TSR best (post-war) PM tournament: QF3: Brown v May

This poll is closed

Who is the best (post-war) UK Prime Minster?

Gordon Brown67%

Theresa May33%

Total votes: 3

Welcome to the TSR best (post-war) PM tournament!
This is quarter-final 3

TSR is asking the question: Who is the best (post-war) UK Prime Minster?

We're holding a tournament of UK Prime Ministers and asking you to vote to determine which was the most significant in history. We are currently in the quarter-final stages of this tournament, and this is quarter-final 3. The winner of this poll will of course progress to the semi-finals.

All the other groups are linked at the bottom of this post, and there's a hub thread here if you're interested in reading more.

The PMs in quarter-final 3 are:

Gordon Brown (Labour, 2007–10)

James Gordon Brown was MP for Dunfermline East and later Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath from 1983 to 2015. He held various shadow cabinet posts, including shadow chancellor under John Smith and then Tony Blair, having allegedly stood aside to allow Blair to become Labour leader following Smith's sudden death in 1994, on the understanding that Blair would eventually stand down and hand over to him. Brown was one of the architects of New Labour in the mid-90s, and became chancellor in 1997. The often frosty dynamic between Brown and Blair and their supporters dominated Blair's premiership until he resigned in 2007 and made way for Brown. Brown entered office without much of a unique plan for government, but soon found a purpose as the global financial crisis bit. Although Brown played a leading international role in calming matters, the public did not necessarily see it that way, and the opposition managed to accuse Brown and Labour of crashing the economy themselves. Brown only fought one election as PM, in 2010: this produced a hung parliament, but with Labour clearly in second place, so when the Conservatives and Lib Dems agreed a coalition, Brown resigned as PM and Labour leader.

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Theresa May (Conservative, 2016–19)

Theresa Mary May has been the MP for Maidenhead since 1997. As one of only a small number of female Conservative MPs when she was elected, early on she focused heavily on encouraging more Tory women to stand for parliament, as well as holding a variety of shadow cabinet positions. When the Conservatives entered government in 2010, David Cameron appointed May as his home secretary, a position she held for six years until Cameron resigned in 2016 following the vote for Brexit. Despite backing Remain, May eventually won the premiership unopposed after others dropped out, but then had to spell out what Brexit meant. May's early premiership was dominated by her deciding to call an early election in 2017 with the Tories soaring in the polls, only to end up losing her majority following a campaign heavily focused on her where she was seen as merely repeating the same few slogans. This only made it harder for her to negotiate and pass a Brexit deal, meaning many failed attempts to get the deal through Parliament in the so-called Brexit Wars. Brexit ended up being delayed so much that the 2019 European elections had to be held, and after the Tories came an unprecedented fifth nationwide, May announced her resignation as PM.

(edited 9 months ago)

Reply 1

AngryJellyfish

Chat Forum Helper, Entertainment Forum Helper

Those photo choices, though. :rofl:

Reply 2

Guru Jason

Can we all just abstain from these 2?

Reply 3

Talkative Toad

Volunteer Team

Original post by Guru Jason

Can we all just abstain from these 2?

honestly can if you want or vote at random

Reply 4

Talkative Toad

Volunteer Team

Original post by AngryJellyfish

Those photo choices, though. :rofl:

not sure why this photo is a meme but ye.

Reply 5

Guru Jason

Original post by Talkative Toad

honestly can if you want or vote at random

I mean why are they in the vote at all. Neither of them are good let alone considered the best

Reply 6

Talkative Toad

Volunteer Team

Original post by Guru Jason

I mean why are they in the vote at all. Neither of them are good let alone considered the best

They are the ones who got 1st and second place (May got second place in pool D, Brown got 1st place in pool C).

Reply 7

Guru Jason

Original post by Talkative Toad

They are the ones who got 1st and second place (May got second place in pool D, Brown got 1st place in pool C).

Good lord. This is like choosing wherether to shoot yourself in the left and right foot.

Reply 8

Saracen's Fez

In the interests of not having an all-Labour set of semi-finals, I'll vote for Theresa, mainly because she was a bit of a hostage to fortune and has been quite good since she left office.

Brown also an unfairly maligned PM though.

Original post by AngryJellyfish

Those photo choices, though. :rofl:

This does feel like the least serious pool :lol:

Reply 9

Talkative Toad

Volunteer Team

Original post by Guru Jason

Good lord. This is like choosing wherether to shoot yourself in the left and right foot.

To be fair, the candidates for Pool D were kind of rubbish: https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7371527

Hub thread is here for more information: https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=7370525 (some of it isn't 100% accurate, but you can see the links to all the threads so far to see the results).