Who would be the worst PLAUSIBLE British Prime Minister?

Thande

Donor
I'm surprised we've all been mature enough for no-one to suggest that the worst plausible British PM has, in fact, already been PM in OTL ;) (And I could be referring to quite a few of them, too).

Can't think of anyone offhand to add to the list, though I have to wonder what Charles James Fox being PM in the 1780s would have been like w.r.t. the French Revolution...
 
David Miliband, Blair-lite.

Blair was a rather shoddy PM, but Miliband is no Tony Blair.

I don't really understand the negative comments on this thread Milliband and Kinnock. Both were/are modernisers but believe in modernising social democracy, rather than basically abandoning it as Blair did.
 
or, if his peerage had not got in the way,

More like if the fact that nobody liked him had got in the way. The peerage was more the excuse, than the reason. Hard becoming PM as a 'most superior person'. (Although personally I think Curzon would have been a pretty good PM - certainly no worse than many we had historically, maybe even better than the admittedly very low average for the period in question)

Get Douglas Home out of the way and the "Magic Circle" might go for him post MacMillian...

??

Both were/are modernisers but believe in modernising social democracy, rather than basically abandoning it as Blair did.

I'm not sure why you would think this - Kinnock has accepted pretty much all the totemic Blairite policy innovations you could name, or actually originated them in many cases as 'blue-sky' thought during his leadership - student tuition fees (As I recall he was one of the first people in the party arguing for this) reform of Clause 4, etc. Kinnock would also have been just as dictatorial in government as Blair was, and about as unprincipled. In fact, I'd say in his leadership and post-leadeship guisess, Kinnock was actually more right-wing than many on Labour's old right, like Smith, Hattersley, etc. It's noticeable and relevant that many of the people that were very close to Kinnock (Charles Clarke, Patricia Hewitt, Peter Mandelson) all did very well indeed under Blair. Kinnock is in many ways the ur-Blair.

Think of a less controlled, less savyy, much more gaffe-prone version of Blair and you pretty much have Kinnock-as-PM. The main difference would be the fact that the papers always hated Kinnock, so he'd probably be more combative with sections of the media. (Although it's hard to imagine a more servile approach than that which Blair often took.)
 
Last edited:

Thande

Donor
Think of a less controlled, less savyy, much more gaffe-prone version of Blair and you pretty much have Kinnock-as-PM. The main difference would be the fact that the papers always hated Kinnock, so he'd probably be more combative with sections of the media. (Although it's hard to imagine a more servile approach than that which Blair often took.)
I broadly accept your argument here although I think Kinnock is still somewhat to the left of Blair...but I think you make an important point in this last paragraph. Blair's control of the media and political skill meant that he could have got away with practically anything in my opinion - he could probably have advanced a Footite agenda if he'd wanted to and still managed to win the next election.
 
Blair's control of the media and political skill meant that he could have got away with practically anything in my opinion - he could probably have advanced a Footite agenda if he'd wanted to and still managed to win the next election.

theres a TL i'd like to see :D
 
although I think Kinnock is still somewhat to the left of Blair...

Maybe, but I think that people's perceptions are somewhat clouded by the simple fact that Labour as a whole was much more left-wing than it is now. Everyone's political centre of gravity has moved to the right since then, and the leaders of the party have reflected that.

If Kinnock was leader now, then he would be well within 'new Labour', and if Blair had been leader back then, he would be more or less where Kinnock was in terms of policy - he'd have to be. If Blair had become part of a Kinnock government, then he would happily have implemented those policies, while, like Kinnock, pushing to go further.

Kinnock was not of the 'do as much as we need to do to get elected' mould. Kinnock was of the same mould as Blair, which is the 'we have to do every thing we possibly can, and then even more' mould. Kinnock's problem was that near the end of his leadership, he ran out of steam and ideas, not that he didn't want the party to go any further.

but I think you make an important point in this last paragraph.

Well, people forget that throughout the 80's the media was largely divided between pro-Tory and pro-SDP wings. Simplified, but essentially true. The pro-SDP wing only began to migrate back to Labour/the Tories after the demise of that party, and went to Labour emotionally and with gusto after Blair became leader. Blair is really the heir to David Owen in terms of the media. There was always a good portion of the media which was a sap for a charismatic, moderate leader - they were just in hibernation at points.
 
Last edited:

My line of thought was that for some reason (Benn the Elder living longer, perhaps) there's no Stansgate case and therefore no Peerages Act. Come 1963, Douglas Home is stuck in the Lords and so isn't eligable to be a compromise candidate between Butler and Hogg (not that Hogg would be a candidate as he would be stuck in the Lords too IIRC). In such a situation, the "Magic Circle" might want to advance Churchill as their compromise candidate...

Ok, so it's more likely that Macleod is the 'stop Rab' candidate. But wouldn't Randolph the younger as PM be fun in a macabre sort of way?
 
Maggie, of course.
Go on, call me a bitter lefty...:p

Seriously, I'd say Mosley. Then again, the times when he was even close to becoming PM, he hadn't visited Mussolini, and so hadn't yet become a fascist. If he was PM with the BUF then, well, it's a pretty dystopian place regardless.
 
Maybe, but I think that people's perceptions are somewhat clouded by the simple fact that Labour as a whole was much more left-wing than it is now. Everyone's political centre of gravity has moved to the right since then, and the leaders of the party have reflected that.

If Kinnock was leader now, then he would be well within 'new Labour', and if Blair had been leader back then, he would be more or less where Kinnock was in terms of policy - he'd have to be. If Blair had become part of a Kinnock government, then he would happily have implemented those policies, while, like Kinnock, pushing to go further.

Kinnock was not of the 'do as much as we need to do to get elected' mould. Kinnock was of the same mould as Blair, which is the 'we have to do every thing we possibly can, and then even more' mould. Kinnock's problem was that near the end of his leadership, he ran out of steam and ideas, not that he didn't want the party to go any further.



Well, people forget that throughout the 80's the media was largely divided between pro-Tory and pro-SDP wings. Simplified, but essentially true. The pro-SDP wing only began to migrate back to Labour/the Tories after the demise of that party, and went to Labour emotionally and with gusto after Blair became leader. Blair is really the heir to David Owen in terms of the media. There was always a good portion of the media which was a sap for a charismatic, moderate leader - they were just in hibernation at points.

Interesting what you have written and as you say the whole political centre of gravity has shifted strongly to the right over the past two decades. After all Tony Blair was associated with the soft left in the early 80's when he was first elected as an MP (which wing of the Labour Party was Gordon Brown associated with during the early part of his political career?) It is rather a strange irony that the most reforming leaders of the Labour Party came from the soft left, rather than the right of the party as you might expect.

I know it's off-topic, but if Labour were to have had a leader who could have modernised social democracy but not fundamentally abandoned it, who would it have been? Or was it just electorally unviable by the late 1980's and early 1990's to do this?
 
I know it's off-topic, but if Labour were to have had a leader who could have modernised social democracy but not fundamentally abandoned it, who would it have been?

Simple answer really is to put the party in the hands of the right - Hattersley, Smith, etc. I think one day I might do a 'Smith handles Westland' mini-TL. Not sure how you'd get that though.


Are you confusing him with someone else? Randolph wasn't a Member of Parliament at this point - unless there was one of those bizzare schemes going round to this effect? Not being a member would be rectifable, but the Tories would never realistically have made PM someone with no Cabinet experience in this period.
 
Last edited:
Top