Ranking the last five Tory prime ministers from best to worst

The Independent

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00:00Today, John and I thought we would look at the last five prime ministers,

00:03all Tory prime ministers since 2010, and rank them from best to worst.

00:08Right, so let's start with Rishi, current prime minister.

00:13I'm going to put him as the best, assuming that's the best side.

00:18I think he's got the temperament and the character to be prime minister.

00:22I think he took over at a terrible time.

00:26But he has tried to take the right decisions in the national interest,

00:32only it hasn't worked out.

00:33I think we might have to slightly change how we're describing this.

00:37I think we might have to change it to least worst.

00:40I don't necessarily disagree with you about Rishi.

00:44I think one of the things, and this is, again,

00:47why Keir Starmer has been so lucky in this election,

00:49but one of the things that Rishi has done is he has spent much of the last year

00:53trying to clear up some of the messes from his predecessors.

00:56Exactly.

00:57Especially, I would suggest, one Boris Johnson.

01:00Absolutely.

01:01I think he lost the election pretty much as soon as he took over.

01:05I think he lost the election.

01:09The first story about Partygate.

01:12If you look at the polls, there is a huge and significant dip

01:16whenever the public finds out about Partygate.

01:19I think it's because Boris Johnson introduced doubt into millions of people's lives.

01:26It's been a terrible, terrible thing.

01:27By doubt, I mean millions of people thought that they did the right thing

01:32whenever they didn't see their wife in a care home,

01:35whenever they said goodbye to their dying mother over Zoom,

01:38whenever they didn't go to a funeral.

01:40Finding out about parties in Downing Street just makes them think

01:43maybe they didn't do the right thing.

01:45That's a terrible thing to have to live with for the rest of your life.

01:48I think this is the point at which Rishi Sunak lost the election

01:53and then that cemented it.

01:55So what, you agree that Rishi Sunak is the best of the five?

01:58I was going to say, I think it's a joint between him and Theresa May.

02:03But Theresa achieved absolutely nothing.

02:05I mean, she just got completely stuck on Brexit

02:08and didn't have the imaginative capacity to get her way out of it.

02:13Well, I'm not sure...

02:13I mean, she had integrity and she tried very hard,

02:17but that was not good enough.

02:19I'm not sure what you're arguing that Rishi Sunak

02:21has particularly achieved in the last 18 months.

02:25He cancelled HS2, that was good enough for me.

02:27I suppose he did sort out the Brexit problems

02:30between the EU over Northern Ireland.

02:32Again, this is just a self-created problem that then he's come in and solved

02:36and it didn't even necessarily have to be solved in the first place

02:39because it shouldn't have happened in the first place.

02:41This is the problem.

02:42This is the problem with what we're talking about.

02:44It's a kind of 14 years that includes a lot of chaos

02:48and a lot of people coming in to sort out the chaos.

02:51Yes, but why is Theresa May so good?

02:55I mean, what did she actually achieve?

02:57I think she studied the ship after someone who we will get to later left,

03:03not taking responsibility for his actions.

03:06No, no, no, no, that's completely wrong.

03:07I think it was important he had to study the ship.

03:10He had to go after he lost the referendum.

03:13I mean, this idea that he sort of ran away and didn't take responsibility.

03:17If he tried to stay and implement what he so passionately did not want,

03:24people would have been up in arms.

03:26I mean, neighbours would have said...

03:27You're just far too nice.

03:29This is part of the problem, right?

03:31Nobody's saying that he had to stay for the next three years

03:33and try and pretend that he hadn't done a massive mistake.

03:38What we're saying is he didn't have to leave that morning

03:41in what people have described as a bit of a fit of pique,

03:45where he just said,

03:46fine, I caused this massive problem.

03:49I didn't want to.

03:50Now somebody else has to sort it out.

03:52And then what happened was, as you know,

03:55Brexit and the future of this country was up for grabs

04:00without the person who had been in charge for the last six years.

04:05And I think that was an abrogation of responsibility.

04:08No, it was Boris and Michael Gove

04:11who were unable to get their act together after the referendum,

04:16who allowed it all to go to pieces.

04:19And that's why we required Theresa to come in and sort it out.

04:24I think the people who didn't want a hard Brexit

04:27had to stay on the pitch and fight for that.

04:32So I think, I mean, Boris is one of the worst of the five,

04:36although I personally put Liz Truss

04:41most worst.

04:44The worst of the lot was Liz Truss.

04:47Well, look, I think we're going to get to this in a minute.

04:51I think we should talk about this man, right,

04:53who did a huge amount of damage

04:59by taking trust in politicians,

05:02which was already on the floor post expenses.

05:06And making it worse.

05:07And I think that plus Brexit will be part of his legacy.

05:12But controversially, I think his legacy

05:17and his legacy and her legacy,

05:20these are footnotes in history.

05:22These are a couple of lines.

05:23The history books,

05:24it's not that they're not going to be kind to these people,

05:26it's that they will barely mention these people.

05:29And the history books will concentrate

05:32because of the long-term effects,

05:33one man and one man only.

05:36I'm sorry, I think I'm moving him

05:40because history is not...

05:41You can't move him.

05:42You can't move him to worse than Liz Truss.

05:44I am moving him to worse than Liz Truss.

05:46History is not going to be kind.

05:48Never mind these five.

05:49Liz Truss is worse than Anthony Eden,

05:52worse than Godrej, worse than Rochester.

05:56She is the worst prime minister ever.

05:58The long-term effects of his decision,

06:02which he didn't want to happen.

06:04Of the British people's decision.

06:06Of what he created, including abandoning the field

06:13and allowing it to be a harder Brexit

06:15than necessarily he wanted.

06:17The long-term effects of David Cameron's decisions

06:20are going to last much longer than the long-term effects

06:21of Liz Truss's decisions.

06:24Liz Truss was prime minister for seven weeks.

06:26I mean, the only good thing that Liz Truss did

06:29was to recognise that she wasn't up to the job

06:31and to quit extremely quickly.

06:34But not before huge damage was done to the Conservative Party.

06:39Yes, I think we both agree that the good thing that she did

06:42was realise the game was up.

06:46Right, so I think we've concluded that

06:52these two are the best.

06:54These two are the worst, although I'd put them like that.

07:00And he was useless in the middle.

07:02Um, I think that's about it.

07:05And so if people want to know why we're heading

07:09for a Labour landslide on the 4th of July,

07:12they just have to look at these pictures.

07:14Exhibit A.

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