Examining Thatcher's legacy

With a new biopic coming out, and the Conservatives in power once again, interest in the Iron Lady has been greatly revived. Charles Moore reflects on her 'invincibility':

Margaret Thatcher never wholly recovered from her loss of power. She felt bitterness about what she regarded as the “treachery” of her colleagues, and she tended, in private at least, to complain about her successors. Above all, she simply missed the delight of being prime minister, something, I am convinced, she enjoyed more absolutely than any holder of the office before or since. Once, at lunch, when she was approaching 80 and experiencing some problems with her memory, we fell to talking about which part of the Downing Street house she had preferred to work in. In her mind, she guided me, with total recall, through the geography of the place, the rooms she had redecorated and hung with portraits of great men, including Isaac Newton, who also came from Grantham. Suddenly, she burst out. “Oh, I should dearly love to be back there now! There’s so much for us to be doing.” “Doing” was what she loved, and she did more of it than anyone since Winston Churchill.

(Video: trailer for the upcoming film, The Iron Lady, starring Meryl Streep.)