Car salespeople and politicians regularly top polls for the least trusted professions, which prompts the question - would you buy a car from a politician?
UK website HonkHonk.co.uk recently surveyed its dealers as to which British Prime Minister from the last 40 years they would actually hire for a car sales role, with the late Margaret Thatcher nabbing the top spot for her 'straight-talking' approach.
'Untrustworthy' Tony Blair beat ‘chaotic’ Liz Truss and 'insincere' David Cameron in the race to rock bottom place in the list.
Here's the complete list of British PMs from the last 40 years, complete with comments from car dealers:
- Margaret Thatcher (1979–90) - (Customers would trust her. They'd know where they stood’)
- Theresa May (2016–19) - (‘Probably quite reassuring’)
- Boris Johnson (2019–22) - (‘Good patter, but hard to keep on track’)
- John Major (1990–97) - (‘Honest enough’)
- Rishi Sunak (2022– ) - (‘At least he dresses snappily’)
- Gordon Brown (2007–10) - (‘Probably best with older customers’)
- David Cameron (2010–16) - (‘Too smarmy’)
- Liz Truss (2022) - (‘Chaotic and clueless about the customer’s needs’’)
- Tony Blair (1997–2007) - (‘I just wouldn’t trust him, would you?’)
Perhaps surprisingly, Boris Johnson managed to land in third place, albeit perhaps for the same reasons he didn’t survive long as PM: "He'd be a fun team member, but he doesn’t seem able to concentrate, so we'd have to watch him," said one dealer.
“Tony Blair? No chance” said another.
Blair came dead last, with claims that he would be seen as 'slippery' and 'untrustworthy' by customers. One commented "They'd think he was hiding something or trying to sell them an insurance write-off."
All of which begs the question we want answered - which New Zealand Prime Minister from the last 40 years would you buy a car from?
While John Key seems like the kind of guy who would do you a great deal on a used import BMW 7 Series from Hong Kong that would later turn out to be the front and back ends of two different cars welded together, and Jim Bolger would likely get you into a tidy high-mileage Toyota Hilux that ran really well, but smelled a bit like a wet dog when it rained, it was David Lange who was the most "car guy" PM of recent times famously racing in the Ford Laser one-make series in the 1980s while he was in office.
So, how about it - would you buy a low mileage, one owner Laser that was only driven on the weekends from him? Watch the video of him in action above and then let us know in the poll below...