To fulfill the balance that makes credibility possible, where I believe the Left have enjoyed a monopoly of political slant that is more institutionalized in academia than we believe. How is this reference to Thatcher a contemporary issue ? Because she represents the very eclectic demographic that makes for Brexit, whether you're a Remainer or a Leaver.
To today's youth, 'Thatcher' is just another maker of Cider'! But she was once the politician whose combative style talked the language of fervour and charismatic 'in your face' mentality of the 1980's. She overshadowed everything about ideology, positivism, and the improvisational that barked a generation into line. To some she was a political surgeon, to others a meat cleaver handler whose only compromise was not to compromise ! This sounds like our time too, no? But rather than worship the woman as a hero, I prefer to enlist her political demise as a weapon to evaluate her legacy with hindsight, and not dwell on her rather 'ugly' political temper and personality; in other words don't let her personal shortcomings blur your judgement.
Thatcher's Demise
Thatcher was becoming 'too proud of her achievements' in her final months in number 10, or she was a victim of habitual 'infatuated with power' syndrome that afflicts every politician in power ? I disagree. I believe she'd moved on from domestic issues with a new approach to international macro-economics than we give her credit for. She had sidelined Britain's short term political binary system for a vision of internationalism based on liberal free-marketism. Who could blame her for wanting to restore a post-Communist world to the benefits of the free market? She personified the respect but not deference to the Conservative elite as well as the working-class Tories, and she wasn't going to be bound by any social obligation without the 'friend of entrepreneurialism' guiding her every move. Thatcher had began to elevate the national interest as a long-term economic agenda that should reside by the international market without any political interference from any where, especially from Westminster. Some people misinterpreted that as self-seeking self aggrandizement when Thatcher was revealing a broader international idealistic restorative need for the global community so traumatized by the 'Cold War', to pull together, but this time in the same direction. She wasn't greedy she was visionary...sure she was so off-putting in her manner that only with hindsight could we appreciate this more humane side, whether she was aware of it or not! Now do we under stand Brexit? Thatcher had pissed-off every body but herself, but she was a casualty of being right! And equally she proved that the Tory party didn't select its voters on the criteria of being educated in Latin and ancient Greek ! From her Methodist background, what else but fervour drove the woman??