Well, given that the Labour Party has made no serious attempt to reverse her major reforms they’re children of Thatcher as well.

To be fair though, all the parties are also the grandchildren of Atlee, and presumably the illegitimate descendent of Lloyd George. I suspect Disraeli may be in the common genealogy as well, but we need to check parish records to confirm this.

Someone normally ends up defining an epoch and setting up systems which are universally accepted (where universally has the value of ‘by everyone who wants to be electable’). Thatcher did that for the late-twentieth century – she liberalised the economy (and failed to stop the concordant liberalisation of society she did not seem to realise would run alongside that) and destroyed one sector of vested interests (the old unions – unions are good, unions serving political ends against democracy are not). To try and undo that would appear to be a retrograde movement to the electorate, in the same way as abolishing the welfare state or the NHS. Effectively, Mrs Thatcher changed the parameters of politics, the space in which the game is played. So yes, all modern politicians are her children, because there is no sensible alternative set of parameters which the electorate can accept.

Admittedly, that does not mean to say that Labour have tried to move the parameters – I think Dave’s point is correct there, in that there has been surprising acquiesence to Mrs Thatcher’s reforms. But to be honest, that is probably why they had three terms of government?

If Brown’s the son of Thatcher, and the Tory cabinet are also children of Thatcher and Milliband is a son of Brown, then does that mean that Milliband has a load of uncles and the odd aunt that sit opposite him at work? I’m confused.

What it means is simple the genes which make a Tory have spread into the New labour camp and it’s getting hard to tell one from another.

Mind you they still make me smile with we are socialists.

“Gordon Brown invited an elderly dementia sufferer who once lived in the house he was then occupying to revisit her former home”

Sarcastic crap that demeans you.

If you dont know by now what was different about Margaret Thatcher vs Gordon Brown, then I imagine that no amount of explanation is going to help you out now.

GB wanted at the time to look like he deserved to be in No 10. Tradition demands that all new PM’s learn and are seen to learn from their predecessors on a non partisan basis. It looks good on TV as well. No one in their right mind beleived or as far as I can tell were meant to beleieve that GB was suddenly a convert to Thatcherism.

To argue that GB and Mrs T were in any serious way on the same political page, is, ludicrous.

Oh no Dave – you’re just scraping around trying to find things to be provocative about. If you recall it was the Tories themselves who got rattled and – thinking ( probably rightly) that Thatcher would lose them the next election – sent her packing in a typically Tory-rats-from-a-sinking-ship manner. It wasn’t until she was safely on the brink of doo-larlyness that they have hypocritically U-turned and canonised her. St Margaret is restored – hallelujah! Gordon merely took Christian ( son-of-the-manse) pity on one who had been so harshly rejected by those who claimed to be her loyal-unto-death followers. He kindly showed her around her old haunts (haunts if you please!) in the hope that the surroundings that the Tory party had kicked her out of would remind her of happier times (not for himself – not for us but for her) – true compassion. Unsullied Christian action on Gordon’s part – “do good to those that spitefully use you and persecute you etc” – Even Arthur Scargill would have approved – wouldn’t he? ‘-Forgive – seventy times seven.’ Innit? I hope Gordon didn’t claim for those flowers on expenses though – that would be taking pity and charity a bit too far.

Notwithstanding the fact it is a routine engagement of Prime Ministers to have the odd cup of tea with ex premieres, it was at least three months into his time at no. 10.
Blair, on the other hand, was sliming it up to Thatch immediately – she was his first official visitor in fact.
What I can’t quite understand is why this article at all? That New Labour was fully in favour of every single piece of Tory Employment legislation was no secret, and Brown even boasted over the low-waged, ‘flexible’ British workforce. But he, and the arch Blairites are both gone, and amid the most important leaks since the Pentagon papers, against the background of mass protests against a weak but vicious Government, you choose to write about one of the most irrelevant pieces of Yesterday’s news. Dumbfounding