May would not be on this list if she had succeeded Thatcher or had Johnson become Prime Minister immediately after Cameron and May after Johhnson.
And I accept that she is a woman driven by a concept of duty and virtue. I don't agree with her on the fine details of that concept but I do respect that she was trying to work towards what she conceived as the greater good. Which is more than I think can be said for the other four.
Her decisions in the context she found herself in were poor. Her very narrow focus on what people like her would think morally acceptable blinded her to a range of possibilities. She made a bad situation worse. I think one of the reasons she did that was because she was not prepared to risk the destruction of the Tory Party (or perhaps her own career) in order to negotiate a workable Brexit referendum outcome.
Very much agree there are definitions of worst here.
Johnson's character has in several ways degraded the *office* of Prime Minister. The others are probably just very poor Prime Ministers. Perhaps not Truss. An office which can now be held by someone who may or may not be actually insane is less of an office than it used to be.
Truss and Sunak have demonstrated that if you let a very small group of people select from a very small group of people shortlisted by a very small group of people where none of the those groups of people is incentivised to think critically about the outcome you are going to get unhinged inadequates because it is easy to sound hard core and gung-ho when you have no idea nor care about how you are going to deliver on your wilder promises.
Cameron mostly made a series of catastrophic errors of judgement and May was inflexible in a dynamic situation.
I *think* it is a semantic point whether Sunak's actions, or inaction, as Prime Minister is due to a failure to fully grasp the problem or deciding to inaction. Not certain about this.
Item one as Prime Minister is to have a really good think about 1) what is going well that we need to do more or 2) what are the root causes of the big problems 3) what are people agitated about that I can't solve. I don't think Sunak started with that sort of analysis and so did nothing (my view) or did only inadequate things.
He decided not to think about the problems the country has. For me, and I know I didn't say it like, that was his first and most fatal bit of inaction. He dondered in to office and appears to me to have given no thought to what the problem was and so he continued Osborne's habit of announcing policy that sounded on the front pages like it would improve things but either couldn't or would make them worst. For example he appears to have mis-understood where concerns about unregulated migration spring. He knew people were excited about it. I don't think he knows why. So he ended up with a policy of blaming the French and trying to scare irregular migrants by threatening them with Rwanda.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2024-07-04 09:05 am (UTC)And I accept that she is a woman driven by a concept of duty and virtue. I don't agree with her on the fine details of that concept but I do respect that she was trying to work towards what she conceived as the greater good. Which is more than I think can be said for the other four.
Her decisions in the context she found herself in were poor. Her very narrow focus on what people like her would think morally acceptable blinded her to a range of possibilities. She made a bad situation worse. I think one of the reasons she did that was because she was not prepared to risk the destruction of the Tory Party (or perhaps her own career) in order to negotiate a workable Brexit referendum outcome.
Very much agree there are definitions of worst here.
Johnson's character has in several ways degraded the *office* of Prime Minister. The others are probably just very poor Prime Ministers. Perhaps not Truss. An office which can now be held by someone who may or may not be actually insane is less of an office than it used to be.
Truss and Sunak have demonstrated that if you let a very small group of people select from a very small group of people shortlisted by a very small group of people where none of the those groups of people is incentivised to think critically about the outcome you are going to get unhinged inadequates because it is easy to sound hard core and gung-ho when you have no idea nor care about how you are going to deliver on your wilder promises.
Cameron mostly made a series of catastrophic errors of judgement and May was inflexible in a dynamic situation.
I *think* it is a semantic point whether Sunak's actions, or inaction, as Prime Minister is due to a failure to fully grasp the problem or deciding to inaction. Not certain about this.
Item one as Prime Minister is to have a really good think about 1) what is going well that we need to do more or 2) what are the root causes of the big problems 3) what are people agitated about that I can't solve. I don't think Sunak started with that sort of analysis and so did nothing (my view) or did only inadequate things.
He decided not to think about the problems the country has. For me, and I know I didn't say it like, that was his first and most fatal bit of inaction. He dondered in to office and appears to me to have given no thought to what the problem was and so he continued Osborne's habit of announcing policy that sounded on the front pages like it would improve things but either couldn't or would make them worst. For example he appears to have mis-understood where concerns about unregulated migration spring. He knew people were excited about it. I don't think he knows why. So he ended up with a policy of blaming the French and trying to scare irregular migrants by threatening them with Rwanda.