Rating the Post-War PMs

Here is an FT list, via Dale, of how "academics" would rate the post-war PMs:

Well, I'm in academia at the moment, and here's how I'd rate them (and why):

12: Brown: An odious, incapable man who should never have been allowed to become Prime Minister. He wrecked the country's economy, damaged our international standing and left our country in broken pieces for his successor government to try to put back together. I've said it before but I'll say it again - the only way for Cameron to be worse than Brown is if he actually declares war on the British people.

11: Eden: Massively over-hyped before he got into power, he wasn't up to the job and his raging paranoia over would-be aggressive dictators nearly got us into a shooting war with the US and made it very clear that Britain was no longer as great on the world stage as it had been. It also inspired a couple of unusually tedious Dennis Potter dramas.

1o: Callaghan: He may have been a genial chap from all accounts, but as PM he was pretty much useless. He bowed down to the unions and let them run this country pretty much into the ground, before committing a major strategic blunder and delaying an election that he could have won but that he would later lose.

9: Douglas-Home: Difficult to know what to say about Douglas-Home other than he lost an election. He's a non-entity - simultaneously neither a good Prime Minister nor a bad one.

8: Blair: A formidable election winner, Blair's legacy will, however, be constantly undermined by the Iraq War, the fact that his supposed economic success was built on shifting sands and his failure to prevent the clearly unsuitable Brown becoming his replacement.

7: Heath: He had the potential to be a genuinely reforming Prime Minister, but he took us into Europe, failed to win his battle with the unions and ultimately revealed himself to be a repugnant man both in No.10 and afterwards on the Tory back-benches.

6: Wilson: Well, he won more than he lost and he managed, despite the pressure from the US, to keep us out of Vietnam. But he did a lot to break the economy and hand the country over to the Unions, and he also managed to stay on at No.10 for far longer than he should have done.

5: Major: Yep, there was Black Wednesday. But prior to that there was one of the most spectacular electoral upsets in history, and after Black Wednesday Major's government did much to rebuild the economy (inbetween conducting a debilitating intra-party civil war). Crucially, the country he handed over was in better shape than when he got it. Just a shame, really, that he handed it over to Nu Labour...

4: Churchill: Ok, as a post-war PM he was largely inactive. He maintained the status quo and seemed to be slowly counting down the days until he was no longer able to do the job and had to retire. Nonetheless, he is the only one in this list who genuinely managed to become a British icon.

3: Macmillan: A caretaker PM in the best sense of the word - he did little to transform the country, but effectively managed it and rebuilt it and his party after the disaster that was Anthony Eden. Like Major, he left a country in a better state than when he found it.

2: Attlee: An odd choice for No.2 given I'm a Libertarian, Attlee is this high because he believed in a political ideology and actually set out to implement it, rather than just talking about it. Furthermore, his reforms may have created a bloated state, but they also helped to end communism as a potential alternative in this country. I'd doubt I've have voted for him, but Attlee scores highly in part because the vast majority of those who have followed him have been far less capable than him.

1: Thatcher: A socially conservative PM who grew increasingly loopy while in power and ultimately ended up shooting herself in the head politically with the poll tax, Thatcher at least understood the need to reduce the size and the scope of the state, albeit only in some areas. And to date, she is the only Prime Minister who has (a) understood this and (b) tried to do something about it.

And Cameron? He can't really be rated until he has ceased to be PM. At the moment, he would rate quite highly if only because he has yet to spectacularly drop the ball. I don't doubt for a moment that at some point he will, so only time will tell how badly he fares in future polls.

If/when you disagree, please feel free to put your thoughts in the comments section. If said comments aren't jarringly dull, I may even respond...