Margaret Thatcher

On 14 April 2013, Andrew Rawnsley said this of Margaret Thatcher in The Observer:

“The largest British Prime Minister on the global stage since Winston Churchill, she played a significant role in changing the world…

The very black mark on her record, even Norman Tebbit acknowledges this, was TO NEGLECT THE COMMUNITIES WRECKED BY DEINDUSTRIALISATION. Whether it was ideological myopia or plain indifference, THE CASUALTIES WERE LEFT TO ROT ON BENEFIT, FOSTERING THE DEPENDENCY CULTURE to which she was supposed to be so opposed.

For all her rhetoric about reforming the welfare state, the public sector consumed almost the same proportion of national wealth when she left power as when she came to it…

One area of the economy did begin an explosive growth during her reign: financial services. Some argue that HER 1986 ‘BIG BANG,’ WHICH DEREGULATED THE CITY, SET IN MOTION THE FORCES THAT EVENTUALLY LED TO THE GREAT CRASH…

The more potent charge is that she was the progenitor of a culture, one New Labour was too intellectually intimidated to challenge, in which FINANCE CAPITAL HELD THE WORLD IN ITS THRALL AND PROFIT WAS ELEVATED ABOVE EVERYTHING ELSE. This is one of the paradoxes of her legacy. The woman who preached the virtues of thrift, modesty and hard work learned at the knee of her devoutly Methodist father became the midwife to A MAMMON CULT OF DEBT-SOZZLED AVARICE.

Here's another. The personification of upward mobility, born over a corner shop, died in a suite at the Ritz, presided over WIDENING INEQUALITIES IN BOTH OPPORTUNITY AND OUTCOMES…

She was the true-blue Tory who handbagged her own tribe's future prospects while CELEBRATING TONY BLAIR AS HER PROUDEST ACHIEVEMENT…

The Tories ceased to be a national party, largely shrinking into the affluent south that had benefited most from her reign. To this day, there are many major northern cities that do not have a single Tory councillor. Thanks, above all, to this stout defender of the Union, Scotland now has just one Tory MP and will soon be voting on independence."