Never change, Guardian
Ok, whilst we are here, I want to present a point of view and happy to discuss it.
David Cameron. Worst PM ever…
And yes I know, there is some stiff competition in that lineup but, he’s the worst.
In a line-up including Liz Truss he is only just about able to squeeze into the top three of any “Worst ? Ever” list.
There’s an argument to be made that without David Cameron’s decision to sacrifice the country’s relationship with Europe and appeal to UKIP with the Brexit referendum we wouldn’t have had May, Brexit, Boris, Truss or Sunak. To be honest I think we would have had Boris anyway but we maybe wouldn’t have had such a lurch to the far right as we’ve had.
Having said that, I think the shift to the right was already underway, a Boris follow-up was pretty inevitable with how skilled he is at fooling people with charisma (that somehow made everyone forget or forgive his leaked conversation to have a journalist assaulted). His legacy will always be his completely inadequate and corrupt handling of COVID. The one good thing I’ll say about him especially compared to Sunak is that he does seem to genuinely care about the environment and did enact some positive environment policy.
I think any Tory leader would’ve been forced to do the same as Cameron did in that political climate. I know he made the actual decision to have a referendum which was arguably the worst decision in the recent history of our country, but I think with the impact UKIP was having at the time, it was relatively inevitable.
Similar to how the SNP making such huge gain is what forced a Scottish independence referendum.
Edit: I also dread to think about the ‘what if?’ would be like if we didn’t have Covid to kind of push Bojo out.
Absolutely agreed. I think the ability of the person, their morals and their impact are important but long term consequences have to play a major role.
Trusses’ impacts were immediate and large but have mostly receded. She wasn’t around long enough to do any real damage and she’s still out there garnering support from the same crazy fuckheads in the first place so no real changes there. They’ll just put up someone else instead.
Johnson was by far the worst individual but the damage was relatively small because of how incompetent he was and in fact, he highlighted a lot of issues that will hopefully change for the better now. If another evil politician turns up and makes use of those but is actually competent, they’ll go number one with Bojo number 2. Anybody would’ve struggled with covid and although he made it worse, I think other institutions lessened the impact somewhat.
Blair has the Iraq war, impact on Middle East and the start of the British fall in international relations, which probably puts him pretty high but I think some of the other stuff (e.g. making the BoE independent) probably does just enough to and him.
Brown was in power for too little of a time really but was instrumental in Blair’s got so takes some of that heat.
A lot of the country would argue Thatcher should be up there. Her policies continue to have much support in the Tories and some parts of other parties. Definitely a contender.
Brexit has had the worst impacts on every part of our lives and will continue to do so for quite some time. It’s also messed up NI, Ireland and the EU itself has suffered from it too. Cameron caused it and then jumped ship because he couldn’t help or wasn’t willing to, and either way is pretty bad. He has my vote for sure. No other single politic move has caused such a large negative impact.
Trusses’ impacts were immediate and large but have mostly receded. She wasn’t around long enough to do any real damage
I am here to tell you that the economic effects of Truss are still being keenly felt by people who are still using food banks and unable to heat their homes.
I’d argue those same people were using food banks long before Lizz Truss wormed her way into power. She’s obviously made the situation significantly worse, and it now encompasses a larger section of society…but Cameron’s government is what got us into this mess in the first place.
She’s obviously made the situation significantly worse , and it now encompasses a larger section of society…
That was my only point, disagreeing with @brewery that Truss’s impact didn’t cause much real damage. I absolutely agree that Cameron is at the root of all we see today.
If I was James Cameron I’d sue - no-one would want to be associated with mass murderers and sexual miscreants (but enough about BoJo).
I suppose it handily indicates where everything went titanically wrong and ushered in a series of terminators (with T1 getting the highest body count but T2 getting the highest profile victim - the Queen). I blame the Weaselverse.
