There is no bottom

Back in July 2019, when Boris Johnson was about to take up residence at 10 Downing Street, the excellent London blogger known as Diamond Geezer wrote that "Britain's worst-ever Prime Minister, who took over from Britain's worst-ever Prime Minister, will shortly be replaced by Britain's worst ever Prime Minister".  It's a good line, but it turns out that DG didn't know the half of it.  The UK has had two more worst-evers since Johnson left the scene, and the Tory party assembly line keeps throwing up ever more unsuitable candidates for the job.

Let's take them in order, starting with those DG was referring to:

First, from 2010 to 2018, was David Cameron.  He began his tenure by imposing austerity in response to the global financial crisis, which was, of course, exactly the wrong policy response.  Then, to appease his right-wing fringe, he promised a referendum om "Brexit".  He never thought the UK would vote to leave the EU and campaigned in a very desultory fashion for a "remain" vote.  When the leave side won the day, Cameron hightailed it out of office.

Cameron was succeeded by Theresa May, the UK's second female PM.  She held office from July 2015 to July 2019.  With the die cast for Brexit, she struggled mightily to appease the party's right wing while negotiating a deal that might actually work.  Two no-confidence votes later, she resigned after a draft agreement with the EU was rejected by Parliament.

Up next was Boris Johnson, who had worked hard behind the scenes to oust Theresa May. Once in office, he managed to ram through a Brexit deal he described as "oven ready", even though it has since proved to be nothing of the sort. He held office from July 2019 to September 2022.  The last two-and-a-half years were dominated by the COVID crisis, which was hardly Johnson's fault but did eventually trigger his demise.  He was ousted after it was shown that he had misled Parliament about a series of boozy parties held by his staff on Government premises while the whole UK was supposedly under a COVID lockdown. 

Here we move beyond DG's little list, to find Liz Truss replacing BoJo.  The less said of her tenure the better, and it's easy not to say much because she was only around for seven weeks.  An ideologically-committed  right-winger who seemed incapable of listening to advice, she nearly wrecked the UK's financial markets and resigned after losing an endurance test against a lettuce.

Next up was the current incumbent, Rishi Sunak, who is just coming up on a full year in office. Sunak is the UK's first Hindu PM, which is doubtless not a bad thing, but also the richest person to hold the office in modern times, which is probably not a good thing. In truth, Sunak has not pulled any of the dumb moves that characterized his predecessors on this list, but he has never won the full support of the more right-wing members of his party, and trails badly in opinion polls despite the lackluster performance of Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer. 

As and when the party decides to oust Sunak -- most likely after he loses a general election late next year -- the most likely replacement is Suella Braverman, current Home Secretary.  The anti-immigration crowd's favourite immigrant, the strident Braverman is the brains, if that's the word, behind the Government's bizarre and probably illegal scheme to relocate illegal migrants to the tiny, landlocked African nation of Rwanda. 

And lurking behind Suella is the worst of them all, the irrepressible, bibulous populist Nigel Farage. Despite not actually being a member of the Tory party, Farage contrived to dominate its recent annual conference, spouting the usual river of bile about...well, mostly about immigrants, actually, as is always the case when someone puts a microphone in front of his leering face.  It's hard to spot anyone worse than Farage looking to take over the party after him, but given the Tories' recent track record in selecting leaders, you wouldn't put it past them to find someone even worse when the time comes.