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“... the ageing water and sewage systems, but there seemed little danger that the government of Margaret Thatcher would prevent shareholders making a fat return. And so it has proved, even unto her successors. The simplest way to understand the way the water set-up works in England now is to think of it as a form of buy-to-let scheme, with us, the ...”

“... to Members’ Allowances, it’s not surprising that most MPs seem to have followed the example of Margaret Beckett, who confessed: ‘I just grabbed together the relevant things and bunged them into the Fees Office and left it to them to sort it out.’ So Gerald Kaufman, having spent £8865 on a Bang & Olufsen 40” BeoVision LCD TV, described by its ...”

“... search for the young woman who would play Scarlett O’Hara. The move provoked a furore; Margaret Mitchell’s novel, published in 1936, was already a national bestseller – it seemed that everyone was reading it – and the desire to star in the movie version proved irresistible. As in a proto-Pop Idol, lines of would-be Scarletts queued up for ...”

“... do. It was as though there could be one and one only of each available option: one politician, Margaret Thatcher; one princess, Princess Di; one blonde superstar, Madonna; one lean and androgynous rock’n’roll performer, Patti Smith. In Kraus’s view, Acker went along with this weird logic, too. ‘Acker is in London, at a peak of notoriety that ...”

“... and later, in the UK, through Madsen Pirie’s Adam Smith Institute, and adopted as policy by Thatcher from the mid-1970s onwards. He persists in using the term ‘establishment’ mainly as a way of shaming neoliberals who like to present themselves as in some way ‘anti-establishment’. Although he rightly ridicules the ...”

“... Strike of 1926. Then, if ever, you might expect to have seen legislation enacted which would leave Margaret Thatcher’s industrial relations policy far behind in left field. But as Anderson documents, the 1927 Act is remarkable not for what it includes, but for what it omits: the compromises on which the Committee eventually agreed are as much an echo of ...”

“... dispensing with such footling restrictions, left-of-centre figures such as Cook, John Prescott, Margaret Beckett and Chris Smith have been allowed to surround themselves with like-minded ministers. The man who has replaced the Blairite factotum Stephen Byers, for example, in charge of minimum wage and trade-union rights, is Ian McCartney – a Prescott ...”

“... suburb of Park Ridge seems to have been almost as close, insular and parsimonious as the future Margaret Thatcher’s in Grantham. Both girls, though, were afforded similar avenues of escape. Like Thatcher, Hillary Clinton was brought up in Methodism, with its stress on action, seriousness and good works. She was ...”

“... of my lifetime. Theresa May, with the largest Conservative share of the national vote since Margaret Thatcher’s post-Falklands triumph in 1983, failed to secure a majority, while Jeremy Corbyn – reviled by most of his own MPs – made Labour competitive again, with a remarkable near 10 per cent swing in his favour. As a result, a minority Tory ...”

“... about the homeless in the US. Ditto this one about Chernobyl. Ditto the one about (what else?) Margaret Thatcher. Those song ‘explanations’ are exactly the kind of thing you might have expected from someone not quite as smart as Bowie trying to do a Bowie: Bowie lite. Ironically, they gave the game away by being way too heavy. He could seem almost ...”

“... version of these explorations is called anthropology, as in Claude Lévi-Strauss, Clifford Geertz, Margaret Mead, and many American scholars in receipt of sabbatical leave and Guggenheim fellowships. If you have a sufficiently resourceful mind, and a persuasive style, of course, you can stimulate them by going for a walk along the local beach or by taking ...”

“... or a question of interpretation, or a misleading claim, but a lie. It ignores the rebate Margaret Thatcher negotiated. When you factor that in, the EU actually ‘takes’ about £250 million a week from Britain. Deepening the dishonesty of the original lie, even that figure overstates Britain’s contribution by more than half, because the EU ...”

“... the 1982 I remember: the Falklands War has been lost, but with consequences only for the future of Margaret Thatcher’s leadership, it seems; inflation is higher, at 17 per cent rather than 9; Tony Benn is leader of the opposition; the Poll Tax has been introduced a decade early; John Lennon is still alive; and personal computers have already been around ...”

“... as I am sure he would be the first to admit. The Prime Minister is also said to admire Lady Thatcher, and Gladstone’s was exactly the same strategy as the one she followed. Followed, indeed, to the point of recklessness. But she did win three successive elections. Is the Labour Party up to such a strategy? A good deal will probably depend on the ...”

“... unknown, had attacked the potato crop.’) Her tone is English to the core, a cross between Margaret Thatcher and A.S. Byatt: she knows the difference between right and wrong (a matter which is still hotly debated in Ireland), and she knows a bad man when she sees one. Russell and Trevelyan are villains. If she relies too much on the study of ...”