“We are all Thatcherites now,” declared David Cameron on the morning of Margaret Thatcher’s funeral. Not so, said Nick Clegg:
“He’s the leader of the Conservative Party he’s perfectly entitled to say that. I certainly wouldn’t call myself a Thatcherite. I’m a Liberal, she wasn’t a Liberal. I’ve always called myself a Liberal, I always will.”
Do you think you’re a Thatcherite? Well, the Daily Telegraph has devised a test to help you find out: you’re 10 questions away from finding out on how much you and The Lady (dis)agreed. You can take it here.
And yes, before anyone takes to the comments section below to complain: some of the questions will likely trip up Liberal Democrats who’ll respond, “I don’t agree with any of those bloody options.” (Especially question 5.) It’s just a bit of fun. And, for the record, I got 40%.
* Stephen was Editor (and Co-Editor) of Liberal Democrat Voice from 2007 to 2015, and writes at The Collected Stephen Tall.
27 Comments
“You scored 50%”
I am delighted to report that I only scored 10%
While I failed to meet Hugh’s high standards, I still managed 20%, so I am happy with that. Especially as any questions we agreed on, we only agreed on in the sense that test had no option for ‘none of the above.’
Troublingly, I also got 40%!
I plead the fifth. 😉
I also got 40 %
As if I did not have enough trauma to deal with in life.
My therapist is really going to earn her money at next weeks session
For the record, it does seem to let you skip questions (e.g. 5) without giving an answer by just clicking continue. (Which got me out of a tricky spot).
Quiz Completed
Thank you for completing this quiz.
You scored 0%!
ROFL @ Q5 option c !
I am another member of The 40% Club (though for a couple of those I was very disgruntled about the options).
I think we should view these results as we would election results, and as far as I’m concerned a 60/40 is still a Liberal landslide. Huzzah!
10%.
Is it known whether Nick Clegg has taken the test?
Hmmn, 30% -but some consolationin that someofthe questions were hopelessly skewed (esp 2and5). I think the quiz was really ‘how much about thatcher’s views do you remember’ rather than a test of how thatcherite we are.
skipping the ones that there wasn’t an option I could agree with gave me 10%. I got 30% last night because I hadn’t realised you could skip and was selecting random answers for the ones I didn’t like the options on.
I got 10%.
5 of the questions didn’t offer the answer I would have chosen, but that’s usual for a media funded opinion poll anyway.
0% (though I did skip 2 questions)!
I got 20% but that appears to be in part because there was one question where I didn’t agree with *any* of the available answers and left it blank, and it scored me as taking the “Thatcherite” view!
It sounds like “We’re all about 20% Thatcherite now”.
I get 10%.
30% – but the alternatives were bizarre in the extreme. No mention of – how greedy and selfish are you. .? which I believe are the true measures of Thatcherism.??
20% without skipping any!
Why do people take seriously a ridiculous “quiz” devised by the DT of all places which includes questions which are either impossible to answer, defective in their choices or downright skewed!
Tony Greaves
I don’t think anyone is taking it seriously. No reason why they should.
I scored 10% (bank of England) but didn’t answer one ridiculous question on threat to liberty as none of the ones chosen are a threat to liberty (they didn’t mention corporate business – such as the Murdoch empire which is a threat to liberty or policies of the previous Labour government curtailing liberty and pursued it seems by the current reactionary Home Secy & the Tory part of the coalition (thank goodness for the LibDems on this and other issues!)
Tony has actually hit this nail on the head! ‘Why do people take seriously a ridiculous “quiz” devised by the DT of all places which includes questions which are either impossible to answer, defective in their choices or downright skewed!’
Excellent point Keith!! Avoided in the gushing comments on the BBC and Tory Media – ‘30% – but the alternatives were bizarre in the extreme. No mention of – how greedy and selfish are you. .? which I believe are the true measures of Thatcherism.??’ so do I (d.o.)
other commentators seem to agree lol
Tony – I kind of assumed that if I was taking a quiz to see how Thatcherite I was there was a degree of implied irony 🙂
According to this test, I am 20% Thatcherite for believing the Bank of England should be run by the taxpayer and that council houses should not be sold at a discount to their tenants.
The only correct answer is, “Yawn”. Confected nonsense.
Maybe instead of all the endless Thatcherite fawning we’ve had these past few weeks, the regular writers at LDV should read Wlliam Keegan’s excellent objective account of what Thatcherism meant for the British economy:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/apr/21/margaret-thatcher-woman-legend-myths
And perhaps return to thinking about how we can fix the problems that remain.
alternatively, some smart app designer could try developing a quiz ‘how much do you agree with LibDem policy?’
Most people I’m sure would see LibDems are the best party for them!