Thatcher & Sons, A Revolution In Three Acts, Simon JENKINS

Over 11 years she transformed her nation and gave birth to an -ism. Not widely loved, but was admired even by those who disagreed with her. Though her form of economic liberalism wasn't new, her will to implement it against the grain of politics was unique. She bred a generation of politicians all of whom took her as reference. Her fall left the nation stunned. Essays saw it as so idiosyncratic that it could not survive her departure. Yet her departure = the end of the beginning. Legacy was carried forward by John Major, Tony Blair (Thatcher's most devoted follower) and Gordon Brown. They were prisoners of a revolution effected by Thatcher. B/B had abandoned traditional Labor policies and espoused the revolution to gain office in 1997. They went where even she had feared to tread. The total conversion of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown was remarkable. Their project after 1994 may been sold as tactical, to “make the Labour electable”, but its consequence was to render Thatcherism irreversible. Labour's victories saw no return to high income tax rates, nationalization or employment protection. Blair drove privatization into every corner of the public life services. The 1st revolution set out to liberate the UK economy. Assault on the size of State and the advance of privatization, lower taxes, labour markets freed. Private sector invited to reinvigorate the public one. It assaulted the state to “roll back its frontier” and assert the supremacy of the individual. The 2nd revolution arose from the management of the first but led in a quite different direction. It was a revolution of power. Thatcher centralized government regulated both public and private sectors to an unprecedented degree. Born in 1925. Left would have been her natural habitat. An old Oxford associate introduced her to the chairman of Dartford Conservative Association, who was looking for candidate. She