Mixed reviews for former Tory PMs, poor marks for Labour ones
Margaret Thatcher is the only prime minister of the last five to have more respondents saying she did a good job than a bad job. When we ask voters to rate whether each prime minister had done a good or bad job overall as prime minister, John Major and David Cameron were viewed negatively but the two Labour prime ministers, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, were viewed even more negatively.
†Part of the reason for this lies in the fact that, while Conservative voters are generally supportive of their former leaders, Labour voters are much less positive about theirs.
Among Conservative voters, Margaret Thatcher gets near universal admiration while John Major’s reputation is more mixed. David Cameron sits between the two with a more clearly positive reputation but not as universally positive as Thatchers:
Among Labour voters however,†views of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown can most charitably be described as “too close to call”, even if their views of former Tory prime ministers is more negative:
That said, while current Conservative voters are†naturally quite similar to the block of Conservative voters who re-elected David Cameron†back in 2015, it seems safe to say that†people who say they will vote for the Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn are probably quite different to those who voted for Labour during Tony Blair’s three election victories.†
