Friday 15 May 2020

Special Guest Blogger: Spencer Perceval

Anthony Eden may be top of most lists of worst Prime Minister's ever but my name usually crops up somewhere towards the top of these lists also but to be fair my greatest claim to fame is being the only British Prime Minister to be assassinated.
My three years as leader was dominated by being surrounded by a bunch of nutters in my cabinet, after one meeting two of them went outside to fight a duel and another one was sentenced to imprisonment in the Tower of London for writing inappropriate letters to people.
While all that was going on we had Napoleon rampaging across Europe, the industrial revolution leading to riots by oppressed workers, King George being declared as nutty as a fruitcake and his son who hated me, running things and then as if that isn't enough, the bloody Luddites began smashing up looms.
At home i had a wife and thirteen children so the last thing i needed whilst knee deep in crying infants and poopy nappies is to be told that a bunch of textile workers have gone rogue on top of everything else.  
Surprisingly in my short time i managed to get quite a bit done, i stopped Catholic emancipation and an attempt to reform Parliament, successfully conducted the war against Napoleon and pushed for the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade.
I also banned hunting, gambling and adultery and was on my way into Parliament to see which of my cabinet had been locked up or shot that day when John Bellingham stepped forward in the lobby of the House of Commons, drew a pistol and shot me in the chest.
He was a merchant who believed he had been unjustly imprisoned in Russia and was entitled to compensation which i had denied so in revenge he made sure i would have an asterisk beside my name in future history books.

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