First Thatcher ministry May 1979. The Winter of Discontent had seen the Labour government's popularity slump during the previous four months, and the opinion polls all pointed towards a Conservative victory. The Tories won the election with a majority of 44 seats and their leader Margaret Thatcher became Britain's first female prime minister. Thatcher inherited some of the worst economic statistics of postwar Britain. The nation was still feeling the effects of the numerous strikes during the recent Winter of Discontent. Inflation had recently topped 20%, and unemployment was in excess of 1.5 million for the first time since the 1930s. Thatcher's monetarist
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