Thatcher still holds iron grip on Downing Street

[emad]

August 03, 2005

Thatcher still holds iron grip on Downing Street
By Peter Riddell



MORE than four out of five leading opinion-formers think that Tony Blair has been a success as Prime Minister.
But he is still comfortably beaten into second place by Margaret Thatcher in the ranking of postwar premiers.

The Populus Network of opinion-formers consists of senior executives and chairmen of private and public sector bodies, 216 of whom replied to this survey last week.

Baroness Thatcher is rated as “very successful” by 55 per cent, twice the number putting Mr Blair into this category. However, taking account of those rating both leaders as “fairly successful”, Lady Thatcher is on 90 per cent, with Mr Blair on 83 per cent.

These rankings contrast sharply with a survey of historians and political scientists carried out last year by MORI and the University of Leeds. This put Lady Thatcher in fourth place and Mr Blair sixth, also behind Clement Attlee, Sir Winston Churchill and David Lloyd George (Lord Lloyd-George). This earlier survey, for the Political Studies Association, covered all 20th-century Prime Ministers. These differences probably reflect a combination of a longer historical perspective on the part of the academics, as well as a more left-of-centre perspective.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,172-1718639,00.html

[SteppingRazor]

1. "These differences probably reflect...

... a combination of a longer historical perspective on the part of the academics, as well as a more left-of-centre perspective."

They forgot to add "expertise on the subject at hand."

If they were talking about most successful post-war British corporations, then maybe I'd care more about what the CEOs think.