A question of the Centuries

[BobG]

Evening chaps

Can anyone think of a time in the past, ever, when both the Government in power and the Official Opposition were totally incapable of leading the country with any vestige of credibility?

I can't think of such a time. Not even when Stanley Baldwin and Ramsay McDonald were at the height of their infamy. Not even when the repeal of the Corn Laws split the Tory party in two. I think what we are witnessing right now is unique in the entire history of this country. Government by habit. That's all we have left.

Well done David Cameron.

I think Cameron has very firmly secured his place in history. He will undoubtedly go down as the worst Prime Minister since Lord North. And it doesn't even need to take into account the leaving of the EC to reach that conclusion.  It's mind boggling the harm he has done to this country. He even had the cheek yesterday to say he loved the place! f**k me sideways. He's got a funny way of showing it.

BobG

[Bentley Bullet]

f**king hell Bob. How old are you!

[bpoolrover]

Has Cameron been worse than tony Blair? Blair took us into a false war!

[BobG]

So he did Blackpool. But he didn't leave the country with neither an effective government nor an effective opposition.

And yes. Cameron is assured of his place in ther hall of fame. Anyone who can make such a staggeringly bad judgement about what he could achieve, destroy the Union as a result, destroy his own career in the process and simultaneously and single handedly create a major and long running economic depression is destined for the very bottom of the heap. And that doesn't even take into account the judgement of history on whether leaving was a good idea or not.

I don't know how the Honours system works really - but Her Maj is definitely very, very keen on maintaining the unity of her Kingdom. She will be livid with what she's seeing now. It would only be a small surprise if Cameron doesn't get the customary gong, knighthood or Lordship once he's gone.

Bob

PS BB: I'm old enough to remember us winning the World Cup My Dad was actually in Wembley that day! Didn't take me with him though.....

[wilts rover]

Suez was certainly as big a crises as we are having now, with both parties divided, but as Gaitskell had only just taken over it would be a bit unfair on him to compare him to Corbyn. Especially as it was his response and reaction that made his reputation.

So I am going for 1922/23. Bonar Law had just won the election but had several grandees within the party hoping he would loose it (or maybe just draw) so they could sieze a bit of power. He sent Baldwin to the States to negotiate the repayment of war debts to the US. Baldwin comes back and annouces to the press that we will be paying back £40m - before he had spoken to Bonar Law and with only having instructions to repay £20m.

The opposition at this time of course being Lloyd George and the Liberals! Who split into two parties and disappeared from politics as Labour emerged as a political force.

[BobG]

Hmm. Possibly mate. But surely Bonar Law still led a government that could credibly claim to have the right and the power and the persona to lead the country?

That's what I think is unique about current events. Neither major party can credibly claim to have the authority with which to lead anybody. I still think it stands alone as an achievement of outstanding ineptitude. (And yes. I know DC isn't responsible for the Labour Party, but it is him that has created the circumstances in which the Party now finds itself)

Bob

[BillyStubbsTears]

Ah f**k it. Who cares? There are more important things to worry about and we'll all be dead eventually.

[wilts rover]

Ah f**k it. Who cares? There are more important things to worry about and we'll all be dead eventually.

That was no comfort to Bonar Law when he was forced to step down with terminal cancer and thus became one of the shortest reigning Prime Ministers in history!

I disagree Bob (this would be apointless thread if I didn't). It was partially the Tory back biting and inner conflict under Bonar Law that led his succesor Baldwin to call a new election in 1924 - that he lost to Labour.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Wilts

I knew next to nothing about the Bonar Law Govt. Thanks for filling in some of the blanks.

I'd have thought that the end of the second Ramsay MacDonald Govt in 1931 and the succeeding National Govt was the last time we had a political crisis on the scale that we have at the moment. And I suspect that the outcome may be the same, in terms of an unhealable wound in the Labour Party.

Earlier today, I remembered a moment 9 years ago when I had the first tremor of what was coming. Around the time of the Northern Rock crisis, I heard Alastair Darling on R4 news one Saturday morning saying that the financial problems on the horizon were similar in scale to those you'd get as a result of a major war.

What we're still living through is the shocks from the tectonic movements that started off in the 07/08 crash. If that crash had not happened, or if we'd responded in a more economically logical way, both here and in Europe, immigration would be a minor issue and we'd all have better things to concern ourselves with than arguing about the EU.

But we've had a generation of political pygmies who have had no idea how to address the fallout of the Great Crash. Just like the political pygmies of the 1920s had no idea how to address the fractures of WWI.

God alone knows what the endgame is from here.

[wilts rover]

Here we are - and where do we go from here? Harold Macmillan after Suez.

Bit of light reading that compares the referendum with Suez and the invasion of Iraq. Lets hope for the outcome of the final paragraph eh.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/jun/26/referendum-david-cameron-suez-crisis-invasion-iraq