1930S Bristish Prime Ministers

[CARLHAYDEN]

I finally got time to read the second volume in William Manchester's biography of Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Church (The Last Lion), and came across some interesting information about which I was previously unaware, but which left me with a question.

Now, I knew enough of British politics of the 1930s to realize that Ramsay McDonald acted like a b@$+@rd, but I was suprised to learn that he came by it naturally (i.e. he was one from birth).

However, this led me to wonder how Bristish party members and mps view, McDonald, Baldwin and Chamberlain today.

So, will our British members please enlighten me.

[afleitch]

My late Labour voting grandfather never forgave Macdonald for the National Government. I myself don't tend to like those who sellout their party (like the SDP for example) but he did what he did, in his mind, for the good of a depression gripped country though he was really the Labour face of a very conservative government.

Baldwin in the 30's was in his third tenure as PM in the 1930's and was not as effective. His foreign policy was lacklustre and he was more concerned with the abdication crisis. But that was how it was- Britains mind was focused at home.

Chamberlain has had an historical 'aquittal' of late. His policy of appeasement was probably the only realisitc option avaliable to Britain at the time. We couldn't have logistically been able to go to war. Even in 1939 it was risky. Domestically he was pretty good- quite 'one nation.' He looked closely at health and home-building programmes as Britain clawed its way out of the depression.

[CARLHAYDEN]

Thanks for your response.

From what I have heard from friends in the UK, McDonald is still held in approbrium fo being a 'stooge' for Baldwin.

There also seems among British Conservatives an aversion to intelligent, articulate, principle leaders.  Great leaders like D'israeli, Churchill and Thatcher were only accepted reluctantly. 

[Filuwaúrdjan]

In general, some of the very worst government's in modern British history. My family (and millions of others) suffered a hell of a lot during the Depression and they didn't lift a finger to help. Their economic and social policies were comically backward (albeit in a rather dark way) and did nothing to help anyone (except for the City Fathers o/c). A bunch of incompetent idiots that got elected by playing nationalist/appeasementish cards that seem extremely crude today. They [the "National" politicians] got their come'uppance, and then some, in 1945 though.

As for MacDonald; put simply, he was the second coming of Judas Iscariot.

[CARLHAYDEN]

It seems to me that the disasters who served as PM in the UK in the thirties remind me of the disasters who served as President of the U.S. in the seventies.

While the left has (from what I have learned) a low opinion of MacConald, it seems to me that the Conservatives really fell comfortable with 'the vicar' and the the great appeaser.  If this is true then they would confirm Burke's description of them as 'the stupid party.'

[minionofmidas]

Britain in the depression was odd because, unlike on the continent, not everywhere was heavily affected. Large areas of the South of England weren't really worse off than before. This made the Tories' policies feasible, of course - in France or Germany or the US, they'd have had their balls handed to them on a bloodsmeared silver plate.
Basically they governed as the Dems accused Hoover of governing. (Thatcher's England would be an albeit weak echo of that, which probably helps to explain just why the woman became THIS hated. The 1970s US presidents are to these guys as a six car pile-up to the Vietnam War.)

[Serenity Now]

Chamberlain has had an historical 'aquittal' of late. His policy of appeasement was probably the only realisitc option avaliable to Britain at the time. We couldn't have logistically been able to go to war. Even in 1939 it was risky. Domestically he was pretty good- quite 'one nation.' He looked closely at health and home-building programmes as Britain clawed its way out of the depression.

He did[i/] oversee a massive policy of re-armament a couple of years before the war