“... 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 ...”

“... 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 ...”

“... 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 ...”

“... 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 ...”

“... 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 ...”

“... Player argue that, having failed to persuade the public and the medical establishment under Margaret Thatcher that the NHS should be turned into a European-style national insurance programme, the advocates of a competitive health market gave up trying to convince the big audience and focused on infiltrating Whitehall’s policymaking centres and ...”

“... 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 ...”

“... affecting the climate or impoverishing us. But as a result of actions taken a generation ago by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives – a party whose nationalist programme promised independence from Europe – the decisions aren’t Britain’s alone. Thatcher promised less state involvement in industry but the ...”

“... in. Staring into the fire, he waggled his stocking-soled feet, and blew out his lips. ‘I think Margaret Thatcher saw those guaranteed prices farmers were getting and just hated it,’ he said, ‘and now, though it kills me, we may have to face something: there are too many sheep in the economy. Farmers go down to the market every other week and sell ...”

“... on the rhythmic and allegorical resources of Medieval poetry to present a poetic critique of the Thatcher era, of a country ‘where Margaret / ruled without Rosine, true mercy’. It works poetically because it mobilises rhythm and metaphor to conjure up those collective fantasies and desire whose importance in our ...”