Ramsay MacDonald: labour's First Prime Mininster

[Serial_Apologist]

And evidently not its last!

Worth drawing attention to this programme tonight on Radio 4, in the, ahem, "light" of Keir Starmer.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001vcgv

[smittims]

There are some fasciating insights into the man by someone who knew him personally between the wars, Leonard Woolf, in his book Downhill all the Way.

I think MacDonald, like Chamberlain later on , was unlucky. It was a bad time to be Prime Minister, and the first Labour administration never stood a chanvce because of the economic consequences of the war. I think there was something tragic about his fate, unlike that of so many recent Prime Ministers who foolishly made their own mistakes.

[LMcD]

There are some fasciating insights into the man by someone who knew him personally between the wars, Leonard Woolf, in his book Downhill all the Way.

I think MacDonald, like Chamberlain later on , was unlucky. It was a bad time to be Prime Minister, and the first Labour administration never stood a chanvce because of the economic consequences of the war. I think there was something tragic about his fate, unlike that of so many recent Prime Ministers who foolishly made their own mistakes.

Nobody forced him - or any of his successors - to become Prime Minister.. Those who convince themselves that their role in life is to govern others must accept whatever life proves to have in store for them. (I suppose that not knowing how to change a light bulb after more than 10 years at No. 10 could be regarded as tragic in a way).