Winston Churchill is the most respected leader of the 20th Century, poll finds

Winston Churchill is Britons’ most respected leader of the 20th Century, according to a new poll.

YouGov asked people to pick up to four leaders they respected most of the major political figures of the 20th Century, and nearly half (47%) voted for Churchill.

The former British Prime Minister was followed by Queen Elizabeth II, with 40%, and Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King, who both received 37%.

Suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst was fifth, followed by Margaret Thatcher, with Mahatma Gandhi, Clement Attlee and Ronald Reagan all coming further down the table.

When the results were split into the votes of Remainers and Leavers, they show that Churchill is more respected by the former than the latter (62% vs 38%), with a difference in opinion when it came to the Queen and Margaret Thatcher.

Conversely, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther Kind, Emmeline Pankhurst and Ghandi were all more respected by Remainers than their pro-Brexit counterparts.

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The survey results were released to coincide with the centenary of the Representation of the People Act 1918, which granted women the vote for the first time.

YouGov’s research also revealed that the Suffragettes’ campaign for voting rights makes 37% of people proud to be British, putting it fourth from the list of 12 events in British history, behind the creation of the NHS (69%), defeating Hitler (49%) and the abolition of slavery (43%).

According to the poll, 57% of Brits don’t consider themselves to be a feminist, with just 34% of British women and 18% of British men saying they consider themselves to be feminists.