Iron Lady crowned most effective PM

[ShadesWolf]

She must have a state funeral

Winston Churchill may have been voted the public's "Greatest Briton" but one historian has decided he was not even our second best prime minister of the 20th century.

Tory "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher and post-war Labour leader Clement Attlee both outscored him in a new study of occupants of 10 Downing Street by Francis Beckett.

Tony Blair has been so hamstrung by his decision to join the war in Iraq that he should be considered less effective than ex-Conservative premier Edward Heath, he argued.

And John Major's battles to control his own backbenches meant he only just outscored Neville Chamberlain and Anthony Eden.

Mr Beckett ranked the 20 Prime Ministers, from Lord Salisbury to the present incumbent, with a score of one to five for the latest issue of BBC History Magazine.

In 2002, millions of viewers of a BBC television series selected Second World War leader Churchill as the "greatest Briton of all time".

However, Mr Beckett's assessment was based on the politicians' ability to put their visions for changing the country into practice.

Lady Thatcher - who led the country from 1979 to 1990 and is one of only three on the list still living - scored a maximum five.

The historian said that was because she "took one sort of society, and turned it into another sort of society". He picked her victory over the mineworkers as a key moment.

Joint winner Attlee led the Labour Government from 1945-51 which set up the welfare state and nationalised industry, creating an enduring consensus only dismantled by Lady Thatcher.

[Kralizec]

She must have a state funeral

The sooner the better?

[Tribesman]

The sooner the better?
Only if they throw Mark in the grave as well .

[scotchedpommes]

The sooner the better?
Only if they throw Mark in the grave as well .

I trust this would be after having a firing squad from Equatorial Guinea sort him
out.

[Duke of Gloucester]

The historian said that was because she "took one sort of society, and turned it into another sort of society". He picked her victory over the mineworkers as a key moment.

He is assuming that this is the definition of a great prime minister. I think that having a vision and imposing it on the nation is not necessarily in the nation's interest. If you accept his criteria for judging prime ministers then Atlee and Thatcher score well, but if we had lost the war or returned to appeasement when France fell, then Maggie and Clem could have had as many visions as they wanted, they just would not have been able to put them in to effect. For that reason, ranking them above Churchill is flawed.

As for a state funeral, Atlee did not get one so Maggie shouldn't either.

[Ja'chyra]

She must have a state funeral

Have it in Scotland

[Red Peasant]

There are lots of very deep, empty mine-shafts lying idle in this country, so chuck her in one and fill it up with concrete.

[ShadesWolf]

There are lots of very deep, empty mine-shafts lying idle in this country, so chuck her in one and fill it up with concrete.

Yes that made no money and had to be supported by the government. So in normal PRIVATE business, they would shut, go out of business.

But then you add Labour, Trade Unions and nationalization into the picture............ And we go back to the good old days of the 1970's.

[Al Khalifah]

Haha.... this came from the BBC, which means its going to be wholy South-Eastern-centric rubbish. Perhaps in the Home Counties she can be considered the most effective prime-minister but come and visit the devastation her 'glorious-reign' brought to Yorkshire and judge for yourself. 'Police brutality' is a phrase that comes to mind.

Personally I hope her body is left to rot along with the rest of that sordid regime.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I think you're confusing effictive with good, whether she was good or not is open but she certainly effected the changes she wanted.

That said a score out of five is hardly scientific.

[rory_20_uk]

Considering the mass of people can not remember back to a time pre Thatcher it is not surprising that she is thought of the best - especially when one thinks of the alternatives.

Post-war Conservatives and Labour seemed content for Britain to decline into oblivion. Thatcher made enemies as she dared force a dose of reality on people. Unemployed were placed on the street, not clogging up businesses; at least then they can get proper employment.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Good to see that you folks can hold a political grudge so thoroughly. I'd thought the lingering hastred for Ron Reagan was a bit unique....I should have known better.

[Duke Malcolm]

Here's Maggie Thatcher
Throw Her up and catch Her
Squish Her, Squash Her
No more Maggie Thatcher.

[ShadesWolf]

DM

[Tribesman]

Yes that made no money and had to be supported by the government.
What you mean like the Nuclear industry , the transport industry .........
So in normal PRIVATE business, they would shut, go out of business.

errrrrr.....didn't maggies privatisations not only increase the amount of subsidies the industries recieved , but also kept all the debts for the tax payer to pay while giving the tax payers assets away for peanuts .

So now you have coal mines that are no longer producing coal , no longer providing employment yet you still have to pay for the maintainance of the pits , great idea isn't it .
Instead of spending money and getting something for it you are now spending money and getting nothing .
Still I suppose the fact that you now have to import nearly all of your coal is good for the balance sheet .

I don't get it Shades , you moan about waste of tax payers money and about the taxes you have to pay , yet you support a move that not only robbed you blind but saddled you with an increased tax bill .

[Red Peasant]

Well, when Maggie's fanboys stop talking gibberish about 'State Funerals' then maybe I'll mollify my position somewhat to letting her be lowered gently down the pit, and then the concrete poured in. I'm a considerate and reasonable chap after all.

Oh, and I could do without the hagiographic preaching.

[Al Khalifah]

Thatcher closed the pits because they were losing money. The result - thousands of minors on the dole costing the taxpayer even more money and they don't even have the pride of doing a days work.

Seems British people will one day never be allowed to do any job that doesn't involve a phone and/or a PC.

[Mithras]

Thatcher closed the pits because they were losing money. The result - thousands of minors on the dole costing the taxpayer even more money and they don't even have the pride of doing a days work.

Seems British people will one day never be allowed to do any job that doesn't involve a phone and/or a PC.

Practical concerns should never get in the way of 'reminding people of their place', considering the dubious modern british economy I'd recomend placing a stake in thatchers heart to ensure she doesnt rise again.

[Prodigal]

NFW should she have a state funeral. I mean...What did she actually do to better the UK? Anbody? Without being facetious I really can't think of one thing she did that had an beneficial effect upon my life.

I'll admit that the I do remeber the pre thatcher strikes, & that it wasn't a great deal of fun, but honestly...To compare her with Nelson, Churchill, Wellesley, Palmerston, Gladstone, & Disraeli...please.

[drone]

Barney: [in Moe's Tavern] And I say, that England's greatest Prime Minister was Lord Palmerston!
Wade Boggs: Pitt the Elder!
Barney: Lord Palmerston!
Wade Boggs: Pitt the Elder!
Barney: Okay, you asked for it, Boggs! [punches him out]
Moe: Yeah, that's showing him, Barn'!
Moe: [disbelieving]Pitt the Elder..
Barney: Lord Palmerston! [punches him out]

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

NFW should she have a state funeral. I mean...What did she actually do to better the UK? Anbody? Without being facetious I really can't think of one thing she did that had an beneficial effect upon my life.

I'll admit that the I do remeber the pre thatcher strikes, & that it wasn't a great deal of fun, but honestly...To compare her with Nelson, Churchill, Wellesley, Palmerston, Gladstone, & Disraeli...please.

Well lets be honest, at the time we needed Thatcher, the country would have ground to a halt otherwise. Three day working weeks, anybody?

I'm not saying she did everything right and some things she took too far, but she got the country moving again and she won the Falklands. That, irrc is the main arguement for a State Funeral, she won a war.

[ShadesWolf]

Just a question, how many people here were around during the 70's and can remember what it was like?

I for one can, I can remember my dad being on strike most of the time as he was a shop-steward.

I have also worked for 18 years in the motor industry and have seen first hand what the unions and their power did. I can remember Red Robbo

IMHO Maggie saved this country.......... we were the poor relation in Europe, no economy and a laughing stock.

[Duke Malcolm]

DM

No, no, no. That is a rhyme from my infancy, common amongst children, probably not so much now. There were even actions to go with the lines.

[Red Peasant]

I can certainly remember the 70s, and the 80s, and the early 90s SW. Things have been much better since, not perfect, but much better, under Labour. MT was the most effective leader in dividing the country, that I'll admit, may she rot.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

I can certainly remember the 70s, and the 80s, and the early 90s SW. Things have been much better since, not perfect, but much better, under Labour. MT was the most effective leader in dividing the country, that I'll admit, may she rot.

Things were better under John Major.

What has Labour done?

They've taken a country in the black and put it so far in the red it will take decades to pay off.

They have politicised the Civil Service, resulting in chaos and an ever growing tax bill. The service may never recover.

They have eroded age old institutions and Civil Liberties. Even a thousand years ago you couldn't be tried for the same crime twice.

The presided over the farce that is devolution, which has left the English seriously diss-enfranchised.

Rising unemployment and poverty, and a greater gap than rich and poor.

The Erosion of English soverinty.

They have left the House of Lords a half-way house with no real form and no certain future.

Not content with that they also undid some of the good things the Conservatives and their forebears did.

Exit controls, anyone?

How about the 11+ and Grammar schools, the closing of Grammar Schools in England and Wales has reduced social mobility considerably.

---------------------

As far as I can tell the only good things they did were hand interest rates to the bank of England and introduce the minimum wage.

Both of those were Gorden Brown's ideas. Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti-left wing. It would be really nice to have some left wing government. Currently however Labour is right of the Conservatives.

[Red Peasant]

Not only did I live through all this, but I worked through much of it in heavy industry (aluminium smelting and extrusion). We never had a strike whilst I was there, although there had been a short one in the early seventies before my time, ironically under Heath's Tory regime.

The myth is that the unions and the workers were destroying the country, yet an intelligent assessment of the seventies should also take into account:

>Lack of effective management: poor skills, no long-term strategies, short-term fixes (I've seen British 'management' in action, pitiable for most part).
>Lack of investment in ageing infrastructure: again, no vision and short term gains squandered (I saw this affect my old industry disastrously, one with an excellent industrial relations record for decades).
>A series of global economic crises, especially over energy. Thatcher reaped the rewards of North Sea oil more than anyone as its effects really started to kick in.
>Note that the only two countries to really thrive in that period were Germany and Japan, the defeated nations of WWII, who were re-built almost from the ground up but had the industrial expertise to exploit the investment and forward planning that gave their industries the edge.
>Yes, the unions played their part, but they were a symptom, not a cause, of Britain's deep economic malaise in that era.

As for the eighties, Thatcher was almost a dead duck two years into her premiership when she was saved by the Falkland War. She had been almost completely ineffective.

[thrashaholic]

A lot of people here severely need a lesson in economics. What Thatcher did needed to be done to reverse the effects of the foul cancerous beast that is nationalised industry.

Lets start from the beginning shall we...

The primary problem with nationalised industry is that of efficiency, a problem that can then be broken down into scale, decision making, and competition. It's not just nationalised industry that has these problems, however nationalised industry struggles with every one of them.

Nationalised industry is in essence a government monopoly. Consequently, it can display all the negative attributes of a monopoly, but on top of that it is also a political entity. As a result it can hold supreme market power (even more than the 20% that defines a normal monopoly), people either get the good or service from the government or they go without (this is why having state run utilities is especially dangerous), and as a consequence there is no feedback from the 'market' and the government industry suffers from massively imperfect information (which of course the government will deny because that is the nature of politics).

This lack of information that otherwise automatically flows through pluralist markets poses a real problem for governments. To allocate scarce resources effificiently people must know what the various agents in the production and consumption process are capable of, what they require, how much to produce etc. (the major problem in the NHS at the moment n'est pas?) This process happens automatically in the free market because of the profit motive (thanks Adam Smith) and diminishing marginal utility (thanks Alfred Marshall). With the free market eliminated governments must find other ways of obtaining this information, so they generally just ask...

However they will run into the problem of 'plan bargaining'; people may discover that giving innaccurate information is in their advantage. If targets are set and resources allocated on the basis of information revealed, then it is better to be conservative about what is possible, pessimistic about what is needed, and optimistic about the benefits that will result. However, the people who obtain the information will learn what is going on and alter the weight of the information as they see it should be, the result of which makes the information even more distorted, decisions less objective and the process even more inefficient.

To help increase efficiency governments will set targets, offer incentives and dish out punishments, but this tends to create more problems than it solves. It makes all people involved in the system 'yes-men'. The central planning authority sets the targets, incentives and punishments, so the peoplebelow do what they need to to be 'useful' and get the incentive. They act on the imperfect decisions of the central authority bred of bad information to maximise reward and selectively provide feedback information to the central planning authority once again to maximise reward. So, as a result, the central planning authority doesn't know what to do and when it's done it, it doesn't know what's going on. What a mess.

This problem is also encountered in the management of large private-sector organisations, (but is prevented to a certain extent by the pluralism of the market, the profit motive, and accountability to share holders) and in the decisions made as a result of lobby and pressure groups. The problem is always the same though: the information needed to determine the targets appropriately is held by the people in the schools and hospitals, not in central government, and those in the schools and hospitals aren't going to give it over to cental government, at least not in any accurate sort of state. So, because the information to control the system is extensive and impossible to obtain, the government focusses on a few important (in their ill-informed eyes at least) areas, but these are subject to 'Goodhart's Law': any measure adopted as a target changes its meaning:

"If hospitals are judged by the number of people who wait more than twelve months for an operation, then the number of people who wait more than twlve months for an operation is likely to fall, but whather the service given to patients is better or worse is another matter altogether. If corporate executives receive bonuses related to earnings per share, then earnings per share will rise, but whether the business is better or more valuable is quite another question.
The invetible result of these processes is the proliferation of targets. These become confusing and inconsistent, and undermine the authority and morale of thtose who engage in the activities which are being planned." - John Kay (Fellow of St. John's College Oxford), The Truth About Markets

Centralised authority is nearly always bad stuff, and since this is always a feature of state-run industry, they are bad stuff too.

What you mean like the Nuclear industry...?

The central Nuclear industry that built the five AGR gas-cooled reactors? A lovely little 1964 Labour government initiative: "white heat of technology" my eye. Fred Lee (trade unionist and Minister of Energy) couldn't have been more wrong when he declared "I am quite sure we have hit the jackpot," about the reactors and their export potential.

An average of 20 years to build, 30 years before output matched what was planned and a total cost of £50 billion. The Central Electricity Generating Board at its finest...

Or possibly do you mean the £3 billion Sizewell B?

It's a blessing we washed our hands of them when we did (1996), even if they were only sold for £1.9 billion minus future decomissioning costs.

We should've just abandoned the project, even with billions sunk into it. If the AGRs had been built by a private firm, the project would've been by far and away the largest loss made by a company anywhere in business history ever.

All of this waste because of central planning, good thing Maggie stopped the trend eh?

Oh and the transport industry... did you know that almost every single railway and canal built in Britain during the industrial revolution was a private, profit making venture, whilst countries like France and Russia relied on largely central planning for theirs? Guess which one had the better, more efficient, more useful rail system?

The pluralism of the market is a marvelous thing wouldn't you all agree?

[Petrus]

Oh and the transport industry... did you know that almost every single railway and canal built in Britain during the industrial revolution was a private, profit making venture, whilst countries like France and Russia relied on largely central planning for theirs? Guess which one had the better, more efficient, more useful rail system?

At the same time, it was also a private industry in France.

It was nationalized and centralized after WWII.

If you want to see which system is the most efficient, just try to take the train in london to travel to the south of france, it will take you more time and cost you more money to go from london to the tunnel than to go from the tunnel to marseille.

Maybe what you wrote was true in the XIX th century, but it is not in the XXI th century.

The french nationalized railway company does not distribute profits, but it does not cost anything to the tax payer, it is efficient because it was conceived as an efficient transport system without having to distribute profits to share holders.

[Vladimir]

Well that's good. From what I know of the lady I'm very impressed. Some of the complainers need to remember that perfect is the enemy of good; I'll take the latter over an attempt at the former. She's a solid lady, I really respect her.

[ShadesWolf]

Not only did I live through all this, but I worked through much of it in heavy industry (aluminium smelting and extrusion). We never had a strike whilst I was there, although there had been a short one in the early seventies before my time, ironically under Heath's Tory regime.

The myth is that the unions and the workers were destroying the country, yet an intelligent assessment of the seventies should also take into account:

>Lack of effective management: poor skills, no long-term strategies, short-term fixes (I've seen British 'management' in action, pitiable for most part)..

- Hard choices cannot be made when unions are strong and have closed shops

>Lack of investment in ageing infrastructure: again, no vision and short term gains squandered (I saw this affect my old industry disastrously, one with an excellent industrial relations record for decades).

sounds like you are talking about nationalized industry, keep up the good work

>A series of global economic crises, especially over energy. Thatcher reaped the rewards of North Sea oil more than anyone as its effects really started to kick in.
>Note that the only two countries to really thrive in that period were Germany and Japan, the defeated nations of WWII, who were re-built almost from the ground up but had the industrial expertise to exploit the investment and forward planning that gave their industries the edge.

- Yes I agree I cant disagree with anything you have said in this part.

>Yes, the unions played their part, but they were a symptom, not a cause, of Britain's deep economic malaise in that era.

- we must be living on different planets, my father worked for a private company, and as I stated earlier was a shop-steward. The outcome of hte unions action was the company closed down and moved abroad due to industrial action.

As I also said earlier, I have worked for over 18 years in the motor industry and have seen the effects of what nationalization did to the British car industry. Thanks to the lack of investment and the power of the unions, we know dont have one.

Well done Labour, take a profitable bunch of companies in 1969 and turn them into a dead carcass within ten years.

From an earlier post by myself

IN 1968/9 a LABOUR governemnt nationalised a number of successful BRITISH motor companies. At that time the combined market share was 40%

The company became an infamous monument to the industrial turmoil that plagued Britain in the 1970s. At its peak, BL owned nearly 40 different manufacturing plants across the country. Rivalry between the individual marques which had previously been competitors prior to the merger resulted in a product range which was incoherent and full of duplication. This, combined with serious industrial relations problems (principally, the company's relations with hard-line Socialist Trade Unions of the time), and ineffectual management meant that BL became an unmanageable and financially crippled bethemoth whose bankruptcy in 1975 was inevitable.

Anybody want to talk about British coal next ?

As for the eighties, Thatcher was almost a dead duck two years into her premiership when she was saved by the Falkland War. She had been almost completely ineffective.

- we will never know will we