Attlee 100% how he never got the full 15 years in charge just proves he was such a danger to the establishment. All the newspapers were against him. Even after creating the NHS creating social housing amongst other great policies which helped the great british public enormously. He increased the standard of living. That's what you should strive and be recognised for
I agree on his place, however he was no massive threat to the establishment, a key member of the wartime coalition, Deputy Prime Minister who had to cover during Churchill on trips aboard, or more quietly during his illnesses. He since also after the US breaking of wartime agreements, authorized the development of a UK atomic bomb and led also via his Foreign Secretary, led the effort to persuade the US to do something new in their history, agree to a binding security treaty - NATO. Dimwits like Corbyn think it was forced by the US. Domestically the post war consensus they established lasted for over 30 years, which does not looks like a huge threat. What undermined it was the effect of economic events, starting with the US withdrawal from Bretton Woods, then worse the 1973 oil crisis. There were many in business and some in the Conservative Party who had never reconciled with the post war settlement, now they had their chance. Though the rise in strikes and militancy were seen as the drivers for this, or the public face, I wonder if another thing was also a factor, in 1976 social mobility peaked in the UK.
It does, and it should. He knew what he was risking when he took us into Iraq. He fully understood it would define his legacy. It is a shame, because without Iraq he could have been a helpful voice in politics, a wise older statesman.
Up until Iraq he had got it right on foreign policy. Even though Afghanistan failed long term. After 9/11 direct intervention was always going to occur. Unfortunately Iraq shits over everything.
Well said. Blair seemed to believe that he was divinely ordained to spread his particular version of liberal democracy (a neo-imperalist notion). New Labour had several policy successes, but not in Iraq.
You should do a special episode where you compare and contrast your own complete rankings of the best and worst prime ministers. I'd happily sit and watch for hours.
Windrush wasn't even the worst of her failures. Single-handedly she destroyed British policing, by politicising the oversight, introducing direct entry as a tool to quickly assimilate operational control, and directly interfering in operational matters. The corporate memory has been eviscerated as a direct consequence of her ill informed actions. The blame for the current abject levels of service delivery are directly attributable to her.
Not to mention the decade of austerity headed by her party. Forces are under funded, under equipped, and understaffed. It pains me that this is often overlooked in debate over her record in office.
@@DarkFire515 took the words out my mouth, it was a blatant political point scoring exercise against policing which damages the institution regardless of party. If you want policing reform that is the governments place but if the police have to be focused on how senior ministers or the prime minister are going to politicise their actions they will always fail to deliver adequate service. A massive stain on her record.
Theresa May is the worst PM since Lord North. As well as making a hash of the Brexit negotiations, she wrote net zero into law, enshrined the Modern Slavery Act (making it impossible to deport many illegal immigrants) and committed the UK to spending a fixed amount of GDP on international aid. I tried to think of a single positive thing she achieved in her premiership. All I can think of is her giving Geoffrey Boycott a knighthood.
Let’s not forget Macmillan inherited prosperity and left the country in decay. I had to laugh at the list of technology that were commonplace in 1964, but weren’t in 1951. If that’s the standard, the internet, widescreen TVs and iPhones weren’t commonplace in 1997, but were in 2007. So kudos to Blair on those, I guess.
McMillan has a lot of back story in regard to the old poor law around the time of the First World War. Churchill and McMillan were really old buffers at the end of the 1950s.
Rory isn’t affected by any of the government’s policies, he’s sorted financially so he’s free to judge people like May based on his friendship with her
I think when judging May’s legacy, you have to remember that she passed up the opportunity to fire Boris for hurting the UK abroad with that poem. She could have sacked him for a definite bad thing, clear and explainable, which had hurt the UK abroad. You have to consider that everything Boris did, she caused, and everyone with any sense would have seen the possibility he might cause that sort of problems if allowed to continue.
I have to agree with them over Johnson (disastrously incompetent) and Truss (dangerously incompetent) as the worst two PMs. I think Truss could have won hands down had she been allowed any more time. However, it amazes me that both still have their passionate advocates.
You two are a total joy to watch you have differing views but are always respectful. Yeah I can tell Rory is very much on the left wing of the conservative voter so maybe the political void between you both isn’t as large as it can be in general politics but I enjoy watching each and every video you release. I’d have loved to see you on your tour but at £75 a ticket it was a little pricey for me. Keep up the good work.
She did say one thing that i agree with in 2004 at the conservative party conference she called the conservative party the Nasty Party nothing has changed except for Rory and a few others in conservative party.. Her miss judgment was appointment of BJ as foreign secretary and Frost...
IMO Theresa May prioritized her party over the wellbeing of the nation as a whole. She seemed ONLY to care about preventing the Tory Party from splitting into 2 or more factions. She REFUSED to co-operate with opposition parties over brexit and instead facilitated the hard right within her own party to go for a hard Brexit. She seemed MORE than happy for the UK to leave not only the EU but the Single Market and the Customs' Union as well. Moreover, she PROTECTED those responsible for the Grenfell Tower disaster. I am honestly BAFFLED by Rory's defence of her clearly piss-poor record.
There's one huge irony about the criticism of Theresa May's handling of Brexit - Had Alistair & comrades within Labour and the people's vote accepted the result, but campaigned for a softer Brexit; then we'd probably never have ended up with Boris, and a far closer relationship with the EU. Likewise, if they'd campaigned more publicly the result might have been different - something he appeared to concede in interviews UKICE: You had a role advising the Britain Stronger In Europe campaign. What was your role? AC: To be absolutely honest, I feel a little bit guilty about this, because I did not do that much. I think, like a lot of people, I felt it was not going to be lost. So, I went into their campaign HQ a few times, but I was not involved day to day. I thought Alan Johnson, who I really like and who I really get on with, suffered the whole time with what (Jeremy) Corbyn and acolytes were up to. Alan was leading the Labour side of the campaign, but without really having the backing of the actual Labour leadership. Because you did not have Labour organising campaigning from the top and because Corbyn was so indifferent to the whole thing, that also sent a message to a lot of the trade unions, who I think could have done a lot more. They could have been much more active in terms of getting direct messaging to their members, and spelling out the true cost of what was going to happen. ukandeu.ac.uk/brexit-witness-archive/alastair-campbell/
Disagreeing is not to shout at eachother. Disagreeing is listening and maybe come away with some understanding. The overalt process and outcome is better for that discussion. That is why polarisation is so damaging. Keep up the good work.
You have to call out the fash, my grandad fought for 6 years, was staunch for Churchill and now they cuddled up to the extremists for short term advantage with the results that are plain to see.
Asked who was the best Labour Prime Minister the UK never got, Atlee said MacMillan. During the 1930s MacMillan was in conversation with Labour about crossing the floor.
Most countries in Europe do have NI, the difference is that its ringfenced and you get a statement of exactly what percentage is for healthcare, pension fund, unemployment benefits etc.
- Best PM? Tony's not far behind Attlee, I mean Northern Ireland alone... - Iraq war.... - I get that but still... - Afghanistan, Privatization of NHS, Thatcher-lite - Okay, that's enough. - ASBOs, Chilcot, Racist remarks, financial crisis. - I worked for him, Okay? What am I supposed to say, Rory?!!
Dignity is no good if you are useless. To my mind she was rigid minded and stuck to poor judgements in spite of plenty of evidence proving her judgements were poor. She refused to listen and refused to take notice of evidence of what was happening on the ground and where her policies were not working or making things worse and that was before she was PM (as Secretary of State) as well as after.
Keir Starmer might arguably be the most effective LOTO since the war. Most by-election wins, shifting government policy, now on course for a supermajority.
In my lifetime I’d say John Smith. Can’t go Starmer, he doesn’t have anything like the natural groundswell of support that either Smith or Blair had - he has done an exceptional job of allowing the Tory party to stab themselves in the back though - but the performance remains far more about disgust with the Tory party than support for Labour in my opinion.
It's difficult as i know Rory has great admiration for May, but we have to remember this was the lady that hated immigrants. As home secretary, she used to write in the margins of bills that they were too soft on migrants and the wording should be beefed up to make life worse for them. The vans that circled parts of the country telling migrants to go home, that was her. I remember when Ann Soubry defected to change, she said that Theresa May's extreme hatred of immigrants has scared her away. Ann mentioned that she had gone to speak to the PM and she was in the middle of a Xenophobic rant, a day before she defected.. I know we have had worse since then, but she really wasn't great. If she truelly regrets what she did, thats awesome, we don't need another doubling down Liz truss.
The Road Fund Licence (Car Tax) was introduced decades ago when motorised transport expanded, in order to raise money for the needed road upgrades, bridges and motorways, but it has since become a way for a government just to raise money by another form of tax.. I remember when John Major was Chancellor, he stated that money raised by the Car Tax isn't necessarily spent just on road infrastructure (if at all) - the Car Tax is just put into the pot with all the other taxes raised - Income Tax, VAT, Excise Duty, Corporation Tax, etc, etc..... and spent how the government of the day wants...
@@schusterlehrling lol that's true! I had expected some justification for Harold being under-rated though. I seriously doubt involvement in Vietnam was ever on the cards as the French were already defeated and the Suez debacle made foreign adventures unappealing.
I admire Rory, but his glib and easy acceptance and trivialising of the hostile environment and Windrush is really unsettling. Shows that deep he is very privileged and doesn't really get how it feels to be on the wrong end of policies like those.
It is the problem of being mates with them all. I take notice now every time Rory's decisions about someone are prefaced by either some story together or how they were friends. Alistair is very party political but Rory is the classic rich mates club type.
Regarding Mrs May and her getting hard on immigrants…. For my sins I was in a Home Office meeting when we were told to use any means to stop issuing Passports to first time applicants on her orders. I had to stand up and tell the person delivering these orders that we were public civil servants, that we worked according to law, not to any Ministers political whim and the request to break that was disgraceful and illegal and I, for one, would have no part in it and neither should anyone else…. very abruptly the meeting ended and I was warmly congratulated on my way out of the room. Never the less I lived in fear of getting punished afterwards! Fortunately nothing came of it; but I can’t regard anything you might say warmly of her bearing in mind my experience.
The reason you guys agree on a whole lot of things (but not everything), is that you are both sensible, respectful, and know what you are talking about!
Murderers often regret their actions, doesn't wipe away their actions. Windrush victims with cancer having treatment refused and made homeless... There are hundreds of MPs with dignity who have not/would not bring in horrendous policies.
Rory seems to want attribute the achievements of McMillan as being from 1951 to 1963 which is a stretch. McMillan was not PM until '57, that very successful house building programme had been the creation of Attlee's tenure, and, oops, oh yes, in the meantime, we had the shocking Eden era.
I think the reason may is seen as a reasonable person is partly because she has done some good work since being PM from the back benches , but also because compared to her three successors she stands head and shoulders above them for being statesman like and that may be due to them being appallingly terrible . Regarding Brexit I think she took the view that the electorate had decided and she had to honour that decision and perhaps she also did a 'Cameron ' by trying to put the divisions on Europe in the Tory Party to bed and ultimately making them much worse and allowing the pro Brexit hardliners to grow in strength .
Poor Rory! 😂 Speaking as someone who likes a hypothetical, I can appreciate that asking whether Rory would have done the honourable thing if he'd been in a situation brought about by an act that would have been, he says, too dishonourable to have been taken in the first place IS sort of unanswerable in any useful way. That is, I suspect that Rory means that a Rory who'd got into that position would be a different person from the one trying to respond to the question on his own behalf. Obviously, he could still have done more to opine on what the right thing to do would have been for a person generally. He could also have reflected on when he feels it's right for someone to resign, etc.. On the topic itself, more generally, I wonder if there's a strong enough convention that the department pays for its political head's balls-ups that any fine would be chosen with that in mind. The publicity around her statement was compounded by the department being fined, increasing the political damage to the individual and the regime backing them. That IS a kind of punishment. I'll let others debate whether the magnitude was sufficient. I suppose that making somebody more politically toxic than before can even have direct consequences of greater magnitude insofar as they're made less likely to get roles in government, aside from being an MP.
Corelli Barnett's book "The Lost Victory" documents the economic disasters of Attlee's government. The country went bankrupt in 1947 and all that nationalization sent the country on the wrong path. Attlee was almost a communist. Both parties were in favour of creating the NHS in 1945. Picking MacMillan illustrates that Rory was always in the wrong party. MacMillan was a Butskellite/social democrat and it was about managed decline. MacMillan met Eisenhower before Suez and didn't tell him what was being planned, Eden thought he had. MacMillan was ruthless and sneaky.
Germany is an interesting comparison when it comes to Whips. German MPs have their right to use their vote according to their own judgement written into the constitution; which provides a nice counterbalance to the power of the whips.
I disagree that the principled position on NI is merge rather than abolish. I think the principled position is to ring fence it again, and do the same with Road Tax. I'd MUCH rather pay directly for the things everyone *needs* and know that those things will be provided, than have it all hidden in general taxation and politicians be able to spaff it all up the wall on their mates. Granularity is transparency - and *that* is why I think the conservatives favour getting rid of it. And perhaps that's an unfair characterisation of the conservative party - but after the last 10 years especially I'd kind of like to hear how.
Absolutely, I also believe we should have a system they have in Australia here, in which they send a letter every year to everyone showing how much tax they paid and they break down where their money was spent.
Ring fencing doesn't work. If you have a surplus you can't use it. If you have too little you can't get the money from elsewhere. That has always been the problem. Government revenues are NEVER predictable, nor are the precise amounts that will be needed for services like health.
My impression of May and Brexit is that at every crunch point she put Party before Country and refused to take on the hard line Brexiteers because it would split the party
IN regards to splitting out NI from Income Tax, Rory said very few places do that. I'd argue that Australia do it through the Medicare Levy. I think more transparency about it'#s use and putting it where it belongs would be better. I have no issue with paying NI if it is going towards Penions and the NHS. If it is just going to the general pool then that is misappropriation of funds and a far bigger issue.
Not sure why “she regrets doing that” is an argument in defence of May on the Go Home vans. It’s not like hindsight is required to understand how horrific that was. Equally, I find it extraordinary to hear people trying pretend May made real efforts towards a soft Brexit. Her choice of personnel in the key positions and her actions, from “Brexit means Brexit” to the insane triggering of Article 50 before any plan was in place forced us down the hard Brexit route. Similarly, Windrush wasn’t forced on her, it was a deliberate choice and the appalling consequences were entirely foreseeable. I’ve only ever once been convinced by May expressing sadness, and that was when she cried at being kicked out. I’ve never seen any evidence that she can feel or show compassion for others.
Alistair's comparison btw the stage of public debate on colonial legacy in UK and FR is off - Public debate is raging rn in Fr, sure, but that's because it's only just been initiated. UK is couple stages down the line. I know the landscape well as lived lifelong in both.
I am a big fan of Rory.i have been a labour voter all my life. But would have voted for Rory if he had lead the Tories. Me and my wife run a foodbank which is basically an attempt to realise something of the Big Society. Please come back to me if you are interested. We have handed out about £20millin of food and baby supplies. And nearly all our funding is self generated.
Sweden has been neutral since 1814. So 1814-2024. We have always been anti-Russian through. When Putin tried to forbid Sweden and Finland who we can co-operate with with a taint of "or else" it was a given we had to do something. Finland is very key to Swedes. We do have a special bond to all Scandinavian countries but Sweden-Finland are the two twin siblings or closest siblings in age of the family for Swedes (Etsonia being the newest/youngest sibling with Latvia next). As we have always been anti Russian and co-operated militarily with the US after WW2 (in reality behind closed doors) it is now a more honest position.
I find your description to be like the classic historiography that every Swede can recite by heart, but in my opinion is quite different. I agree with you to the extent that as you write "in reality behind closed doors" but choose to go considerably further and that everyone in decision-making positions knew about it because it happened in practice completely openly and because the Americans acted without any restrictions, which indicated that the officers in the military leadership wanted to be caught in order to then force the politicians on a decision to join NATO already then, which the ruling party Social Democrats understood and as a result constantly ran between the Prime Minister's Office and the Embassy of the Soviet Union to dampen the reactions and blame the right-wing parties for infiltration among the officers without showing a response for the public. This created anger among those in power in Finland at the time who felt that they exposed the immediate area to unnecessary risks, which is glaring today when the two defense commands are very close to each other thanks to the former Minister of Defense Peter Hultqvist as one of the 70,000 Finnish war children who fled to Sweden for protection during the Winter War.
People died, human beings were treated worse than animals, her hostile environment was deliberately designed to traumatise a specific group of people because she's evil. She is devoid of any shred of moral fibre.
@pmmagro I find your description to be like the classic historiography that every Swede can recite by heart, but in my opinion is quite different. I agree with you to the extent that as you write "in reality behind closed doors" but choose to go considerably further and that everyone in decision-making positions knew about it because it happened in practice completely openly and because the Americans acted without any restrictions, which indicated that the officers in the military leadership wanted to be caught in order to then force the politicians on a decision to join NATO already then, which the ruling party Social Democrats understood and as a result constantly ran between the Prime Minister's Office and the Embassy of the Soviet Union to dampen the reactions and blame the right-wing parties for infiltration among the officers without showing a response for the public. This created anger among those in power in Finland at the time who felt that they exposed the immediate area to unnecessary risks, which is glaring today when the two defense commands are very close to each other thanks to the former Minister of Defense Peter Hultqvist as one of the 70,000 Finnish war children who fled to Sweden for protection during the Winter War.
Keep disagreeing respectfully please, most of my news comes from the left, A Different Bias, Truth to Power and such and I do need balance but Rory is the only Tory I will listen to, admittedly before this particular crop there were decent people amongst the Tories and on the Government benches, Rudd for instance but this lot just make me angry so keep going as you are.
boris johnson as one of the worst is total recency bias, although i agree for liz truss, the other one would probably be callaghan or blair for easily the worst foreign policy in british history
Clement Attlee was not the best PM because even without Attlee much of what Labour did would have happened anyway. I would say Thatcher was clearly the best PM (whatever you think of her policies) because she absolutely dominated as PM and won three elections, and changed a whole bunch of things often through the force of her personality. Not to say everything was down to Maggie but she certainly had a big impact. Attlee was a good chairman of the board but I don't think he was a leader like Thatcher. Best govt and best PM are not the same!
"As a 'Citizen of Nowhere,' her words not mine, Theresa May couldn't hold a candle to Clement Atlee. She was the Prime Minister of Nothing. Harsh? Well, not as harsh as being a Windrush victim or being an immigrant and seeing those vans driving around, something Lee Anderson would be proud of. But the blame for the hard Brexit does equally lie with people like Corbyn and Starmer for not seeing what failure to help her would bring down on the country.
Sunak has attempted to do populism, when he gave that conference on the Rwanda bill and said the lords would be blocking “the will of the people”, a PM with no mandate and their 2019 manifesto made no mention of Rwanda, it was a pathetic attempt at being a populist.
But I am a citizen of nowhere, I belong to nowhere except with the people I love and those people live on Sesame Street. Do you know what it is like to be from nowhere?
TM lied to my MP about having further opportunities to vote down brexit proposals in order to get her to support on bills for brexit. "Meaningful votes" and all that. An important, but not yet learned, lesson for MPs of all flavours not to grant PM access to the accelerator and steering unless you've got guaranteed control of the brakes.
Let the truth be told: Mr Campbell's knowledge of global affairs beyond Europe and, to a lesser extent, North America (he has zero knowledge of the political affairs of Mexico), is quite abysmal and it's an insult that people are being lured into his pretensions and intellectual hustling.
Shouldn’t Britain have kept a closer relationship with its former colonies (like France with, say, New Caledonia)? Brits could now be retiring to Turks and Caicos and BVI instead of Malaga and Benidorm.
I would have to say. As an American. 1 yankees murders row then 2 cardinals with dizzy Dean and 3 the astros in 2015. But I may have gotten the question wrong. I thought you wanted our favorite cheaters
It annoys me when people cannot see the difference between having a reasonable debate, conversation verses seeking an argument who would want that!! Great podcast both get views across clear do not agree on everything and as adults able to say that 🙄
