Worst leaders of your country Pages PREV 1 2 3 4 5 NEXT | |
Yeah he pretty well abused his power and was pretty clearly a racist. Still, he did manage to do some good things at least (even if outweighed by nearly ignoring the checks and balance system), like actually reducing the national debt. I hate the man, but there have been people who have actually screwed the country as opposed to one race.
Heh, where I'm from we call him Useless Grant. He was a military leader, not a president. He didn't really run anything and mainly just appointed a crap load of people for supporting him and let them have at it. There have been worse. | |
In the 80 or so years we have been governing ourselves, Ireland has not, in my opinion, had a single politician who was good. | |
Well our current "leader" i suppose. Fredrik Reindfelt managed to make sick people healthy, at least on paper by forcing them out of their sick pay even if they had life threatning illneses and disabilitis. P.S. Sorry for the bad grammar. | |
I'd just go with the Holy Roman Empire. It isn't strictly Germany, but it's close enough, and will give you plenty of crazy emperors to choose from. I honestly can't remember any names of particularly shitty rule -though Barbarossas death was so hilariously pathetic, I'd consider him a "bad" leader - but any hereditary rule is going to have some bad eggs over hundreds of years of rule. As for my native Switzerland. I'll go with Christoph Blocher, one of our 7 Bundesräte up until a few years ago. A stupid loudmouth with lots of ignorant opinions who did nothing but cause trouble. And the worst thing is, he's still causing trouble! He recently got the boss of our national bank fired over a scandal, in which I personally think he was innocent, even though he was great at his job and his measures had greatly supported our economy in these tough times (for swiss standards). | |
Since I lived in few countries, there it is Poland: Konrad I of Masovia - brought Teutonic order to evangelize/genocide Old Prussians and Yotvingians for him. Once Teutonic Kinghts were done, they refused to leave and wanted to conquer the northern territories with access to the sea, what resulted in series of wars lasting 2 centuries. Henry III of France - he was a king in my country for a short time, taking advantage of the fact Jaroslaw Kaczynski - won elections only because he was pondering to the old people and people who believe that Catholicism is the only right religion. He was incompetent, hindered Polish diplomacy, died in a plain crash, along with plenty of other politicians, probably caused by himself (last time a pilot refused to land on a dangerous airport, he almost got fired and fined). Since his death his real life decoy, aka twin brother, tries to become president. England: the U.S. Capcha:"zero tolerance" | |
Actually Hitler was a brilliant leader and an awesome politician. A genocidl despot, sure. But a bad leader? Hell no. He united a nation and brought all of Europe too its knee's. OT:Any socialist, leftist, communist parti leader. They are all evil scumbags who should be shot and strung up. | |
You should be greatful. Since WW2 germany has done nothing but advanced towards becoming a shining example of how a country should be run. While not perfect its done a damn sight better than any other country on the planet including china. But yes cameron and osbourne the hypocritical tossers of the moment. Something rotten about the current government, and im sure they'll be letting more favors for there rich pals slip past before they get voted out. Blair, while he wasnt busy rimming his ol' pal george across the pound and commiting us to costly wars he did implement some good policiys, but also wasted vast sums of cash on useless ones too. Thatcher as said before. she fucked our manufacturing sector. | |
Calvin Coolidge. Herbert Hoover. Uhhh...Coolidge again. I feel obligated to say George W. Bush as well, but to be brutally honest with you, I just fuckin' feel sorry for that guy. He got in over his head and spent eight years getting slapped around by his administration. Poor dumb bastard. | |
I count it as german (I am too from germany), sure they were not called "Germany", but they pretty much were germany. Since the 16. century The Holy Roman Empire's full name was even Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. | |
Let's be fair, every British leader has been forced to suck up to America, we kind of owe them it for saving us from our shitty economy. That's not to say I like it, I hate it in fact, but it's understandable that our government does it. I'll have to go for Thatcher, I just hate that shrew. She may have helped save the economy but that doesn't excuse the fact that she was disestablishing the welfare state and was a staunch opponent to communism. She also shifted the focus to inflation from unemployment, a typically right wing move. Fucking Thatcher man. | |
Sponsorship Scandal be damned. He tore the Liberal party into pieces in his hurry to Give Cretien the bums rush out. I guarantee that if the Liberals were united under one leader they all trusted it would held Harper off for at least another term. Martin screwed himself by calling an election early to "get his own mandate." He barely held onto power with his fingernails. The three years he had he could have used rebuild the party's reputation, instead he gave the opposition the power to remove him at their convenience. He was a power hungry blithering idiot. He gets an honorable mention only because the only harm he did was to his party rather than the country. | |
Prior to 1921 - Take your pick as they were all British for the preceding 800 or so years.Special mention to James I who was responsible for the Plantation of Ulster which led to the clusterfuck of shit that is Northern Ireland(no offence to any NI members but you have to admit your state has hardly had a trouble free history) Post 1921 - Charles Haughey.Guy was essentially a fucking gangster yet still managed to serve 3 terms as Taoiseach(Irish prime minister)which to be perfectly honest says a lot about the stupidity of Irish voters as well.I mean he owned his own private island and a residence which rivalled the President's residence and no-one ever questioned how he could fucking afford it?Corruption,embezzlement,tax evasion,arms smuggling you name it he had a hand in it
Yeah you've kinda summed up the sad state of Irish politics right there.I'm sure there have been several good politicians(e.g Noel Browne who attempted to introduce the Mother and Child scheme in the 50's which would have provided free maternity care for all women and free healthcare for all children up to the age of 16 and was also behind the drive to eradicate TB)however they will always be overshadowed by the legions of gormless,corrupt idiots | |
WE GOTS A SUPER LIB HERE Your really think the last decent conservative prime minister was the worsts tin history because of the Avro Arrow? Come on, and you should probably change the last one to "Understood economics enough to do better with the economy then the actual conservatives." AS to OP, any good Canadian's vote goes to Mulrooney, just an incompetent US Brown Noser | |
hmmm, well I would say Bill Clinton, L.B.J, I would pick a pre-depression president but I don't know much on them. (Also, Reagan was my favorite) | |
Leave Dief the Chief alone! He cut a lot of useless government spending. As for making us more dependent on the US's tech, I have to refute that. A lot of the tech our military uses does come from the US but that's just because their military industrial complex is much bigger than it ought to be and they supply the world with their tech. We supply raw materials, they supply tech, it's a give and take system that wouldn't exist if we were still spending tons of money on military tech. Except for the Avro Arrow program, which is what I assume you're talking about. He should have kept that around. I agree with the rest of your choices though. I would have added Ignatieff for his almost complete destruction of the Liberal party, but that's just me.
Now, why ya gotta be like that? There are a bunch of good socialist leaders out there. The late Jack Layton was an excellent party leader and his protegee is looking good so far. Pratibha Patil of India's doing alright. James Michel from the Seychelles hasn't done anything wrong. Hugo Chavez isn't the greatest, but at least his people like him... | |
Carl Bildt and Fredrik Reinfeldt = worst leaders in Sweden. Carld Bildt was elected in the early 90s, lost next election. He's currently the Minister of Foreign affairs. And he's even worse at that than he was as Prime Minister. Pisses me off just thinking about him, he's more interested in managing his stock portfolio and maintaining his connections and shady business, than he is in actually representing Sweden. He's part of the Moderates (Moderaterna). Fredrik Reinfeldt is the current Prime Minister. He was first elected in 2006, after drastically changing the appearance and rhetoric of his party, the Moderates (Moderaterna). He copied much of the rhetoric and expressions from the other big party, the Social Democrats (Socialdemokraterna), who have governed Sweden for most of the past century and set the foundation for almost everything. When his party went through this change, they branded themselves the "New Moderates". I think these guys and their party are the worst thing to happen to Swedish politics in modern times. Their propaganda and rhetoric is very deceiving(more than propaganda normally was in Sweden), they put their ideological ideas ahead of what's best for the country. They have managed to portray themselves as very responsible and good at running the country, but still repeatedly go against experts and facts by implementing costly and inefficient reforms to further their ideological agenda, and come up with other excuses for doing so(because the truth would never work with the swedish public). They just bullshit themselves out of trouble and have contributed to a shift in focus, from the actual politics to the politicians. Their former "party-secretary" (don't know how to properly translate that), Per Schlingmann, is basically a propaganda minister. He still works as such, just in a different position. He gets much credit for their "transformation" into the "New Moderates" (Nya Moderaterna). I could go on and on. I think these guys are terrible. Since they took office, the gap between upper and lower classes has increased, same with the gap between good and bad schools. They've privatized and sold extremely successful companies and deregulated markets despite expert opinions saying they shouldn't. (The Pharmacies are an example of when customer satisfaction has gone down in every category since that market was deregulated, and prices have gone up). They rather lower taxes or pay off public debt (despite the fact that we're in a situation where we essentially get PAYED for taking loans and our debt hasn't been this small in decades), than invest in areas that are in dire need of maintenance, such as the railroad. As I said, I could go on and on. I really dislike these guys...I won't say hate, because that's such a strong word (or at least it should be, stop misusing it!). But I strongly dislike them and their party. And don't get me started on our minister of finance, who despite lacking a degree (he has some education in national economy, but not a proper degree) is somehow considered a fucking expert in economy and finance. GRRRRRRR... | |
Obama, Bush Jr, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter....well let's just say it goes back a long way for me. | |
Bzzzzzzzzzzz I'm sorry. That is incorrect. I never voted liberal in my life. Dief's bad policy decisions and extremely poor relations to the US along with cancelling domestic defense policy initiatives are a pretty clear indication that this man had very little idea of Canada's place in North America. Basically an economic and military bulwark between the US and the former Soviet Union. The idiot nearly got us kicked out of NATO for his refusal to allow US nukes into Canada. How long would we have remained independent without their support during the cold war? Anyway don't make any assumptions about my leanings based on my dislike of certain political leaders. It's better that way. | |
We undervalue our resources a little too much for my taste. Iggy would be on the list number one. But he actually needed to be elected as our nation' leader first. I think that was soundly rebuffed last year. | |
Thatcher, thatcher, thatcher and thatcher. I don't really need to say more, except perhaps that it is a shame that the only female prime minister that we've ever had was also the worst PM we've ever had. | |
I'm now arguing for Cromwell in two separate threads on these forums. What has my life become ...? Anyway, as much as you're titled to your opinion: Cromwell attempted to deliver widespread Parliamentary reforms that wouldn't be witnessed again until the Great Reform Act of 1832. His religious tolerance was astounding for the time - the Cavalier Parliament that came subsequently reversed this in the most disastrous ways. His foreign policy established England as one of the foremost military powers in Europe for a brief time - again Charles II would lose this quickly. He was a principled man, and highly religious - but no "nutcase". | |
Meh, to each his own about resources, but the OP did ask for leaders not just elected ones, so that's why I mentioned Iggy | |
| |
Unless you happened to be an Irish Catholic | |
I'm Albertan, so I'm required by law to say Pierre Trudeau. I'll put it this way: Because of Pierre Trudeau, a Liberal leader, the most recent provincial election was between the conservatives and the more-conservatives. He managed to single-handedly alienate an ENTIRE PROVINCE, and we're still harboring a grudge four decades later. Good work, Pierre. | |
I don't think Spain's had a good leader ever since the end of the Second Republic. Franco was an utter bastard, and most of the leaders after him were either not very good at leading a country or corrupt. The only half decent one was probably Felipe Gonzalez, and that guy was corrupt as well. | |
chriatian the 4th, but you kinda learn that in school by standard here in denmark. but here in denmark most of our leaders have or had their heads in their ass's if its kings or ministers | |
Thank you for that. Those where the three I was going to say, but you've put it better than I could. Oh, and don't forget Harper trying to sell as much of pretty much everything he can to the Chinese (it's one thing to sell them the end product it's entirely unacceptable to sell them the resource rights) | |
i live in the US, what do you think .... | |
I think more recent accounts have revealed him to be something of a childish, lazy shit - and I'm not sure that simply exterminating chunks of your own population counts as unification. | |
David Cameron easily takes the gold, silver and bronze, and takes all the honourable mentions apart from Thatcher's. | |
Mark Rutte and his goddamned cabinet. They were bullshitting my country for over a year before one quite childish man named Geert Wilders simply walked out of an important congress meeting and gave up his spot in the cabinet, leaving the cabinet without enough spots to make important decisions. Why? Because he's an arse that's why. | |
Canadian, and I'm gonna have to second Brian Mulroney on this one. | |
I'm from the U.S., so it's easier if I try to name a good leader. FDR was pretty good president, I guess, and uh..... | |
| Pages PREV 1 2 3 4 5 NEXT | |
Andrew Jackson. He wasn't just a bad leader, he was also evil. Like, supervillain evil. Guy spent most of his military career and presidency thinking up creative ways to persecute and exterminate Native Americans, with a brief break to kick the British out of New Orleans.
This guy gets it!
Lyndon Johnson was pretty bad too. Not a terribly BAD leader, just very inept and had zero presence, nor commanded any authority (which, really, is a common theme when vice-presidents step up). Caused Vietnam to drag out far longer than it had any right to, as well as dragging his feet on the Civil Rights issues.
Andrew Johnson. Eugh. The South is still feeling the effects of his presidency, nearly 150 years later.
U.S. Grant. Like LBJ, he wasn't bad or evil, just a bad president. Had no control over anything, drank more than he breathed, and had the most corrupt cabinet in U.S. history.
Rev. Al Sharpton. Not a president, but his constant grandstanding and vitrolic speech have really tainted the entire message behind the Civil Rights movement.