Baroness Thatcher 1925-2013. A leader for now?

A torrent of comment and tribute has been unleashed by news of Mrs Thatcher’s death. A veritable rogues gallery of 1980s Tory politicians have been wheeled out to express their views of her – one or two of whom – such as John Redwood, are incredibly still sitting in the House of Commons.

Last week, it was reported that BBC journalists voted for strike action, and said that they would return to work in the event of Nelson’s Mandela’s death, but not Baroness Thatcher. And this illustrates just how divisive a figure she was; no other British politician has aroused the same extremes of adoration and hatred as Mrs Thatcher.

For many in the Labour movement, including the liberal commentariat (those BBC journalists for example), Mrs Thatcher’s death marks the passing of the comforting certainties of black and white ideology. Tony Blair, her successor after John Major, eschewed ideology in power, choosing instead to pick and choose policy from right, left or centre, depending on whether the policy worked or whether it was electorally popular. He was also much more attuned to the social impact of upheaval in, say, health or welfare, than Mrs Thatcher.

In some ways, the Conservative Party has never recovered from her defenestration in 1990. A coterie of right of centre political commentators have made a career writing hand-wringing op-eds about how she changed the political weather and why the Tories were crazy to get rid of her. Thatcher’s political children, fiercely right wing on economics, pro self-help, socially liberal, and of course viscerally anti-European, swept into conservative politics after hijacking the candidate selection process. Many of them are tying the present leadership up in knots.

These Tories are still obsessed by Mrs Thatcher, hankering for that golden decade when principles mattered, where you were either one of us ….or not; where Britain rediscovered its pride, it's place on the global stage, where socialism and communism were defeated and where the national handbag was brought down upon the head of EU President Jacques Delors with a mighty thump.

Those of us working in Westminster in 1990 remember a very different reaction to Mrs Thatcher’s resignation at the time however.  It was as if a heavy black cloud had been lifted from Parliament and party. Most people felt she had clung on too long to power; many others said: “Thank God she’s gone.” After the Lawson boom, the economy was starting to flatline. The poll tax riots in March 1990 seemed to exemplify the divisive nature of her premiership, not just the rioting itself, but her refusal to back down in the face of what was widely perceived as unfair. In common with so many leaders in business and politics, Mrs Thatcher was caught up in her own mythology and hubris.

John Major’s arrival in Downing Street (No 10, not No 11) was a moment when reasonableness replaced stridency at the pinnacle of Government. Tory MPs (and many Labour MPs too) stopped tiptoeing around Westminster in fear; they felt they were free to speak out and say what they thought, even encouraged to do so. Mr Major, Mrs Thatcher’s anointed successor, was a fundamentally decent man, who seemed to listen without prejudice to the thoughts and concerns of many politicians. As an ordinary man, he appealed to ordinary voters too, especially in the 1992 General Election.

Of course, it didn’t last. Mr Major’s talent lay in persuading the many factions that he was on their side. The Tories (exhausted too after years in power) were a party of factions, and each claimed Mr Major as their champion.  When he failed to live up to expectations, he lost his party and then lost the 1997 General Election to a reinvigorated Labour Party, whose leader was hailed as the real heir to Mrs Thatcher.

So what is Mrs Thatcher’s legacy? Is it the case that, while we like the idea of consensus politics, where compromise and coalition provide the bricks and mortar of political decision making, we secretly prefer and are better off led by someone with principles and conviction, even if we disagree with them? In Mrs Thatcher and Mr Blair, the two longest serving post war Prime Ministers, Britain was led by conviction politicians – politicians whose convictions became more entrenched the longer they were in office. 

Just as Mr Major, a man who personified managerial politics, was a welcome rebuff to Mrs Thatcher, so the 2010 Lib Dem-Tory coalition is another attempt to define our national leadership through consensus. Most of the tributes to Baroness Thatcher acknowledge her convictions, her strong sense of principle, her status as an outsider, yet towering over the political landscape.

Where in today’s politics is her equivalent, now that voters are again growing tired of consensus?