the problem with comparisons for one is it ignores the possibility that things might have gotten better wihtout any change of government policy.

the other problem is.....how far did it all really need to go?

It took a lot of discord to get this far. No one knew for certain that the Thatcher economic experiment would work until she defeated the miners' strike of 1984-85, and the short-term cost in unemployment (now at a 30-year low) was punitive. But the fact is that, in the economic and industrial field, we now have the harmony that the "divisive" Mrs Thatcher sought.

she was divisive. How much of it was really due to her?

Now it is true that some shift in policy was needed but it isn't true that Margaret Thatcher was needed. Plenty of centre left parties around the world have instituted economic change. I'm sorry, but conservative parties do not own economic reform.

Which is why we have Tony Blair. Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson and, despite his more Old Labour costume, Gordon Brown, studied Margaret Thatcher religiously. They saw she had identified with people's sense, in 1979, that "fairness" did not involve being run by the trade union bosses. They realised that she had brought about great economic gains, and that they must bank them. Hence Gordon Brown's promise in 1997 to stick to Tory spending plans and his immediate introduction of independence for the Bank of England in order to prevent a return to inflation. Hence the determination, even now, not to increase top or standard tax rates.

and yet people have turned their back on anything more radical. They don't want it. This has happened all around hte world. What the people want is better services provided by the government which is not what Margaret Thatcher was interested in.

People also don't mind privatisation, but hell, let's actually have a proper plan for it.

Let's also not forget the Falklands war. Let's also not forget that in the end not even her own party wanted her.

They copied her stylistically too. They emulated the drama she brought to politics. They climbed into smart suits and stood against smart backdrops. They reached beyond their party to the rising class - Tony Blair's "Mondeo man" being for New Labour what the Luton carworker had been for Mrs Thatcher. Mr Blair learnt from her the need for enemies you can beat - in his case, the Labour Left - and for friends who might be unexpected: he is excited by getting on well with George W Bush, almost as she was by befriending Mikhail Gorbachev. She was Not For Turning: he has No Reverse Gear [*Smirk* - Ex.].

smart suits and backdrops? This is copying her? It's modern campaigning. Reach beyond their party? This article gets worse and worse. They emulated her style

The discordant Mrs Thatcher made Britain harmonious enough to risk voting Labour. Mr Blair still reinforces this. I bet he knows that, in January 1978, Mrs Thatcher jumped in the opinion polls after she said that people feared being "swamped" by immigrants; and I bet that's why he said a more goody-goody version of the same thing last week, at much the same time in the electoral cycle.

to risk voting labour? What an almighty stupid statement. She may have jumped in the opinion polls and he may have followed her, but pandering to racist sentiment is never an admirable thing.

So what's the difference? For Blairites, Margaret Thatcher stood for "the Politics of Or" while Mr Blair stands for "the Politics of And" - you can have enterprise and the minimum wage, British patriotism and being at the heart of Europe, you can have your cake and eat it. But the truth is that you can afford the Politics of And only because of the benefits inherited from the Politics of Or. And the inheritance can be dissipated.

crap crap crap. Puerile crap. Sorry sir excalibur but this article wont include anything apart from a few stupid comparisons so I wont either.

Even when she was still prime minister and Mr Blair no more than an up-and-coming frontbencher, Lady Thatcher identified him to friends as a threat to the Conservative Party: she is a good judge of political gifts, especially those of opponents. After he became Labour leader 10 years ago, the two met now and again, and she liked him. She is always partial to a tall, smartly dressed and courteous young man, and she wished him well in modernising his party. Since John Major was making a mess of things, his success gave her less displeasure than perhaps it should have done. Even then, however, she used to wonder whether "there's really anything there". She wonders it more now.

you know I actually read the downing street years. Really not all that impressive.

It may still be too early to know the answer. It is seven years to the day since Tony and Cherie and Euan and Nicholas and Kathryn (not yet Leo) waved to us from that famous door. When it's a quarter of a century, will there be all the articles about him that there are about Margaret Thatcher? There's another anniversary, by the way. It's 40 years since Harold Wilson won his first election for a new and glamorous Labour Party: you won't be reading much about that.</font>

so in another 15 years it wont all be a distant memory either?

(The link is too long: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2004/05/01/do0101.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2004/05/01/ixop.html )

that's ok, I'd rather not see the original anyway


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