to the supplier, all the way down the value chain. By breaking it down like this, it minimises the risk tax leakage.
Thatcher was the second education minister - here are some of the details released under the 30 year rule:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/uk/2000/uk_confidential/1095121.stm