Suddenly she’s everywhere. Docu-dramas on the Beeb (and what could be more thrilling than Portillo on Thatcher?); a New Statesman special issue; op-eds from the Guardian to the Telegraph; portrait hangings at No. 10. Yep, apparently we have Thatcher Fever. What accounts for the sudden revivalism of a legacy which has been spurned for two decades? I don’t buy the argument that this is a matter of simple anniversaries. Sure, it’s almost 30 years since Sunny Jim miscalculated the election date, but I don’t recall a similar fiesta in 1999.
Nor, it would now seem, does the mere mention of “Maggie, Maggie, Maggie” elict the Pavlovian response “Out Out Out!” The BBC’s sympathetic portrayal, and Gordon’s acceptance of the idea of not only a Downing Street portrait, but even a state funeral, seem to imply that after Harry Enfield’s Tory Boy, an election campaign based around Thatcher’s hair on Hague’s head and spontaneous celebration when she quit, it’s finally OK to be a bit soft on the Iron Lady. Just when did it go out of fashion to hate Tories?
How has this happened? Well, as Martin Kettle points out in his Guardian column, part of the explanation is that, unlike in 1999, we’re now on the precipice of a Conservative comeback. David Cameron is poised to become the next Prime Minister, so, the media seem to be presuming, we’re all a bit nostalgic for the last era of Conservative hegemony, if not (as in the case of my generation) curious about what it was actually like.
