In perceived intelligence, Cameron and Osborne trail Thatcher – while Miliband and Corbyn trail Blair
As Donald Trump sets his sights on the presidential race his strategy appears to be adapting to the different demographic challenges of a full electorate instead of just Republican primary voters. Speaking of his most controversial policy, a temporary ban on Muslims entering the US, he now says it was "just a suggestion" – and has offered London's newly elected Muslim Mayor Sadiq Khan an exemption. But he couldn't resist challenging Mr Khan to an IQ test in an interview with Piers Morgan, in response to the mayor's charge that Trump's views on Islam were ignorant.
Given the poor odds of an IQ battle between the two figures ever actually happening, new YouGov research sheds light on who the public thinks would win. We've taken the 29 most rated public figures on yougov.com – plus Sadiq Khan, who's not quite there yet – and asked over 3000 British people to say whether they're above, below or of average intelligence. It might not come as a surprise that Donald Trump is perceived as having one of the lowest levels of intelligence, ahead of only George W. Bush.
We've scored each public figure according to the reponses given by the public, giving incrementally lower multipliers for 'far above average', 'slightly above average', 'average' and so on. Barack Obama is perceived as the most intelligent public figure (scoring 77.5), followed by Margaret Thatcher (75.7) and Hillary Clinton (71.9).
Jeremy Hunt (53.7), Nigel Farage (56.7) and Ed Balls are the three lowest scoring British figures, while Labour's two most recent leaders – Jeremy Corbyn and Ed Miliband (both scoring 60.5) – rank lower than David Cameron (63.2) and George Osborne (62.3). David Cameron is not considered an intellectual heavyweight along with historic party leaders such as Magaret Thatcher (75.7), William Hague (70.7) or Gordon Brown (66.2), however.
