Margaret Thatcher senior member of the party and former Minister of Defence, as Foreign Minister in 1979. Although he was considered a "wet", he avoided domestic affairs and got along well with Thatcher. The first issue was what to do with Rhodesia, where the five-percent white population was determined to rule the prosperous, largely-black ex-colony in the face of overwhelming international disapproval. After the collapse of the Portuguese Empire in Africa in 1975, South Africa, which had been Rhodesia's chief supporter, realised that country was a liability. Black rule was inevitable, and Carrington brokered a peaceful solution at the Lancaster House conference
Historical rankings of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom using a 0 to 10 scale, where 0 meant highly unsuccessful and 10 meant highly successful. Overall, MPs rated Margaret Thatcher as the most successful post-war Prime Minister, just ahead of Clement Attlee. With the exception of Edward Heath, who was judged more favourably by Labour MPs than by Conservatives, evaluations were split along party lines: Tory MPs tended to consider Conservative prime ministers to be more successful than did Labour MPs, and Labour MPs generally gave Labour prime ministers higher scores than did Conservative MPs. In October 2016 the University of Leeds, in conjunction with Woodnewton Associates, surveyed 82