Experts & TLDR Viewers Choose Britain's Best Prime Minister - TLDR News
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When you think of British Prime Ministers there are definitely a few names that stand out, for good and bad reasons, but who's the best? Well a whole bunch of experts and thousands of TLDR viewers cast their votes and in this video we'll reveal who's the best and worst Prime Minister.
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Blair did not refuse to join The Euro. He was desperate to join, his Chancellor was the one who blocked it.
A Grate policy choice from Gorden Brown
It is interesting that not joining the Euro is unanimously seen as the right decision in the UK. Sterling has performed worse in all fundamentals and if you ask Britons about "when the good times were" nobody says after 2000 still nobody links the bad two decades on not joining the Euro.
Adding in the Iraq war, and that Blair was labour I don't see why to rate him highly.
Note, I'm not saying he's bad for being Labour, I'm saying that he's way too right-wing to be Labour.
Good
@@johnhobbes2268 explain?
I actually forgot that May was ever a PM, not sure if that's a dunk on her or if my mind has just been turned to mush after spending too much time trying to keep up with UK Politics over the past 5 yrs
May was never a proper PM shes a vampire witch that took advantage of the tories
Her Government was in CONSTANT crisis mode. It was like the default setting and couldn't be turned off.
@@dystop2766 to be fair. They got thrust into brevity by Cameron and Cameron said peace like a week later
Hey patterz didn't expect to see you comment on news channel
When you include Churchill, it's hard for people to ignore his wartime period
If not because of him, UK would be part of the German Empire.
@@alvinbuj4102 I mean, probably not. He was a great leader don't get me wrong but I'm sure most other options wouldn't of done so poorly we'd lose the entire war.
Churchill was a great war time leader, possibly the best.
But he was an awful peace time leader and did some pretty terrible things before the war.
The best thing about Churchill is how many Brexiteers love him and often quote his pre-war anti European sayings despite not realising that post-war he was one of the most pro European leaders the UK ever had even advocating for a United States of Europe with the UK as a member!
@@liamcoghlan5408 All other options would've sued for peace in 1940.
@@alvinbuj4102 Undoubtedly
I think many of the audience are taking Churchill's war time premiership into account. However, the poll was about post war prime ministers, and Churchill was rather useless during his second term.
Yeah, while Blair became a War Criminal, during his Wartime premiership
@@TheSpiralProgression I mean you can level a similar claim to Churchill, don't disagree but same can be said
Churchill's wartime role in the UK tends to get him significant praise, especially in the UK and in the anglosphere where the pop culture focuses on his WW2 leadership. His considerable screw-ups in early WW1, ineffective peacetime leadership and especially his obsession with empire paired with his horrific colonial policies (the Bengal Famine is right up there with the 19th century Irish famine for slaughter by intentional mismanagement) tend to be something people learn about when they dig a little deeper into the man's record. It's easy to understand why academics with a deeper knowledge than the usual pop culture "great wartime leader" version would have a mixed opinion of Churchill. He had some impressive strengths but also some serious flaws that repeated caused massive numbers of pointless deaths.
Much like Woodrow Wilson in the US or John A. Macdonald in Canada, Churchill is a figure that has been viewed increasingly dimly as time passes and historians take a more detached view of their overall impact on their nation and the world.
@@paranoidrodent Really well put, good comment
@@paranoidrodent Churchill is a great war-time leader precisely because he was able to make terrible choices that most people could not. A good example of this was the bombing of Coventry, when he let a German blitz attack go ahead to avoid the Germans realising that the British had cracked the German codes. Churchill was a strategic thinker, and when you put that into the context, it explains why he often seemingly made these decisions which cost lives, if he thought they would contribute to eventual victory. Gallipoli in WW1, for example, is often given as an example of him doing this, but people forget why he ordered a landing there: if the attack had been successful, it would have knocked the Ottomans out of the war, freeing up hundreds of thousands of troops for deployment to Europe. This strategic thinking is also why he lost the 1945 election, as lots of people thought he was a great war-leader but would not be comparable in peacetime, as it required a different style of decision-making.
“Pitt the Elder!”
“Lord Palmerston!”
“Pitt the Elder!”
Damn it, you beat me to it! 😂
“YOU ASKED FOR IT BOGGS!”
God bless you, I was looking for this comment
Yeah that showed him Barney.. pfft.. Pitt the Elder.
@@ManilvaRS LORD PALMERSTON! *punch**
Benjamin Disraeli: "You don't even know who I am"
I prefer Gladstone.
Gladstone was faaaaaaaar better.
Disraeli was a terrible pm
Lies damn lies.
He got us the suez canal at least.
Glad to see Attlee getting the level of recognition he deserves from both experts and audience
fr im my opinion he is tiers above churchill
@@monsieurlefrog8706 they both are in S tier, do not forget had someone like lord Halifax (the other candidate to become PM after chamberlain resigned) who proposed and platformed on surrendering and ending the war, had it not been for Winston’s stunning character and persistence most likely then not we would be living in a world surrounded by tyranny and totalitarian governments all around similar to that of 1984. And yes atlee is also a fucking goats best PMs since the 40s and we have never came close
@@mohammedhaque3034 Churchill was undeniably a great war-time PM. But as a peace time PM? Not nearly so good
@@robertwinslade3104 at least he wasn't Anthony Eden.
@@robertwinslade3104 Churchill was a fantastic leader and a poor politician, that’s the way I see it
As an American, I'm gonna nominate the one that made it so you all don't have to pay the fucking 3000 dollar emergency room fee I just had to pay to learn that my chest pains were nothing. So yeah Clement Attlee.
Chad
I hope one day there is an American Attlee. Every country needs an Attlee.
So you just want others to pay for your imaginary chest pains? Based egoist moment
@@bowwak5366 LOL
Some day you will get the same thing. Your country can't sustain its ideology any more, it's fraying at the seams. People are waking up to the world outside. Keep the faith.
New Labour was an incredible move to progressive centrism that would have greatly benefited the country for years and years. Unfortunately the Iraq war put a massive stain on the whole project that it's never been able to remove from its image
Yeah it's a shame, yet I still rank New Labour very high
The tories have successfully tarnished the labour years with the Iraq war narrative they pushed onto the public that Blair was responsible for the war when in reality ANYONE would of made the same choices given the same intelligence
@@MegaRockstar48 too right! if iraq was denying your inspectors' access to nuclear facilities I'm sure you'd get a bit jittery too! of course there weren't wmds in iraq but at the time we didn't know that and I still think it was at least partially justified to intervene. I'm not really sure how you could paint blair as a war criminal and strip him of his knighthood after all new labour did for the country
newer Labour when???
@@shinfonii3666 If Russia or Fracne ordered the UK to give their inspectors right to access the UK's nuclear facilities, and the UK rejected those orders based on its national sovereignty, does that mean the UK have to be invaded?
Everyone knew there were no WMDs in Iraq, if WMDs had existed, they wouldn't have invaded. Look at North Korea, they have nukes, and no one will dare consider invading that country.
Clement Attlee definitely deserves the top mark, he gave us the NHS, millions of new social housing etc
Eh, the NHS was thought up by a Liberal, William Beveridge, who also masterminded the basis of increased social welfare- the original base, too, being a Liberal project. So, he phoned it through, but we owe more to Beveridge than Atlee
If he was such a fantastic prime minister why did he only last 6 years and never reelected again.
Clement Atlee’s social housing was horrible… ever heard of Roman Point? That was a project of the Labour Government at the time.
Another project of the time was attempting to turn the UK into a socialist country like Rhodesia/Zimbabwe 🇿🇼 or South Africa 🇿🇦 but they thankfully failed in doing so…
@@wclifton968gameplaystutorials he was a social democrat not socialist. He was against socialism
@@wclifton968gameplaystutorials do you actually know what socialism is?
Not watched the video yet but definitely Clement Atlee. He oversaw the creation of the NHS, the recovery of the UK from WWII, and implemented many of the reforms recommended by the Bevan report. (Gotta give Mr Bevan massive credit for his groundbreaking report, too.)
Don't you mean the Beveridge report?
@@VK-sp4gv Quite possibly, I remember learning about it in school but I'm terrible with names. It was the report that detailed poverty, lack of education, unemployment, illness and housing (as well as how to tackle them, I think).
For me it's Thatcher.
@@maddyl6988 yeah its the beveridge report, bevan was the other socialist guy in labour during the 50s
@@420quickscoper5 40s mostly
I'm actually surprised at how similar the opinions were. I think the reason for the discrepancy for Churchill was probably the fact that the original description of this contest was "post-war". For many, I expect Churchill was inextricably linked with the WWII, and trying to gauge him on the short time he was in office afterwards, is not really something that most are able to do. I am extremely surprised at how well Thatcher scored with the audience, since I would have said that the content of this channel is generally progressive-centre and I wouldn't have thought that she would score very well with that demographic.
It's a channel that presents right wing opinions as unbiased and trustworthy. Hardly surprising that a large portion of hte more engaged audience is heavily right wing.
I was one who ranked Thatcher highly. The Falklands conflict in particular is something that she did very well. Also she was the first woman prime minister for which she gets next to no credit these days.
@@totalvoid6234 Did you not watch the political compass video? This is very much a center-left channel. I don't know how far left you have to be to watch them and seriously believe they are right-wing lol.
@@giantWario Watch it yourself, they explain in the video how they ended up there in spite of being right wing.
@@brandonbridge371 She doesn't deserve credit for being the first woman Prime Minister. However her Falkland record was good. She did mess the Hong Kong thing up but probably because it was handed over during Blair term.
Teresa May got the really raw deal here - she inherited Brexit from David Cameron
When the vote on the referendum was announced, my immediate reaction was, 'Who, in their right mind, would want to sort this mess out': she stepped up to the mark; that she failed was inevitable; one can only admire her that she tried-the only way that Johnson has apparently succeeded is largely by deception, a tactic which she was too honest to employ.
I agree. She was a compromise candidate for her party during a populist "uprising". The country under her tenure could have erupted, fractured, and torn itself apart. She held it together, despite the best efforts of many groups, bordering on radicalisation, trying to destabilize a nuclear power from both inside and outside of the country. May is not getting enough credit for her efforts.
Indeed she did. And made it so so much worse. Her “Brexit means Brexit” mantra was a total disaster. Brexit was always going to be a disaster. But her commitment to leaving the single market etc (which is not what was voted for) was an astonishingly mad decision which was akin to pouring petrol on a fire.
@@grahamlive she had no majority to work with and couldn't call an election due to the fixed terms Parliament Act
@@grahamlive not sure anyone could have done better, since the country was so much divided-if she had elected to stay in the customs union, she would have had the Faragistes and ERG baying for blood-she was in an impossible bind, and while I am no real fan of hers, (her vision is too limited), I have a sneaking admiration for her for at least trying.
There were few who thought him a starter,
Many who thought themselves smarter.
But he ended PM,
CH and OM,
an Earl and a Knight of the Garter.
Cheers to the Earl Attlee
I never had much of an opinion about Attlee in the past, but the more I learn about him the more I admire him.
@@jvsl1999 Attlee is honestly largely responsible for so many things Brits take for granted nowadays. The NHS, for starters, was put in place by Attlee.
The only Prime Minister of modern times to come in with a huge programme of reform, and get it all enacted-he didn't go for histrionics; he simply got on with the job, and succeeded magnificently-if only modern politicians would learn.
A lot of what he achieved was dismantled later, but that does not take away from what he achieved.
And not a bad poet either!
@@jvsl1999 I know the feeling. I do feel a bit of annoyance at British education that Attlee is not as well known as he should be. People might just know him as the guy who beat Churchill after war rather then why he beat Churchill and what he did.
I kinda feel bad for May. When she talks in the House of Commons nowadays she's so great at presenting her arguments. I don't agree with everything she says, but she's such a breath of fresh air compared to the shouting match that is the House of Commons
I think that May, whilst not a great PM, is a fantastic parliamentarian. I have a lot of respect for the fact that she didn't leave politics once she had left office, unlike previous PMs.
I don't like May in general but I feel bad as well. She had the unfortunate responsibility of being dropped in Brexit negotiations which were a disaster. Had she not, I think opinions of her would be a lot better.
True
I think she is a good politician / adult. Just god awful campaigner / with humans. Ideal for, as she had, one of the 3 great offices.
May would have made a brilliant PM if she took on the role at a different time. Anyone who took the position at that time would have struggled, having to do her best to bring a divided party and divide country together on the BREXIT vote. The women understands politics, comes from humble beginnings and really understands what it’s like to be British. Given another shot that women could have made a real and lasting difference. There is no argument she cares about her country.
Attlee was one of the few prime ministers who’s actually had a vision for this country. The NHS alone makes him the best!
I wonder what Attlee would do if he were PM today given the NHS's performance in recent years. Would he be able to fix it or would he scrap it for a system better suited to our times, demographics and economy?
Creating the NHS does not make him the best, the NHS is a failed system that provides terrible care for the amount of tax money that flows into it.
Agreed. He was truly the greatest Prime minister we ever had. He didn’t need the biggest war in human history to make him famous to this day, he became famous because of everything he did for the country.
@@ayoungconservative1051 The NHS system is great, it’s was the austerity, corruption and mismanagement by the Tory government that has made the NHS so much worse than it could and should be. It has the potential to be one of the best healthcare systems in the world, yet due to consistent underfunding from the conservatives, it has been severely downgraded. (Yet the determined doctors and staff of the NHS continue to do work to an incredible standard)
Fun fact, a lot of Atlees visions came from early 20th century liberals or were an expansion of the bills David Lloyd George put in place when he was PM. The entire welfare system and the NHS was heavily influeced by the Beveridge Report, created by Liberal MP William Beveridge.
But I sure are glad that he followde through and put these much needed policies into play.
It’s a no brainer.
The best PM is Larry of Battersea.
I'm so happy this exists. Didn't know Larry existed until now
@@maxresdefault_ u weren't even born
Helped by Humphrey!
The best one is give back Ireland land back and make Scotland independent other then that its all sh-t.
I think the publics view of Churchill is him as a war time leader. This inflates the publics view of him and they forget that as a peacetime leader he was pretty average/verging on awful
A lot of the domestic policy both during the war and after during the rebuilding of Britain was Attlee…him being sandwiched by Churchill makes that less apparent!
I agree. In fact Churchill usually does poorly on ‘post-war prime minister ranking’ precisely because he ends getting judged on his second term only. I’m assuming the audience ranking doesn’t reflect this although to be fair I don’t think it was made clear in the poll wether we were only judging his post-war performance. Thatcher topping the economy section is mind blowing to me though.
You know not to mention the racism and colonizer agenda he had.
@@undead9736 he shared the same opinions as virtually everyone else did at the time. Please understand context and don't discuss politics or history ever again
@@Will_the_Rose @William Harrison The harm of Thatcher's legacy is largely social, destroying communities up north etc. Even if you rate her lowly as a politician, her governments did avert an economic disaster, as well as keeping the UK competitive in STEM and computing fields (thanks a lot Major).
Honestly the audience results surprised me a bit - I was fully expecting them to be quite left wing, with Atlee far and away the top choice and Callaghan nowhere near as lowly ranked. This ranking is mostly unobjectionable as far as I'm concerned.
Lot of less history savvy people might be wondering who Clement Attlee is. He's a juggernaut in societal change.
I had never heard of him. I would love to see a video just on his tenure. I am intrigued that someone so respected and important has never once been in anything I've read!
@@DanielKivariTeacher NHS, 1948.
There's a reason Atlee got MORE votes than Churchill in the two elections the latter contested. If it wasn't for first past the post, Churchill would never have been elected and Iran might still be a democracy.
@@giansideros Not to say the Labour Governments of the 40's and 50's were saints of foreign policy either.
Meh juggernaut for social change? He is just the dude who gave away India, didn’t even make it through his second term as PM before getting replaced by a conservative. Churchill to be exact
Who's Britain's Best Prime Minister Ever?
That's easy: Robert Walpole
Best as in most entertaining?
It’s always Walpole
Thank you sir I appreciate your support
I'd say Cardinal Wolsey if we're going far back.
The only prime minister to be sentenced to the Tower
wait. there is a massive discrepancy between how Thatcher's grading in the individual categories, and her final academic standing. from negative in all but one category, to second place, the hell happened there?
Yeah I thought that lol. Maybe doing best for your party has a weighting of 9
Or in fact that question is independent of the rest!
Yeah, that confused me as well.
She resurrected herself to conduct sweeping reforms on her standing.
Almost as if they were massively inconsistent or the ideological framework adopted by many subverted more accurate ratings
Bc they only showed 6 PMS for all those rankings
Blair and Thatcher definitely shaped the world we live today in most aspects. I think that May's position is hilarious.
Yeah, the glorious Irak war and inventing the virtue of 'trickle-down' neoliberalism is, respectively. Massive props
@@ArturoSubutex And PPP embezzlement spending 4x as much on the NHS and getting nothing done and appointing over 300 to the house of lord’s
@@ArturoSubutex Do you mean Iraq?
Any chance the academics are mostly liberals as usual and they are biased.
Sorry but Blair sucked
The survey asked about post-war PMs, but Churchill's most important work was done in the years 1940-1945.
Inevitable frankly. I doubt most people even know that Churchill had a second term.
Yeah I guess the divide on rating Churchill was the academics focusing on his premiership in the 50s and the audience thinking about the war
I don’t think the survey specified that they were looking at his second term
@@falling_vega1257 the question was about post war premierships. Nothing Churchill did before his second term would be relevant
@@tacosmexicanstyle7846 The video clarified they were only considering post-war premierships, however the original survey the viewers completed never specified that
A few points of criticism:
1) Blair did not say no to the Euro: he actively wanted to join it. Gordon Brown is the reason the UK didn't join and he should get credit as Chancellor.
2) There is obviously some bias in the academics, as regardless of what you think of people like Thatcher or Churchill, their ability to influence society was enormous. Thatcher, for example, completely upset the prior economic consensus and set us onto the path that we are still on to this day. You might disagree with Thatcher, but to give her a negative rating implies that you think she was ineffective as PM, and that is patently absurd. She is one of the most consequential PM's we've had since the war. Even Blair was a product of Thatcher, as she herself boasted when he maintained her economic policies.
3) I think you are showing your own lack of knowledge about Thatcher because you didn't mention the cold war in reference to foreign policy at all, which is likely her reason for a positive rating. Gorbachev famously said that Thatcher was the reason that Reagan and Gorbachev decided to meet, as she met Gorbachev and told Reagan that he was someone that the west could work with, which Reagan then jumped on. She was quite instrumental in ending the Cold War as a result.
Regarding your second point, I think the question of "best" is entirely subjective; and thus it is totally fair to consider what their aims were, just as much as how well they achieved those aims. The question wasn't "most skilled", or "most consequential"; "best" _always_ means whatever the answerer wants it to mean.
Effectively carrying out bad policies doesn’t make you a good prime minister. Hitler was very effective in carrying out his earlier aims & was indeed immeasurably impactful on the whole world. I’d still rank him as one of the worst world leaders in human history, regardless.
@@clarkmannen8789 There's actually a lot of academic discussion over the idea of whether Hitler was actually very good at being a dictator at all, as he preferred an aloof and delegative style of leadership.
@@luke-alex The problem is that when you consider their aims you are evaluating them based on your own personal ideological standpoint. It ceases to be an academic exercise and just becomes a personal exercise, which is my criticism of the way the video presents the academic analysis.
The question’s phrasing was “best impact on x”, not “greatest impact on x” if I am not mistaken.
You need to reframe the discussion and rephrase the question:
“Who is the least worst UK Prime Minister ever?”
With the way Britain is going Maggie Thatcher will be a saint
@@lakeblackBLM Perhaps. She had a good cabinet position that could well have landed her premiership.
Churchill would be proud of this comment.
True...The attributes of all politicians by their very nature absolves them of being worthy of the title "best" anything
Aside from Attlee.
Attlee by far, as he lifted millions of people out of poverty through creating the welfare state and the NHS.
The welfare state existed prior to Atlee. It was created by the Liberal government before WW1. That's were things such as national insurance and jobseeker's allowance come from.
@@rickystart1423 Not really, at least not in a comprehensive form. The likes of the Jarrow Marchers wouldn’t have existed if there hadn’t been a danger of working class people starving to death in the 1930s.
Plus the welfare state is often conceptualized as going beyond stuff like national insurance, incorporating socialized medicine, nationalized public services and enhanced education. Nye Bevan was also instrumental to eradicating Tuberculosis.
@@TheLastAngryMan01 The welfare state refers to social welfare, not to nationalisation of industry. Welfare is directed at compensating for market failure - which is what you are referring to with the Jarrow march as well, as it took place as a result of the depression when unemployment reached a staggering 30%. The idea of a welfare state began with people like Bismarck in Germany, who implemented unemployment and state-backed healthcare for Germans as part of his anti-socialist reforms, designed to win the support of German people for parliamentarianism against radical socialism.
@@rickystart1423 Yes, I’m aware that Bismarck came up with the first modern welfare system in the late 19th century in Germany. However, this video is about the UK and UK politicians, which is why I referenced Attlee and the welfare state in that national context. There was no comprehensive welfare system in the UK before then, only piecemeal legislation that you previously alluded to.
Welfare exists to meet basic needs of humans, not just to “compensate for market failure”. I know people who can’t work because they’ve been in industrial accidents, for instance. They haven’t failed-their condition makes it impossible to do their previous line of work.
Which is why stuff like the establishment of the NHS, expansion of council housing, subsidized travel etc. are considered part of the welfare state: they created accessible services that might have been previously out of reach for working people.
You give me the impression that you think markets can correct every problem-right or wrong?
@Britboy 94 This is an opinion forum, of course it highlights the biases of those who post comments, lol. In comparing Thatcher and Attlee, the key question is this: what is of greater benefit- wealth concentration amongst the upper percentiles of society or a better standard of living for those outside of the same?
Clement Attlee by a country mile. PS l gave my opinion before the piece even began to roll.
Why
@@MrDanielfff777 : Look it up for yourself.
@@freebornjohn6876 I'm asking for your opinion
He's definitely the best and yet he made fatal mistakes like not implementing industrial democracy, the Partition of India being deadly mess and suppressing the 1949 Dock Strike betraying the point of socialism. Yet his impact is the reason Tories can no longer be seen not to provide you free healthcare and food. The concept of the welfare state basically only exists because of him, just a shame providing welfare is mistakenly mislabelled as socialism when is in fact social democracy and the welfare state was and still is financed from an economically elitist way, due to Britain being a developed nation at the top of the transnational company pyramid scheme. Atlee should have given workers direct control of industry through democratic worker co-ops, not just nationalise industry.
Anyone can be a success when the country is in reconstruction funded by free Marshall money. Here in the Netherlands Willem Drees is considered a great man too. However, he also has just as much a dark side as Attlee though regarding decolonisation. In that regard I consider bondschancellor Konrad Adenauer to be one of the best leaders of post-WWII era, because he didn't make any crucial mistakes by for example making Germany an unified, but neutral country. He also didn't blame Israel for a Jewish assassination attempt on him. Things could have went very wrong in Europe again if he made another choice after one of these two big events.
I feel sorry for PM May, she would’ve faired better as PM, if Brexit wasn’t the main issue.
Would she ever become a PM if Brexit wasn't an issue?
@@Ramm4eg yes...
@@chiragpatil8207 Doubtful
She was only ever meant to be a scapegoat: make a bad deal and leave. In the end, Boris made a worse deal and stayed.
She's conservative so I doubt that.
My ranking
10 you
9 can’t
8 definitively
7 rank
6 prime
5 ministers
4 as there’s
3 no right
2 answer
1 Attlee
love this comment
I must admit I am pleased to see how high Clem Attlee does with the public poll. I was worried his major achievements and those of the post war Labour govt might not be as well recognised as they clearly are. Good work!!
Yeah it's a real shame that socialism is so high on this list. Great what he did with NHS but he failed in almost every other area with all of his policies being later revoked. So not good.
@@gaiusjcaesar09 Then don't use the NHS or claim any benefits, feel free to go bankrupt in America
@@gaiusjcaesar09 WaaaaWaaahhhh whenever I hear the word socialism it must be bad!!!! Waaaaahhhh I have no capacity for independent thought!
@@pirozigzigwam8594 socialism is bad though, if you think otherwise then your opinions can be safely discarded
@@darkmusky9851 did you even read his comment? Also "muh america healthcare" is not an argument
Why were Thatcher's actions over the Falklands "infamous"? Doesn't this rather betray the partiality of the presenter?
I believe theres some controversy over the Cruiser she sunk.
I had the same reaction, and labeling her conduct as "infamous" is a bizarre and nonsensical explanation for why academics rated her the most successful PM in the realm of foreign policy. Why would they count bad as good? And surely Thatcher's contributions to the end of the Cold War deserve a mention?
TLDR News can do better.
Infamous because they're famous for the wrong reasons around the world not because TLDR news thinks they're infamous
@@mapmuncher5587 Controversy, perhaps, but this doesn't (1) necessarily make it "infamous" or (2) well founded. Nor, more to the point, does it excuse the presenter for editorializing in a partial manner.
@@markaxworthy2508 To be honest i didnt notice. But what I did notice is how much the academics hated her, I thought they shouldve gone into a bit more detail on bias/reason (maybe each important figure could get a episode). Although tbh I imagine the Iron Lady wouldve prefered Infamous rather than famous
Easily Churchill and his “I told you so” quote he kept on saying to chamberlain is so funny
Found it interesting that Blair was rated higher than Thatcher on the economy for not changing Thatchers economic policies
Well there was relatively good economi prosperity under him, he had a capable Chancellor.
He [Blair] was very well-respected internationally as well and would never have even dreamt about leaving the EU, even though it's certainly not perfect. The UK now is in a terrible state with housing becoming increasingly out of reach to the everyday person with our Tory government doing whatever it can to make the housing crisis even worse. I can't think of any other civilised country (except perhaps America) with a popular party so rotten to the core.
@@richardvalvona1159 Hungary?
He was rated highly because uni profesers love him, in reality, he just rode the wave of Thatchers sucess, got lucky dodging financial crashes and didn't actually do anything to cause problems
@@jamest5014 Thatcher did a lot of long-term damage with her neoliberal policies.
Clearly, it is Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister and MP for Flydale North
Do you think she looks tired?
iconic comment
Yeah, we know who she is…
Yes, I know who she is.
Amusingly a DW book mentioned Blair was followed by Clarke.
People are clearly confusing Churchill’s time in no.10 post war with his time during the war
Not confusing. Probably ignorant of.
And all his cock-ups pre war.
Churchill wasn't so much incompetent before the war, but responsible for wrong policies, against working class at home and blind adherence to old style imperialism abroad
In the first 10 seconds of this video, without knowing anything about these surveys, i picked Clement Attlee as the top-PM. The father of the NHS. He literally saved lives and continues to save lives 70 years later.
You people are deeply boring aren't you. The same old banalities. How shameful.
Bankrupt the country by robbing the people you mean.
I'd say for societal impact it has to be Attlee and then Thatcher.
Economy I'd say Thatcher then Blair.
Foreign policy wise I'd score Thatcher and Blair tied together.
Nah, id put blair below Thatcher as he invade Iraq for made up reasons
@@theirishempire4952 thatcher hanging around Argentina also
@@derekkearns3377 Thatcher took back British lands, Blair invaded iraq
Atlee? The dude is a great domestic policy maker and the one that implemented social democratic policies that are still used today but he was a pretty terrible foreign policy maker and Britain suffered in massive shortages of resources such as oil coal and food
@@theirishempire4952 British lands off the coast of argentian🤔
Just wait until Count Binface is elected PM, BEST PM EVAR!!!
Poor Theresa May I kinda feel bad for her
I don't. She had campaigned against Brexit for good reasons and pretended to change her mind just because the "big job in No. 10" was up for grabs.
Her leadership was compromised from day one, her waffling about the "red white and blue Brexit" was painful to watch and she consequently failed miserably to execute it.
Deadlines were postponed time after time - and every time she and her apparatus collapsed with a sigh of relief and allowed the next deadline to approach with the same low degree of preparedness.
A few years ago, a German party leader stopped coalition talks and commented "it's better not to be in government than to govern badly".
That's the sentence history will hang around Theresa May's neck forever.
I miss her too - memo to self - hire a better sniper
May was far from our worst PM, will be remembered as better than Boris
@@notroll1279 She went for the job because she was actually capable (compared to gove, boris et al), hark who created Brois' deal..., she failed to execute it because she had no charisma but at least she did her job, unlike Boris who just rides popularity and pushes rubbish through parliament
@@jamest5014
She may have been less inept in her previous offices than the other Tory frontrunners.
But my criticism stands: she vowed to implement a programme she had been opposed to weeks before and was responsible for the bad staffing of the UK's negotiation team and its poor preparedness.
Fun fact, polling has found Blair about as popular with the modern British public as Putin.
Certain people's veneration of him is something I really don't get, given dislike of Tony Blair is a unifying feeling across the political spectrum.
Ironic considering Putin decides who runs the country.
@@triangulan people miss him economical days, atleast he knew how to run the economy. Ask people under who's premiership they had most money, they will say Blair. Same way why Bush's rating went up after leaving office, economy under him was fine until the 2008 financial crisis which was not his fault, it was banks misusing capitalism.
The comments section is going to be interesting.
If there was a dancing category, May would have killed it....
You can't get better than Atlee, the creation of the NHS is by far the best contribution to UK society
Because people don't care about healthcare that much as much as we like to say that we do we just don't that's why Atlee it's not remembered that much plus most of these people were born at least in the mid to late 1980s
0:15 This the most famous I ever was
"Best" PM?! Isn't this like asking what's the best poisonous snake to be bit by?
Maybe nowadays but shockingly before Thatcher, one or two had spines.
My favourite was William Pitt the Younger. Youngest PM ever, was great in the Napoleonic Wars and was a abolitionist of the slave trade
I honestly feel the better question is which one is "least worst"
No, it isn't.
@@choobs8511 Thatcher had a backbone though even despite her controversial policies not defending her
Clement Attlee is actually the pioneer behind today's modern welfare state in UK. Such a Frugal Man. One who cares about inclusive politics , equality and social justice. In fact it was he who didn't want an election to take place in 1940 and entered into a war time coalition with the ruling conservatives. He was the one who put forward winston churchill as Prime Ministerial Candidate. When Winston Churchill was busy fighting the nazis, it was clement attlee, the deputy prime minister who looked after the domestic economy and people who lost their livelihood during war.
If you know your history the answer is Attlee, 100%.
Did people forget Blair dragging us into the Afgan / Iraq war then prosecuting the same soldiers he sent to fight? he should have scored lower.
The whole point of this is that PMs are rated on multiple fronts and not one issue
But domestically he was the best PM.
@@slickrick2420 Pros. Was PM during a boom. Cons. Just about everything else.
@@totalvoid6234 How did the country end in a boom? Possibly due to some of his policies?
@@xxNATHANUKxx Well no, obviously not. What a ridiculous supposition. It was a global boom, nothing to do with anything he did. Did you actually think there was any correlation at all?
Man, no one really likes May at all
I mean it's deserved but still kind of sad
I think she gambled and lost got into bed with the lust for power during her home office stint
I think when she became PM she was in a tough position. Complete deadlock is hard to work with. No surprise the country just went backwards. I still don't think she was as bad as some of the 1960s-early 70s PMs, who just kinda bumbled about not doing much.
@@potato3996 she was in tough spot trying to appease everyone ngl but she did kind of did that to herself by that unnecessary election
Not to mention Brexit would have been done quicker if she had a plan of action decided with her party and allies
Not getting support from your own party is pretty embarrassing
Mate, she looked like a beleaguered terrapin when she ran for the premiership and ended her term looking like Gollum. I think maybe "sad" was the only possible outcome of her life.
As an American, an outsider, it's not sad. Play dumb games, win dumb prizes.
Funny! No mention or consideration of Blair’s Iraq War decision….
Probably why he didn’t do well on foreign policy one
He was only slightly negative when rated by academics and even higher when rated by the audience!
That's because no one really cares. Apart from those on the left who can't forgive him for winning.
John the 30 year old median earning builder doesn't care. Jane the 50 year old working 20 hours on the tills at tesco doesn't care. 24 year olds think they care.
His one failure tbh. That Labour party had record high public spending and record low debt
@@teddypicker8799
We currently, and every year since 2010, have spent a higher share of GDP on the public sector than in any year under Blair. The Conservatives haven't got it down below 40%. Blair never spent as high as 40%.
This "austerity" has been no such thing. I's been "Spend a higher share of our money than in any year from 97 - 08"
I’m sad that Harold Wilson didn’t get more attention, particularly for the amount of amazing social change that came with his premiership
Really ? Please explain
@@Lena-1312 He legalised abortion and homosexuality. Pretty big changes for the 60's.
@@ErnestoHerrera2002 OH REALLY ?
@@Lena-1312 Yep. He also ended the death penalty and made racial discrimination illegal in most instances. Huge stuff for a country in the 60's
@@ScratPlays HOLLY FUCKING SHIT ! He just jumped from " who is he " to " why was he ever voted out"
I’m a big fan of PM Earl Grey
And Lady Gray is a absolute delight with that delicate zestyness that counters the Earl's slightly harsher tone perfectly.
I remember it almost every other mornings 😃
He's even better with some milk and honey!
@@Tijjain lemon and honey, milk with Earl Grey just doesn't work well together.
The tea fellow who ended slavery?
Clement Attlee is obviously the best prime minister in UK history.
Maybe.
Yes.
There is no question on who is the Best Prime Minister. But then we have the worst PM . He is the Indian boy.
Britain’s best Prime minister? Easy. By a country mile Cement Attlee.
Rebuilt Britain after WW2
Gave independence to India
Introduced the NHS
Introduced Equal rights for women to own property
Introduced free secondary education as a right
Nationalised our failing private industries including the railways.
Introduced Child Benefit and under his time as PM Britain had full employment. How can a one top those achievements?
Team Attlee all the way here. The best things about the UK are all the parts of Attlee’s legacy the Tories haven’t yet managed to destroy
It’s so nice to see people being polite. I honestly thought this was going to be a playground argument between children but it’s never too late to be proven wrong
Attlee and Wilson were for sure the most positive impacting prime minister’s we’ve had. To this day they deserve our respect for the nhs, building lots of affordable housing, legalising abortion, gay marriage and banning the death penalty. We need another leader like them. I reckon if Gordon brown had spent more time as prime minister he would’ve been pretty decent as well
Attlee and Wilson have destroyed the UK they are responsible for every negative change. Wasting billions of tax payers money, importing foreigners just so they know they will vote for them and take British jobs. Allowing perverts to be legal, ending capital punishment, building houses with tax payers money for people that dont want to ever work. These two were as bad has Hitler.
That survey comparison is really interesting. Glad to see over the years Harold Wilson slowly climbing upwards
Clement Atlee!
Academics may have the expertise to determine the impact of certain policies, but they have no special training in making value judgements or weighing tradeoffs across incommensurable variables (say, economic outcomes vs. social impacts). So that list should be taken with a grain of salt.
Do academics not earn a wage and live in society like the rest of us?
Who does have that ‘special training’ then? This anti-expert bias in favour of annecdotal personal experience in nonsense. Academics are still the best positioned people to assess those aspects aswell.
@@scottyc6341 Yes they do. What is the relevance of that truism? At what point in a civics degree, or an economics degree, or a science degree does one learn what the optimal trade offs are of economic growth and, say, social equity or harmony. Or between human rights and security? Such assessments are simply not part of the training, nor is it feasible to see how they could be.
@@jonsmith5058 I never claimed anyone had such training, nor did I advocate a special method for making/assessing these trade offs. So you have not properly understood my comment.
How would civics expert or an economist know whether same-sex marriage was morally right/wrong, or whether social cohesion and job stability were more/less morally desirable than rapid economic growth?
Of course, intelligent academics can assess these issues, but they will not have any special insight qua-economist (or whathaveyou)
@@alistairkentucky-david9344 That's a lot of word salad just to say you're homophobic.
If you're talking post war just based off impact it's 1.Atlee 2. Thatcher
Not really when it comes to Atlee. The man was just finishing up the work from Churchill when it came to World war II and when it came to Korea let's just say he's a non-factor in that
@@attiepollard7847 That's not entirely true. He negotiated the post war situation with Germany and Italy. He joined the UN and NATO.He decolonized most of the UK's overseas holdings. He built the modern welfare state and the NHS. He kept the UK from starving and going bankrupt after the war and led the UK through a pretty tough period.
@@gregmatic2861 yes all those may be true but do you see them talking about him every single BBC series like they do Thatcher? Nope. So unfortunately to him that kind of tells you something that he's valued less.
@@attiepollard7847 Even Thatcher herself was an admirer of Attlee saying he was all substance and not just for show. England has always had a conservative bent to it except for London so no that doesn't surprise me.
@@gregmatic2861 Atlee gets way too much credit for the welfare state. It was created by the Liberal government prior to WW1. All Atlee actually did in terms of welfare was spend more, which isn't nearly as revolutionary.
I always presumed that TLDR viewers tilt to the left, interesting to see them ranking Churchill and Thatcher highly
Honestly the very concept of TLDR news is inherently conservative. The reaction to “kids are being bombed” being “yawn, can you summarise that for me in five words” is not very left wing.
@@totalvoid6234 well, vox's videos are kinda like this so I don't think that's a really valid arguement
Technically they rated Atlee very high too, so it's not a left-wing-right-wing issue, it's the fact that Thatcher and Churchill are known for their foreign policy.
Pretty sure the only reason May came bottom is that Johnson wasn’t included.
Well Boris Johnson isn't finished yet. So we should just wait and and see for the next election and see how long he gets to do his project.
@yeah up yours too buddy They weren't as hardcore as people make out, the vote had been falling for decades in those suits due to the collapse of the Unions.
@yeah up yours too buddy Perhaps if you did any research you would see how ridiculous this is. You say they are pandering to them... did it ever occur to you being woke isn't inherently bad like you go on about. And you swallow this idea all immigrants are criminals and any support for them is support for criminals. I suppose you were cheering on Patel for her snarling at human rights lawyers and glee in creating a nastier environment. They are pushing the war on woke as a distraction from real issues. They engage in corruption, bullying and racism, but people think the real problem is people pointing out the problem rather then the problem.
Labour isn't still pushing to join Europe, as you would know if you did any research. However considering the way you are talking it's clear you don't much care for it. Of course the Brexit ref was won through lying and cheating, overspending, lies about Turkey joining, hoardes of immigrants and other rubbish so to claim it was wonderfully democratic shows a lack of knowledge... but that is the we've had enough of experts mentality. And of course the Tories are cracking down on the electoral commission and reducing the power of anyone who can hold them to account, along with their snarling at media that dares to report badly on them, saying the BBC should be defunded when if anything it was biased to them and wanting Channel 4 privatised. When they refuse to be seen as accountable, engaging in massive cronyism. But your mentality is they hate Europe like you, so whatever they do is completely justified.
And of course the idea that Tories are for the working-class, even while they have been responsible for austerity and are engaging in blatant corruption. Even though BJ is blatantly classist and jokes about Thatcher destroying communities. Even while Rees-Mogg snarls at children being fed over Christmas.
It is blatantly clear Farage and BJ are racist demagogues and that this mentality helped swing things to Brexit. You just don't want to accept you have been tricked and that the people in power now are bullies and bigots. To not see BJ is unfit for office after doing proper research you'd have to be stupid enough to think that Trump is truthful.
I feel bad for May. Handicapped by her own party and facing a hugely inspired and efficient opposition. If not for Brexit, she'd be remembered better. But then agan, no PM gets to choose the issues that will plague their premiership.
Churchill’s high viewer ranking I suspect is based on his wartime not post war premiership. The only postwar PMs who have substantially changed the UK (for better or worse) are Attlee and Thatcher
Blair???
In my opinion Churchill was a great man, but that doesn't mean he was a good man. At the time the UK needed a strong leader not a kind leader and that's who Churchill was. And that's also why her didn't win the election after the war.
Clement Attlee. I voted him as best PM and he was. He gave us so much during incredibly tough economic times.
Good news, so did the British people in mid 1945. So you're in good company. : )
I think people tend to remember the bad stuff that happened recently more. I recon May will rise up the rankings. I'm not saying she will go to the top, just that she won't be at the bottom.
Did she do anything of note?
I think the difference between churchill's scores is that the 2004 survey takes 1940 as the cut off point, therefore making churchill's ww2 record part of the survey, whereas the other three are all post-war.
I think it's more possible that the academics were judging Churchill solely on his post war record and not his war time record which the audience were probably only thinking of
His wartime domestic policy was often fairly dire and inhumane as well
*nervous laughter at tldr viewers tripping over themselves to praise Thatcher and Churchill*
I had expected Thatcher to fall quite down her and especially not receive praise for the Falklands, and I had expected some mention of Cherchill's treatment fo India. You cannot rank high on democracy when you view some of your subjects as sub-humans.
@@sevret313 Churchill stopped Europe being overrun by a fascist dictator so he ensured democracy for the next hundred years. He inherited India in its position so can't be blamed for not changing the status quo when he had bigger things to deal with.
Why
@@brandonbridge371 Yeah no you are thinking of the USSR and the USA, Britain was barely clinging on.
@@danielpierik6631 you do know that USSR is not a democratic nation? how can the USSR defend democracy when it is not even democratic in the first place. If Britain fell or surrendered in 1940 do you really think the USSR could hold off the entirety of the axis army? lol
FOR Anyone that doesn’t understand the question. “What is your favourite form of torture?”
To inflict or to endure? 😂
Lord Buckethead would be ranked first in all categories by academics and general population alike... if only he/she/it were given a chance at being PM.
I think you mean Count Binface. He/she/it had a split with itself a few years ago.
@@Dave_Sisson The world would be a better place with count binface in charge.
Lord Buckethead is a total idiot. Long live Count Binface!
A series that looks back at the different Prime Ministers, what there policies were, what they achieved during their time in office and what impact their decisions still have today would be really good to see. I realise the channels focus is on current events but maybe something that could be put out during slow news periods...
1. Thatcher 2. Disraeli 3. Blair
I think Churchill and Thatcher (partly) scored high because of war and the wonders it can do for your public image when you win one.
And Thatcher did work wonders for the economy
Thatcher completely revamped the economy to actually be functional.
Strangely, from the party (or perhaps parliamentary) management perspective, Major stands head and shoulders above every other PM in history. As the only PM ever to have sustained a minority government - not only for more than a few days (the norm) but for most of his (full) term. No coalition, just clever management.
Interesting way of looking at it with Major...
Theresa May lowest prime minister... Boris Johnson: "Hold my beer!!!"
Great video, as an American do you guys think you can do a video for us presidents as well on tldr us
Imagine thinking blair had a positive impact on society…
I mean his government did in some areas, for the disadvantaged and children in poverty, his government did a lot to help them out with the Child Tax credits and National Minimum Wage or how he helped to end the Troubles in Northern Ireland (although he wasn't the decisive factor).
His decision to get involved in Iraq was a complete disaster however.
Churchill after winning against Attlee by just 300 votes:
Never in the fields of human conflict, was so much owned, by so many, to so few!
Excellent analysis
I think the discrepancy on Churchill's score could be based on considering his first stretch as PM (WW2) vs. only considering his second.
In my 48 years Tony Blair was easily the best pm and the decade between 1997-2007 were the best years the U.K. has had of recent times
Clearly the viewers didn't understand that Churchill ruled after the war, and that this survey was referring to POST-war premierships.
churchill was shit as a prime minister.
He was a great leader, one of the best but a shit politician
Only good as a war time leader. A drunken fool after that
My overall ranking of PMs from Margaret Thatcher to Boris Johnson:
1. Blair
2.Thatcher
3.Brown
4.Major
5.Cameron
6.May
7.Johnson
Yeah, the others were so bad that Blair takes top spot despite his absolutely botched handling of the Iraq war. This says something about the British electorate who are clearly rather unskilled at picking competent leaders. What a shame really.
I’d Go:
1. Cameron
2. Blair
3. Brown
4. Major
5. May
6. Johnson
7. Thatcher
Very interresting!
Spencer Perceval...... he set an example all British Prime Ministers should follow, but so far sadly none have.
he's the only british PM to have been assassinated
@@mathieuleader8601 PM not MP
His assassins descendant ran for the post of speaker when Bercow retired
@@mathieuleader8601 Yeh, an odd coincidence. And his descendant did something as well.
The top of my list is Harold Wilson.
The best Prime Ministers were Clement Attlee and Tony Blair.
Academics are clowns for rating Cameron and May's foreign policy over brexit as worse than Blair's crap with the Iraq and stuff
Worst prime minister: Liz truss
Reminder: the proportion of U.K. university academics that poll as “left wing” is in the 90%s. So this is doubtful to be a reliably objective measurement.
Still can be objective. Just means that you distrust experts cus they have a different set of values to you. Which is not objective.
Right so you prefer popular sentiment as opposed to experts who scrutinize policies?
Tory governments are notorious for not doing much to push society forward.
Maybe the better statistic is that >90% trained academics and critical thinkers are left wing, tells you something about Left Wing politics.
@@EyebrowsGaming experts can still be wrong because making logical sense =/= being fully accurate. This correlation doesn't make left wing politics objectively correct and right wing politics objectively wrong
@@benm8214 this is a child’s opinion given by someone who hasn’t seen much of the world. You ask people to rate something, they’re rating based on their own individual values and biases. Academics are notoriously untrustworthy in nearly all of their fields bar mathematics and hard science, since there’s defined answers and lab testing (hard to mask your personal biases in a report in science). Many in Humanities are outright campaigners. All an academic job means is you are paid to teach established lore and write whatever nonsense you want in your office time. Most academics don’t have any citations to their name which is how you mark a respected / good one - so why place any stock in their opinions when their contemporaries don’t either?
I think it's also useful to consider region, length of term and the political climate. John Major did an enormous amount towards peace in Northern Ireland, so the societal impact there is really high in a way that doesn't apply to Wales, for example. I would also say that Douglas-Home and and others having short terms, less than a third of ones like Blair or Thatcher, also changes what impact they can have. I would also say that May's term was completely dominated by Brexit, like Heath's was with industrial relations and Atlee's was with post-war rebuilding. These needs present completely different opportunities and problems that makes it difficult/unfair to compare them.
"Pitt the Elder."
"Lord Palmerston!"
Was there a time limit to this? I'd put forward William Gladstone myself.
Wilson really got robbed on society here. Only guy who stood up against imperialism and modernised access to political discourse.
He also legalised being gay and kept us out of the Vietnam war
Are we just leaving Boris Johnson out of it? 😂
Tbf, I think they didn't include him as his term as PM isn't over yet, whereas all other PM's obviously have ended. So it's pretty understandable to why he wasn't included
What - has he ever been Prime Minister?
Got to be Mrs T, didnt agree with everything she did but she was a proper leader who stood by her convictions