How many Prime Ministers were the respondents asked about in these polls. For instance was the Newsnight poll asking respondents "who is your favourite prime minister out of these 3?"

Presumably the other two were Pol Pot and Rober Mugabe?

Quote: El Barbudo "Funny thing ... I wasn't asked in any of those polls. Can we have a link maybe, so that we can check such trivia as sample size, target social groups, the actual question that was asked and options offered? I mean (unknown date) isn't exactly confidence-inspiring is it? Also, you have to bear in mind that a) she never had the vote of the majority of the population (more people voted consistently against her than for her), and as all PMs go out under a cloud, so "third best" is a strange and probably meaningless term is it not? If I was offered a choice of tripe, courgette, Big Mac, Strawberries or lamb chops then Big Mac would come 3rd, even though I never touch that muck. Ajw71 Me, illogical? Haha I think not. You think Margaret Thatcher was a rubbish PM? You offer no evidence whatsoever to back up your claims apart from, 'well I say so, and I'm right'. The fact is, if she was bad as you think she was, she wouldn't rank so highly in every single poll on the issue. Now as I have said earlier, you are in a minority as all the evidence shows. You may not like it, you may think everyone who likes her is [insert swear words here] but the fact is she is regarded as one of the greatest prime ministers the country has had. You disagree about being in a minority, please provide evidence to support your claims, as I have done. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical ... ed_Kingdom

Quote: El Barbudo "Funny thing ... I wasn't asked in any of those polls. Can we have a link maybe, so that we can check such trivia as sample size, target social groups, the actual question that was asked and options offered? I mean (unknown date) isn't exactly confidence-inspiring is it? Also, you have to bear in mind that a) she never had the vote of the majority of the population (more people voted consistently against her than for her), and as all PMs go out under a cloud, so "third best" is a strange and probably meaningless term is it not? If I was offered a choice of tripe, courgette, Big Mac, Strawberries or lamb chops then Big Mac would come 3rd, even though I never touch that muck. Ajw71 Me, illogical? Haha I think not. You think Margaret Thatcher was a rubbish PM? You offer no evidence whatsoever to back up your claims apart from, 'well I say so, and I'm right'. The fact is, if she was bad as you think she was, she wouldn't rank so highly in every single poll on the issue. Now as I have said earlier, you are in a minority as all the evidence shows. You may not like it, you may think everyone who likes her is [insert swear words here] but the fact is she is regarded as one of the greatest prime ministers the country has had. You disagree about being in a minority, please provide evidence to support your claims, as I have done. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical ... ed_Kingdom

Abe Lincoln was assasinated by a disillusioned member of his electorate and hated by many in the south.
Winston Churchill became unpopular after the second world war.

Both still regarded as great leaders.

There aren't many British Prime Ministers who are sacked by their own party WHILST STILL IN THE JOB.

There hasn't been a British Prime Minister in my lifetime where their own party has decided that things have gone so far wrong that they need to sack their leader RIGHT NOW instead of taking a chance at the next election.

When she left Downing Street in tears in the back of that limousine she didn't have a single supporter in her own party, none in parliament and certainly not many in the country as a whole - to claim that she was the most popular PM this country has ever had is just bloody hilarious when you're old enough to remember the FACTS and not what your school history books have told you.

I have provided evidence. Just because you don't like it and try to discredit it does not mean it's not evidence.

8 different polls, some popular opinion, some academic, some from political commentators. But all one common theme, they rank Thatcher as one of our best.

You can say, I'm too young etc all you want. The academics agree with me in their droves and I'm betting they know more about her time as PM as anyone on this forum.

Oh and incidentially, you haven't provided any evidence so I can't even begin to discredit it.

Hellow HWS.

Assuming then from the tone of your post, you don't like Maggie very much.

What is the reason the polls all rank her so highly then, in your opinion?

I don't listen to polls, I'd rather listen to people who were there living through it at the time, having their milk taken away and having to pay their poll tax from their YTS £29.50/40hr week wages and at the same time donating to the miners childrens fund from said (slave) wages.

You really don't have a clue how this works do you. To back up your assertions you need to provide CREDIBLE evidence, otherwise you're just like Kirkstall claiming the bible is evidence of creationism. I don't need to try and discredit it, it is discredited already in this context.

There were 8 polls you provided, all from Wikipedia.
5 of them do not poll the public and have too small a sample size to be credible in this case.
The 3 that do, 1 is from a right wing newspaper. This restricts the sample, in the same way that if you poll a Hare Krishna temple you'll get a large support for shaving your head.
Another is from a politics tv show. It attracts only 200k viewers, is broadcast in the middle of the day and less than 25% of viewers are under 45. This again restricts the sample. Plus we are not told any details of how many people voted and Churchill and pre 1945 leaders were excluded.
As I said the only poll that can claim any sort of legitimacy is the Newsnight one due to the fairly large sample size. But then, as with the Daily Politics, Newsnight attracts a certain type of person, generally older, generally already interested in politics, generally wealthier.

Come up with a large, comprehensive, impartial poll then I'll take more interest.

You appear to be changing your argument, was Thatcher a good PM? Or good at getting her policies through and implemented? The academics don't agree with you in droves because they are 2 different questions.

Not only have you thoroughly lost credibility you also appear to have lost yer marbles.
I haven't said anything about you being too young and I haven't asserted anything, so why would I provide evidence for something I haven't said?

A bit of advice, quit while you're dead, buried and 6 feet under.

Don't worry about it, Mrs HWS. The polls are an irrelevant distraction from a quick, lazy search on Wikipedia.

I lived through the three day week when electricity was rationed due to the miners strike of 1972, I also lived through the Callaghan/Healey debacle when rubbish didn't get emptied, bodies didn't get buried and top rate tax was 83% and basic rate was 33% and the IMF were required to Healey out of the crap.