I have spent my Easter vac working as a researcher to a writer on his forthcoming biography of Margaret Thatcher – when therefore the news came through at lunchtime that the 87 year old former Prime Minister had passed away, it felt strangely close to home. Regardless of my political viewpoints – or, for that matter, anybody else’s – any assessment of Margaret Thatcher the person and Margaret Thatcher the leader is fascinating.
Of course the Thatcherites will see it as vital now to guard her legacy in print and on the airwaves whilst those who identify themselves firmly against her policies will set out to ensure that, whilst Lady Thatcher’s passing is treated respectfully, her legacy is analysed towards an end of recognizing her failures.
And her legacy will be assessed in the coming hours and days – rightly so. Margaret Thatcher’s impact upon Britain is undeniable: how she transformed the nature of the British economy, provided increased opportunities for enterprise, changed the rhetoric of political debate and promoted Britain’s standing on the world stage through a new kind of diplomacy. The world we live in today is to a large extent defined by Margaret Thatcher. She once quipped that we would one day find it unbelievable that the Gleneagles Hotel was once owned by the state (pre-privatization), and to a certain extent I think she was right.
E.M. Forster’s dictum that it is private life that holds up the mirror to eternity applies to Margaret Thatcher much more than to any other political figure. For Margaret Thatcher’s legacy will be defined in many respects by her as a private individual in public life: the fact that she was our first woman Prime Minister, that she was our longest serving 20th century premier, that she was the daughter of a greengrocer from Grantham. Margaret Thatcher broke social barriers in a man’s world dominated by an established ruling class – an achievement that can never go underestimated.
In many ways Margaret Thatcher’s legacy can best be observed through looking at our political parties today. Margaret Thatcher may have reached out to much of the middle classes (and many of the aspirational working class) but at the same time she abandoned the greatest legacy of the Conservative Party beforehand: compassionate ‘one nation’ style conservatism. In doing so, the Labour Party was also led to depart from its own traditional base. Through abandoning pragmatism in favour of the now fashionable short-termism of ideology she architected the situation today, whereby our political debate is harsher and an ‘idolatory of the wealthy’ is all too prevalent within our society.
Margaret Thatcher’s greatest strength was her greatest weakness. Her no nonsense attitude and sense of conviction were her driving force but they were also the cause of her downfall. Whereas most of us see things in shades of grey, for Margaret Thatcher the universe existed in black and white. In a complex and delicate world, a lack of tact and a tendency towards strong rhetoric for the sake of it rather than a commitment to national unity, was Margaret Thatcher’s greatest failing.
Margaret Thatcher was certainly a formidable woman and it is undeniable that all of us are, whether we like it or not, products of her period in power. The hope is that the next few days will be approached with consideration and sensitivity, not least out of respect for the Thatcher family. That Margaret Thatcher brought about such bizarre extremes of sycophancy and hatred will be no different in death than it was in life. The only difference is that it is now the stuff of history.
