Chamberlain did a lot of good stuff on military preparation including finishing off RADAR and increasing production.

Now...Jon has to think of something good that Eden did as Prime Minister!

I honestly think he had something approaching an existential crisis, because things were working alright when he just let Michael Gove do all the work, but clearly something snapped when he realised he was missing out on doing the job he had been working for decades to get.

See I would strongly disagree with that too. There's a longstanding trend that longstanding ministers who have only done one role in government (Chamberlain, Eden, Brown) aren't that good in it. That doing shorter stints in several roles is a better grounding for the varied duties of a PM

Closer to 30 tbh - he was very influential journalist as first DT Brussels Correspondent and then as Spectator Editor.

The argument against this is that Liz Truss had lots of cabinet experiened and it didn't stop her rise

The reason why Major thought he couldn't was a) he had been the person who took Britain into ERM and b) this stupid received wisdom had became established that PMs didn't survive falling out with their chancellors.

I mean he had also been London Mayor for eight years, and before that had been a party spokesman in opposition for a couple of years (on-and-off). Less than you'd expect for a PM from a party after nine years in government, but not nothing.

May and Brown can both answered in quite a simple way actually - Britain is in denial about the type of politicians it wants. It claims it wants dour, serious politicians but actually we like a smooth talking professional with a modern vibe.

Yeah. Ed Miliband makes sense as an elder statesman, whilst younger ministers have a few years to establish themselves in a functional government to be the last minute replacement for Starmer in 2029

I've been advocating for this, and indeed, the only person I can see being able to do it, is Ed Miliband.

I'm pretty sure people have changed their mind on Trump since 2005....

Yeah. It shows how she/the right have deformed, because All Must Have Prizes is a serious book

It was briefly a thing here - called whole words learning. Campaigning against it was what set Melanie Philips on her path to the right in the 90s. But stamped out earlier than in the states, with New Labour being firmly behind phonics

It was the MPs who put her in the top two - and there's no guarantee she would have lost to Sunak in the final round.

Yeah. But the Aussie-Style Points Based Immigration System was even worse because it was basically a racist meme at the expense of Australians where an immigration restrictionist policy should be

Its not a structural problem to have a bad leader delivering a bad aimless govt that pleases no one. Its not a structural problem to have a big majority and not knowing how to use it. Its not a structural problem with the lesbian dating scene that i cant pick up girls! Im just bad at it!

I'm not sure Streeting's handling of the NHS suggests he does actually know what he wants.....

But he was warned that the Aussie style points-based immigration system wouldn't deliver what his voters actually wanted. And those warnings were right.