Great Political Leaders

bingefeller

digitalscream said:

nick_s said:

Many hate me for it, but Margaret Thatcher.  We need a leader of her calibre now.  The title Iron Lady was earned.

You need strong leaders, who see things through come thick or thin.  Weakness is not a quality we need in a leader, and sadly, very few have it now.  It remains to be seen if Theresa May does.

I suspect May is trying to be like Thatcher; the problem is that she sees authoritarianism as Thatcher's defining characteristic, which it really wasn't.

What do you think Thatcher's defining characteristic was?  I genuinely don't know myself as I don't know a lot about Brit politics.

marantz1300

compasion and love for the poor.

marantz1300

Ruthlessness and the ability to turn a blind eye to the pedophiles and free loaders in her party.

HAL9000

Lots of opinions re Margaret Thatcher. IMHO she did a lot of damage. However, she was probably the right person to be in charge when the Argentinians invaded the Falklands. I suspect almost every PM since would have wrung their hands and claimed there was nothing they could do.

ICBM

HAL9000 said:

Lots of opinions re Margaret Thatcher. IMHO she did a lot of damage. However, she was probably the right person to be in charge when the Argentinians invaded the Falklands. I suspect almost every PM since would have wrung their hands and claimed there was nothing they could do.

Which is pretty much exactly what she did until forced to order action by the Chief Of The Naval Staff.

Seriously. Then took the credit afterwards...

I doubt either Major or Blair would have done any differently, not sure about Brown and Cameron.

historyisjunk

ICBM said:

There's an extremely good biography of Attlee by Francis Beckett that's well worth reading, if you haven't.

I should try to read this, I'd probably enjoy it.

I wonder if it relates this story which I believe to be about Attlee, which says a lot about him, but even more about how different & probably more difficult times are now.
Apparently Attlee enjoyed cricket & on some occasion, while he was PM, he was at Lord's cricket ground. He got into a conversation with someone & either asked what their occupation was, or they told him, & the other person then asked Attlee "And what do you do?" I imagine his reply was self effacing & he didn't seize the opportunity to humiliate the other person.

I'm sure the book relates how Harold Laski & some others I can't name, didn't think he was "socialist" enough & tried to oust him. Just before he was elected PM (I think).
I wonder what sort of job they'd have made of things... Especially, after having behaved like that. This brings to mind some more recent political figures, right & left.

I agree, from what little I know of him, that Gorbachev was a formidable leader & his achievement would probably have seemed even more impressive if The West had been more helpful to the former USSR while it was in flux.

Probably important to remember that there were some incredible people behind great leaders (some of Attlee's cabinet have been mentioned). I'd imagine there were some people like that behind Gorbachev who had the imagination to see through what must have looked like a catastrophe for their system & the ability to guide events as best they could, most of us will never know who they were.

Regarding leadership & power in general, I imagine most will disagree, but I have a profound distrust of charisma, it's hugely overrated & has to be accompanied by much more important human qualities in powerful people. Chiefly, human decency & a sense or responsibility, which Attlee seems to have had as core values.

Heartfeltdawn

bingefeller said:

Does anyone else think Saddam Hussein was a good leader?  He was brutal, but he needed to be brutal to keep control of his people.  Look at what has happened after his death, the middle east is a complete mess. 

Did he need to be brutal in order to keep the Kurds under control as well? 

You can utterly disagree with his stance and methods but when it comes to standing up for the people he represented, the late Bob Crow was superb. Even the Telegraph, not a newspaper noted for pro-union tendencies, agreed in 2014.