Margaret Thatcher narrowly beats David Cameron to be named worst prime minister of the century
Despite her top ranking in the poll, Lib Dem Lord Paddy Ashdown declared the Iron Lady as one of the most successful prime ministers of all time
DAVID Cameron has been narrowly beaten by Margaret Thatcher for the title of the century’s worst prime minister.
Members of the Historical Writers’ Association were asked to consider the 19 prime ministers who have led the UK since 1916 and Thatcher came first with 24% of the vote.
Cameron was not far behind with 22% and Neville Chamberlain came in third with 17%.
The biggest problem the authors had with her time in charge was her attitude to society, saying she had a “lack of compassion”.
But she did receive some praise from the Lib Dem Lord Paddy Ashdown who said during her time in charge, from 1979 to 1990, she was “a great and necessary destroyer”.
And he said he would count her as one of the most successful prime ministers of all time.
He said: “I disagreed with Mrs Thatcher, I fought her all the way.
“But I thought she was a great and necessary destroyer.
“Some of those old structures she pulled down had to be pulled down, but what she wasn’t was a builder.
“Oddly enough, this will offend some, I put her down as one of the most successful PMs of all time, not because I agreed with her, but because she laid out her stall and she achieved it, and Britain in many ways was stronger afterwards – although in many ways it was also weaker, particularly our sense of communities,” The Guardian reports.
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Tony Blair was in fourth place, with 11% of the vote, and Gordon Brown and Edward Heath were in joint fifth with 8% each.
In joint sixth, with 2% of the vote each, were Anthony Eden, Herbert Henry Asquith and Andrew Bonar Law.
The other 10 prime ministers did not receive any nominations from the 45 writers who took part in the survey.
Ashdown said Cameron was “One of the most dangerous prime ministers we’ve had, not because he’s not a decent man, he’s a very decent man, but because he just didn’t think, in his casual Eton-bred insouciance, about taking this huge and vitally important decision for Britain.”
And author Tom Harper, the programming chair of the Harrogate History festival, agreed, saying: “Neville Chamberlain had to contend with Hitler, Eden with Nasser: Cameron couldn’t see off Nigel Farage.”
The third-placed Chamberlain was Ashdown’s personal choice for the “worst prime minister” label, saying: “I think Chamberlain could have personally prevented the Second World War.
“He was certainly warned by the German opposition what Hitler was and he chose to ignore it, and the consequence was eight million people dead.
“I don’t blame him for those deaths but I remain of the view that if he’d taken the right decision, as he was encouraged to when Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, the Second World War would not have happened.”