One of my favourite quotes attributed to Margaret Thatcher is one of her less famous: speaking to Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau, a very different but no less spirited leader, she declared, "we may have our disagreements, but only when you're wrong, prime minister." For me, it sums her up far better than the more famous "u-turn" speech.
Conviction isn't a strong enough word for the force she put behind her statements ("now it's time to fight the real enemy, socialism"). This trait, admired even by those opposed to her politics, brought about such a shift in the political landscape that those same opponents have had to learn how to live with her legacy rather than try to affect a reversal. No Thatcher, no Blair.
Much of what Thatcher did in Britain was introduce a measure of common sense capitalism, an attempt to bring more of it to the level of the less wealthy individual. An example was turning many council housing tenants (basically renters of state-housing) into homeowners. Her background as daughter of a shopkeeper motivated much of this.
Those on the left would most likely counter that a legacy of such policies has just led to the rich getting richer and stagnation, or worse, for others. An economy which is top-heavy with (reckless) bankers and insurers is inherently unbalanced as the lessons of 2008 onwards have harshly taught the UK in particular.
Prior to Thatcher however, the trade unions were busy making everyones' lives worse. It's hard to imagine that secondary picketing - in essence a group of workers going on a strike in sympathy with a labour dispute that has nothing to do with them - used to be legal. Moves to restrict the unions and other measures are blamed by many for the loss of manufacturing, while others would contend the harm was done long beforehand: Thatcher in fact let a failing business fail, instead of throwing more money at it and merely delaying the inevitable. There's an argument that could be made for the coal mining industry having signed its own death warrant in 1974, when it brought down Edward Heath's conservative government.
Electricity generators subsequently deemed it wise to move away from such a heavy dependency on coal given the power cuts it caused at the time. When round 2 took place in 1984, in addition to having Thatcher's own toughness, she also had a stockpile of coal.
It was not only the National Union of Mineworkers leader (and as it turned out, dinosaur) Arthur Scargill who underestimated her. General Galtieri, military dictator of Argentina, made the same catastrophic blunder. Pragmatism was not going to stop her from sending a task force to the Falklands in 1982 to correct what to her more than anyone else was a black-and-white issue of right and wrong. Given that the military dictatorship subsequently fell, perhaps Margaret Thatcher could be called the Surrogate Mother of Argentine Democracy.
Thatcher perhaps even re-defined the word "polarizing". It is a rare British bird indeed that would describe him or herself as indifferent to Maggie. Singer Morrissey, for example, describes her as "a terror without an atom of humanity." While he and others of what some term the "loony left" (another phrase coined in that era) are literally celebrating Thatcher's passing, many are mourning a prime minister who "saved the country" and are now resorting to a measure of hagiography.
Creative destruction is how much of what she did seems a couple of decades later, many of whom on the losing side, however, have never got over it. The bitterness she still inspires comes from the perception that she was indifferent, even callous, to the suffering many of her policies caused.
On the economy, as with more or less every decision she ever made, she insisted there was no other way. Firmness is an admirable, and in her case a defining, trait. Yet to be unmoved on nearly every issue is to make that strength an eventual liability. Thatcher scores very low marks indeed when it comes to Nelson Mandela and South Africa. She was warned about being on the wrong side history (having labelled him a terrorist and being the only leader to oppose sanctions) even before his release, after which his true greatness was revealed.
On the subject of history, it was the main reference point for a great deal of Thatcherite foreign policy. Looking back instead of forward, a large swathe of the British population still, as she did, misidentifies Britain's true place and future direction in the wider world.
Just as she moved the goalposts in many other areas, she steadfastly did not when it came to shaping the European Union and Britain's place within it. Statements such as "the bells of Big Ben rang out over occupied Europe during the war" do not constitute a future-oriented policy, or any policy at all. Today's British Conservative party will not meaningfully look at this in large part just for the fact that Margaret did it. A couple of her personal characteristics, intransigence and unrealistic nostalgia, are to this day still stubbornly presented as political ideas.
It is one more thing therefore, that Thatcher personified: one's greatest strength also being one's greatest weakness. Fortunately she believed and existed in a democracy (indeed was a fierce opponent of communism and enjoyed heroine status in much of eastern Europe), for such a trait can end up doing harm if the public has no recourse. What ended her time in office was precisely the recognition by much of her party that she had been there too long. Years later she claimed she would have resigned shortly after winning a forth term. With the benefit of hindsight then, she had still been "right" about everything and eventually the public would have seen sense.
Does Thatcher's passing symbolize the end of an era of politicians who mean what they say and stand on principle? There don't seem to be many around these days. I find it strange that US Vice-President Joe Biden (yes, really) is labelled gaffe-prone merely for saying what's on his mind.
Of course, always taking a "principled stand" comes at the cost of going too far and not relenting even when advisable. Objectivity is useful in a politician, but then too much can lead to becoming a "perfectly lubricated weathervane" such as Mitt Romney.
Overall she was one of those politicians who from time to time are an omnipresence at home and the embodiment of her country abroad (Reagan comes to mind, Trudeau for Canada, De Gaulle, etc.). She both enjoyed the label "Iron Lady" and being likened to a headmistress - what's wrong with that she said. At home "no ordinary politician" might be about the only consensus statement that could exist to describe her.
