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Brown named 3rd worst UK premier

03 August 2010 23:49 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been voted as the third worst premier in UK history since the Second World War, APA reports quoting presstv.ir website.

A poll of more than 100 academics in Britain found that the former Labor Party leader should be considered a failure because of the huge debt he left behind, the Daily Mail said in a report.

According to the poll results, Brown came tenth out of the 12 post-war premiers, ahead of Anthony Eden and Sir Alec Douglas-Home who both have long been associated with failure.

David Cameron was not included in the survey as he has just taken the post of prime minister.

Brown was portrayed as the biggest prime ministerial failure in more than 45 years as his predecessor and bitter rival Tony Blair came out as the third successful leader, marginally behind Margaret Thatcher.

Labor’s post-war leader Clement Attlee has been voted the best UK prime minister who between 1945 and 1951 established the National Health Service (NHS) and welfare state.

Harold Macmillan, dubbed Supermac when he led the Tories from 1957 to 1963, came in fourth place.

Labor’s Harold Wilson (1964-70 and 1974-6) was the fifth, while Winston Churchill only came sixth for his peacetime stint as premier from 1951 to 1955.

James Callaghan -- who led Labor during the notorious Winter of Discontent, came higher in the survey than both John Major and Edward Heath, who took Britain into the EU but whose premiership was marred by arguments with the country’s miners.

Next on the list is Brown, followed by Douglas-Home -- who only led the Conservatives for a year as the party floundered in the wake of the Profumo scandal.

At the bottom of the list is Sir Anthony Eden, who led Britain into the disastrous Suez invasion.