Why did it end so badly? 
Ross McKibbin
- Margaret Thatcher, Vol. II: The Iron Lady by John Campbell
Si monumentum requiris, circumspice. Even those, John Campbell suggests, who have little or no memory of Margaret Thatcher, live in a world she created; and from which there is no going back. More than any other British prime minister, even Gladstone, she conforms to Max Weber’s type of the modern demagogic politician: the leader who appeals directly to the electorate over the heads of the party machine; and who subordinates the machine to his or her political personality. In the end, the machine overthrew her; but there is no escaping that personality. Even her foolishness was larger than life.
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Ross McKibbin is a fellow of St John’s College, Oxford, and the author of Classes and Cultures: England 1918-51. His edition of Marie Stopes’s Married Love is published by Oxford.
Other articles by this contributor:
Defeatism, Defeatism, Defeatism · Ten Years of Blair
Nothing More Divisive · The Great Secondary School Disaster
The Destruction of the Public Sphere · Brown v. Cameron
The Tax-and-Spend Vote · Ross McKibbin wonders whether the election will improve New Labour’s grasp on reality
Make enemies and influence people · Ross McKibbin tells Tony Blair what to do
An Element of Unfairness · the Great Education Disaster
The Reshuffle and After · Why Brown should Resign
Pure New Labour · Three Groans for Gordon
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