I think that somebody who is aspiring to be a Conservative prime minister now was probably a Conservative party member under Thatcher. Cameron's the same age as me, FCOL; he went to Oxford in the same year, he did the same course (I find from Wikipedia). I think that's evidence of an absence of the antipathy towards Thatcherite instincts that I had, and have; if he is reformed, he at least ought to explain how and why, but I suspect he isn't, and is at best a focus-group politician and at worst someone who thinks Thatcher is emulatable.
I just think of Major as grey and drippy; it's Thatcher I'm terrified of. But Major pre-dates Thatcherism. Cameron doesn't; Cameron joined up under Thatcher.
Like you say, they don't do the things their manifestos say, and so it does matter what their instincts are too. Anyone who enthusiastically signed up to and promoted Thatcher in the late 1980s and hasn't had a Road to Damascus moment since isn't someone I want running the country, whatever the focus groups are telling him to say at the moment.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-04-29 08:43 am (UTC)I just think of Major as grey and drippy; it's Thatcher I'm terrified of. But Major pre-dates Thatcherism. Cameron doesn't; Cameron joined up under Thatcher.
Like you say, they don't do the things their manifestos say, and so it does matter what their instincts are too. Anyone who enthusiastically signed up to and promoted Thatcher in the late 1980s and hasn't had a Road to Damascus moment since isn't someone I want running the country, whatever the focus groups are telling him to say at the moment.