Does Popularity Matter As Prime Minister? Liz Truss' Comments Spark Debate | Good Morning Britain

the Prime Minister boldly suggested earlier this week that she is willing to be unpopular and make difficult decisions if she believes they'll ultimately boost the economy but do you need to be popular to get your policies across should we have a look back at the PMS of the past and see where they fared in popularity Winston Churchill perhaps unsurprisingly fares best with 63 percent of people saying he did a good job Margaret Thatcher made choices that were both loved and loathed and still overall though gets a 43 approval more recently things have dipped with Tony Blair David Cameron Theresa May and Boris Johnson only hovering around 30 despite election wins and list trust doesn't have much room for maneuver her Tories are currently on 32 percent of current voting intentions kissed arm is on 42 but is there going to be a new Prime ministerial list trust bounce and should we admire this trust for disregarding popularity is it essential for a prime minister that's what we'll discuss this morning so joining us to do this is former culture secretary David Mello who says being light doesn't matter if you deliver for the country also joining us is uh Oscar redrop a special advisor to Boris Johnson when he was prime minister who says a PM needs popularity to help them through controversial times now what popularity with whom is it popularity with your party or popularity with the country and is it sort of likable fun and affability that Boris was famous for or is it popular policies Boris is the one who proves that there's no point just bouncing around trying to be liked uh and if you haven't got the fundamentals of your policy it's all sorted out it's it's quite clear to me that um people sometimes forget that uh um a parliament is a 1500 meters race it doesn't matter where you are at the end of that one all that too what matters is where you are at the end of the last lap and there's no doubt with Liz trust for whom by the way I have a no particular affection or enthusiasm but she's there the point is if she believes that fundamental changes need to be made to the management of the British economy the sooner she gets on with it the better and if by getting on with it she makes um herself unpopular in the short term that doesn't matter what matters is whether the policies are successful you see when you look at Margaret Thatcher she took a very similar line and she had dear old Jeffrey Howe ready to absorb any amount of punishment they took a very brave decision at the beginning of the 79 Parliament and by the end of it the economy looked as though it was going places and she got the benefit of it the tragedy though is if you make yourself unpopular and the old policies don't work well quite I mean just are you on that note do you ask or did Boris care as much about being liked as people thought he did or is it likability or Charisma I don't think the competing popularity uh necessary results in it I think it's something in a way that is unteachable I think Boris what he did have um and there'll be people watching uh watching their screens right now uh shouting the TV saying I was certainly not one of them but Boris did have the ability to connect and he had actually the ability to connect with people who were not traditional conservatives in any way shape or form I think during very difficult times just to go back quickly the two aren't mutually exclusive delivery and being popular and being and having a connection I would say that times have slightly changed from the thatch era in the sense that I mean you guys are very much part of it you know the media is so 20 24 hours a day social media kind of repeat that accessibility that people want with their leaders the game has completely changed and I think if you just take a step back and you say well I'm not engaging with that whatsoever at this stage just to completely agree to refer to earlier point in terms of it being a marathon not a Sprint that might be okay but when times get really tough and you know you as we saw with the pandemic for example you never know what's around the corner I think you do have to play that game a little bit should we ask Ed because I know you're not being prime minister but you've been a minister and you did you did you care about popularity and who did you want to be popular with your party the country where where what use was it being popular look I don't think any politician likes being unpopular if you think of um George Osborne being booed at the 2020 the 2012 Olympic Games when he was presenting medals you know that would have been hard for him he wouldn't have liked that nobody likes to be pillory to be booed but you also know in politics I think that if you make short-term decisions to try and be popular and that goes wrong then actually you'll pay a very very big price so the hard thing as David said is to get the timing right you think about John Major John Major turned out to be hugely popular but only in the end after he had stopped being prime minister Gordon Brown is more popular than when he left um the job the challenge is to make the tough decisions and then actually see some benefit so that people say well actually good call I think that's the kind of popularity you're after or rather not to be put off taking the tough decisions because you think you'll be unpopular yeah um and you know to be fair to Margaret Thatcher uh I was a member if I've gone for nine years she didn't care about the short-term popularity she had a bit of luck things like the Falklands War gave her a boost which she wouldn't necessarily get and also you see where she was lucky was she had shock absorbers uh she had Jeffrey Howe who absorbed all of the awful abuse while sticking to a very radical line as Chancellor and the same um was true of Willie White Law you know everyone needs a willy he said uh Margaret and Willie white or did it I don't know who Liz trust has got who is load-bearing because it seems like you know watching a sort of school debating Society pretending to be the government well Margaret that you didn't know she would be popular when she called The Fulton War at the beginning it was a very risky decision yeah as a good example of something which turns out to be popular absolutely but actually wasn't clear and also it was successful that's what makes it possible yeah had no choice she had no CH well she felt she had no choice there's always a choice take over well that that would have been the debate at the time I mean Ed what do you think's going on because at some point we are expecting her to call election do you think she would go sooner rather than later if you take um the point David Oscar made actually getting through to showing results in a short you know in two years is going to be quite hard but at the moment she'll get an early Bounce from being the new prime minister she's actually not making unpopular decisions she's not going ahead with tax cuts she's freezing energy bills I wonder if in Downing street they're all saying actually if we can do an early election and then get a mandate wouldn't surprise me if Bliss trust is wondering whether she might go to the country in the Autumn or in the spring gosh what this Autumn race ourselves it's so context dependent as well because I'd rather counterintuitively for her to come out and say I'm not chasing popular about popular popularity is actually a kind of a it is almost chasing popularity I think people really want serious times now serious tone of conversation serious upfront measures I think in that sense she's quite smart and I think she's actually at this early stages read the room quite well we'll have to leave it there because you're making us very unpopular with the producer I'm afraid because we're talking too much we could talk for hours about that couldn't we we really could we really could that get I'm sure we'll come back to it

Channel: Good Morning Britain

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Keywords: good morning britain, breakfast show, news, morning news, gmb, good morning britain interview, itv, susanna reid, Talk Shows - Topic

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Length: 8min 19sec (499 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 22 2022