When Heath telephoned Margaret Thatcher to tell her that he was going to sack Powell, she responded: "I really thought that it was better to let things cool down for the present rather than heighten the crisis". Heath sacked Powell from his Shadow Cabinet the day after the speech and he never held another senior political post again. Powell received almost 120,000 (predominantly positive) letters and a Gallup poll at the end of April showed that 74 per cent of those asked agreed with his speech and only 15 per cent disagreed, with 11 per cent unsure. One poll concluded that between 61 and 73 per cent disagreed with Heath sacking Powell. According to George L. Bernstein, many British people felt that Powell "was the first British politician who was actually listening to them".