In the forest of British and world Politics a great oak has fallen. The death of Margaret Thatcher is an event of great significance, whatever political views you hold and whether you think her brand of politics, Thatcherism, good or bad. The measure of her greatness as a politician is that she has a political philosophy named after her.
Twenty five years will have to elapse before a measured view of the lasting value of her reforms can be assessed. There is little point in this blog trying an evaluation now. What can be said is that she put the spine back into a country which had lost its way following the evaporation its Empire. She demonstrated that trades unions must operate within a constructive legal framework to advance the causes of their members and not as a separate organ of brute power within the state. She banished the ghosts of Suez with a stunning victory in the Falklands. She gave the Conservative Party four consecutive victories of which she herself won three. To many, most important of all, she showed there is no glass ceiling above which women should not hope to rise.
On the downside she unleashed a set of simplistic economic principles which formed the framework of an economic model which has now collapsed and from which recovery is proving elusive. She decimated Britain’s industrial base and reinforced a national obsession with home ownership which has left a housing shortage and the biggest national debt overhang in the country’s history.
She changed the nature of politics and the positioning of the political parties. She destroyed the Conservatives as a national party; now they prosper only in England. Since her, the Tories have won just one general election under Major with a small majority, which they subsequently lost in bye-elections and one other under Cameron, when they failed to get a majority altogether. The Tory party, once renowned for its unity of spirit and purpose is now split between right and left and pro or anti Europe.
These are just a handful of thoughts plucked from a huge harvest of extraordinary contributions from a towering twentieth century politician. To her family and friends we extend our sympathy and warm thoughts.
Others will judge this moment dependent on who they think they are, what they believe in and where they think they are headed. And what, if anything, they believe they owe to the age of Margaret Thatcher.