47. David Cameron
(2010-16)
Here we go, the man who said on TV that he wanted to be Prime Minister because he “thought he’d be good at it”.
Spoiler alert, he was not.
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The mans reputation was formed and destroyed by an addiction to referendums. He held a referendum on changing the voting system, having agreed it with Nick Clegg, only to skewer the Lib Dems by campaigning against it. He decided to hold a referendum on the Falkland Islands, which overwhelmingly voted to stay British. Having a taste for referendum rather than, you know, leading, Cameron agreed to hold a Scottish independence referendum. He then helped bugger up the Remain side by getting rid of the “third option”, the so called devo-max route, which led to a sudden upshot for independence. Scottish independence was defeated (for now) by a far narrower result than had been assumed a year prior, and most would have accepted they got away with a risk. David Cameron announced his plans for English Votes for English Laws, and decided he’d run yet another referendum, this time on membership of the EU. He ran this fourth referendum with the laissez-faire attitude that bequeaths an unshakeable faith in the status quo, and the result was Brexit. The man who played with fire, as an easy get out of jail from taking hard decisions, found himself burned.
Yet, this was just the final Act in the story Cameron himself set up. By using his veto solely to look good to a then small group of backbenchers, he set up the chain of events which would give the anti-EU side such a magnified voice, and also the belligerence shown towards European allies became a millstone for the country once he lost his bloody referendum. That he also blocked any forward planning for what the government might do if the Leave side won shows both that unshakeable faith, and also his complete lack of competence at the basic tasks of governance.
And he also played his part in the economic turmoil since. It was he who deregulated extensively. It was he who produced the fire sale of government assets well below their value. It was he who ended the National Care Service, an idea we desperately need in a post-covid landscape, because the idea of continuing anything Gordon Brown had backed was anathema to him. He let idealism, petty feuds and an inherent laziness rule the day, and all of our countries many issues stem back from his inept leadership.
Under David Cameron, we also saw mass spending cuts, cuts to services to the bare bones which meant they have struggled to exist in the pandemic era, cuts to welfare, deep sea mining, the Academy school debacle, the abolition of the General Teaching Council, and the Back to Work scheme, which had the result of providing more red tape in the way of people trying to get back into work!
During his tenure, he also pushed (with opposition support), the legalisation of gay marriage, the crackdown on human trafficking, and recall petitions. Devolved mayoral elections and resignation from the House of Lords became parts of the British political life. These are all positive achievements. They are also, alas, outweighed significantly by his failings elsewhere.
46. Earl of Bute
(1762-63)
The first Scottish and the first Tory Prime Minister. Bute negotiated the Treaty of Paris which ended the Seven Years War, but he is far better known today, if at all, for being the Prime Minister who was satirised so savagely by John Wilkes that he tried to have the writer jailed for libel. This proved, in the end, unsuccessful, and Wilkes remained one of the foremost progressives of his day. Outside of this, Bute as Prime Minister brought in the cider tax, and taxed the American colonists for the expenses of the British Army who were stationed in the colonies!
“Painful indeed to me beyond discription (sic), wherein I saw manifestly all the symptoms of a mind extreamly (sic) agitated, turning every incident in the blackest light and viewing with an eye of despondency every part of your intended situation. 'Tis now a late hour and yet I can't go to bed 'till I have discharged the debt of friendship that I owe you. Never man had more occasion for an affectionate friend than you at this present minute; to be silent, nay to hide a single thought from you, would in this crisis be downright perfidy. If my expressions hurt, remember the salutary end that I've in view and that in dangerous disorders sharp medicines are sometimes necessary to stop a growing malady and to perfect the more thorough cure.”
Earl of Bute, letter to George Grenville, 13 Oct 1761, A Lost Letter of John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute to George Grenville, 13 October 1761, KW Schweizer and John Stuart, The Historical Journal, Vol 17, No 2 (June 1974), pp 435-442
45. Margaret Thatcher
(1979-90)
How do you even fairly assess someone whose entire philosophy was the opposite of your own? At the outset, let me just state that Thatcher achieved one of the largest positive scores for a single achievement on this list, and also the second worst - after Lord Liverpool - for another. They almost cancelled each other out.
First, the negative. The cuts to education and housing. The whole concept of there being no such thing as society. The Poll Tax. The handling of the miners strike. The opposition to trade unionism in general. The ideology around privatisation, and the privatisation of everything under the sun. The reduced restrictions on the Stock Exchange. Her hardliner attitude to all things Ireland: she told Liam Cosgrave that if a minority have issue with how they are treated then that was just too bad for them. She also stated that the views of the Irish were as worthy as those of the Sudetenland. She supplied funding to the mujahidin, weaponry to Saddam Hussein, and backed the Khmer Rouge and Pinochet. She also broke up Thames TV, over an apparent slight.
Worst of all, she championed Section 28, one of the most harmful bits of legislation in the last forty years.
“Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay.”
Margaret Thatcher, 1987 Conference Speech
Section 28 prohibited the “promotion” of LGBT attitudes in local government and schools. What it did was to ban any discussion of homosexuality in schools throughout the late 80s and the 1990s, causing harm to countless thousands of vulnerable children in the name of family values. When I was 13 years old, I had more education on LGBT issues from The Simpsons than from school. But then given Thatcher was also hesitant on the AIDS advice, it was clear her views on homosexuality were prejudiced.
Right, now, what positives lifted her out of the bottom five after all that?
The Falklands War exists in its own neutral space. Yes, the British won that, and it gained her immense popularity. But we also wound up in it due to her defence cuts in the first place!
More positive was the Lancaster House Agreement, the difficult process by which Zimbabwe became an independent nation, free from Ian Smith, with extensive work by the then Foreign Secretary, Lord Carrington. That Robert Mugabe would later become the sort of despot he might have despised once is neither here nor there to the overall need for an anti-colonial peace in the region. Her friendship with Ronald Reagan, and her early recognition of a potential ally in Mikhail Gorbachev, helped her push for friendlier relations with the Soviet leader at a crucial time. Under Thatcher, we also sought to preserve the bee population, and cracked down on crossbow ownership.
Her greatest achievement, by far, however, was in her strong advocacy for the Montreal Protocol, including getting the Americans, and thus America’s allies, to sign up to it. The deal looked to cope with the hole in the O-zone layer by banning O-zone harmful chemicals. The world leaders, pushed by Thatcher, signed up to it. The O-zone layer is now on the verge of healing. This is still the most successful global climate action deal in history. On the back of this, Thatcher’s government also brought in the Environmental Protection Act, which aimed to reduce pollution throughout the country by controlling the disposal of waste, and even criminalised littering! This law, in 1990, was the last in several environmental laws Thatcher passed in her time, and it was clear that her grounding as a scientist made her a powerful ally in the early climate change battles of the 1980s.
“We shall put greater emphasis on environmental needs in allocating our aid programme, British Prime minister Margaret Thatcher said. “Clearly it would be intolerable for the countries which have already industrialised, and have caused the greater part of the problems we face, to expect others to pay the price in terms of their well-being.’ She announced that Britain would give £3 million in aid to UNEP, double the sum previously promised. Many present noted that the UK, which opposed stringent controls until 1987, had become a proponent of stringent regulations. Rumour had it that Thatcher took the scientific briefing on the ozone to her home one weekend as a sceptic, and returned on Monday fully convinced of the threat.”
Andersen, Stephen O.., Sarma, K. Madhava. Protecting the Ozone Layer: The United Nations History. Iran: Taylor & Francis Group, 2012.
It’s a shame her grounding as a scientist didn’t help her accept the evidence elsewhere, against her own inbuilt prejudices…
44. George Grenville
(1763-65)
Another Prime Minister who spent his time prosecuting John Wilkes. He was the man who passed the American Stamp Act. A strong advocate of gunboat diplomacy, he also helped pissed off all our natural allies, just before the US War of Independence kicked off.
“On three issues in dispute, Grenville brooked no compromise. The first, Parliament's right to levy taxes in America, was nearest his heart, and he addressed it with a passion that derived from his responsibility for the Stamp Act of 1765. In his opinion, this legislation provided an essential basis for ordering Anglo-American relations. It set British and colonial taxpayers on a similar footing and established the principle that America should contribute directly to the cost of its own defense.”
Philip Lawson, George Grenville and America: The Years of Opposition, 1765 to 1770, The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol 37, No 4 (Oct 1980), pp 562-576
43. Spencer Perceval
(1809-12)
You all know who he is. He’s the only Prime Minister to ever get assassinated, shot dead in the Houses of Parliament at that. During his tenure he struggled with the Kings ill health, and finally pushed regency on the ailing monarch. He struggled with the early Industrial revolution, and the protests of the luddites. He also struggled with political opposition, and dealt with that by sending one of his more radical opponents to the Tower of London!
“As Perceval entered the lobby, a number of people were gathered around. No one noticed as the quiet man stood up from his place beside the fireplace and removed the concealed pistol from his inner pocket. Neither did they notice as he walked calmly towards the Prime Minister. When he was close enough, he fired his pistol directly at Mr Perceval’s chest. There was a moment of shocked silence around the lobby in response to the bright flash, the intense sound and the odour of gun powder. The Prime Minister staggered forward before falling to the ground, calling out as he did: “I am murdered.”
Hanrahan, David C. The Assassination of the Prime Minister: John Bellingham and the Murder of Spencer Perceval. United Kingdom: History Press, 2011.
Fun fact, 185 years after this, the Percival (sic) family had revenge, when Tory MP Henry Bellingham (a descendant of the assassin) lost his seat in the 1997 General Election to Labour, as a direct result of the votes for the Referendum Party candidate, a descendant of Spencer Perceval!
Here he is, the man Iain Dale considered our worst Prime Minister. As a rather prime example of a useless non-entity, I had him placed above those I felt were damaging to the country, but here and no further. Goderich was given the post, solely so it would avoid going to the Duke of Wellington. He alienated everyone in the Cabinet as a result, and got nothing done.
The Duke of Wellington will not be showing up for a while yet…
He lead Britain into the Crimean War.
40. Andrew Bonar Law
(1922-23)
The unknown Prime Minister, who lasted barely 8 months before resigning due to terminal cancer. He was elected as he was known for his strong opposition to any negotiation with the IRA. He sent Stanley Baldwin to talk the Inter-Allied war debts with America, and because he was Stanley Baldwin, he buggered up the entire thing with his innate conservativism, like he did with most things he ever touched in his life. The Anglo-Irish War ended during Bonar Law’s leadership, because negotiations were achieved while Bonar Law was too ill to put a stop to them. The man himself was a block to peace when he was well. Then he got cancer. Overall, I’m not sensing some great lost leader here.
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