The EconomistOctober 12th 2019 Britain 59O
n october 7tha flock of Thatcherites made their way to Ban-
queting House to celebrate the publication of the third and fi-
nal volume of Charles Moore’s biography of the great prime minis-
ter. The heavens rained cats and dogs. Extinction Rebellion
protesters blocked the Mall with makeshift encampments and
drumming circles. Rumours of the failure of the latest round of
Brexit negotiations filled the air. But nothing could deter our in-
trepid heroes from feasting on champagne and canapés.
Boris Johnson was the most intrepid of the lot. He had to make
the journey from Downing Street by underground tunnel to avoid
being assaulted, verbally if not physically. He praised Mr Moore,
his former boss, for displaying the lust for accuracy that is the
mark of a great Daily Telegraphjournalist. He praised Thatcher for
being right about Europe. And he advised the pierced and tattooed
“crusties” in the streets to buy the book and learn about the femi-
nist and green warrior who changed the world for the better.
There is no doubt that Mr Moore’s three-volume biography, 22
years in the making and almost 3,000 pages long, is one of the great
political works of our time. Mr Moore has secured his position in
perpetuity as the archbishop of Thatcherism. But whether the faith
that he presides over survives as anything more than a set of empty
incantations is more questionable.
Thatcherism combined four elements: support for free enter-
prise; assertive nationalism; a commitment to strengthening the
state by using quasi-market mechanisms to increase efficiency;
and a belief in Victorian values, in the form of hard work and civic
responsibility, which both tempered and underpinned the belief
in enterprise. These four principles were accompanied by an es-
tablishment-bashing, “they don’t like us, we don’t care” attitude.
This anti-establishment attitude remains strong. Some ultra-
Brexiteer Tories are happy to damage both the Crown and the
courts in their determination to take Britain out of the European
Union. But what was once a coherent philosophy has decomposed
into its component parts, many of which are decomposing in their
turn. “Priti Patel”, the unimpressive home secretary, “is all we have
left of a once-mighty intellectual movement,” jokes one minister,
as he helps himself to another sliver of salmon sashimi.
Some of Thatcher’s ideas have become so mainstream that theyarenolongerdistinctive. Using market mechanisms to improve
the operation of the state has been adopted by so many different
countries and parties that people forget its origins. Other ideas
have become shop-soiled. In the wake of the financial crisis it is
impossible to argue that deregulation is the answer to everything.
Still others, like restoring Victorian values and creating a property-
owning democracy, have failed. The proportion of people who
own individual shares has halved since the early 1980s and among
the young the rate of home-ownership has plunged. And some
Thatcherite ideas have even backfired. Thatcher contributed to
Britain’s problem of over-centralisation with her war on local gov-
ernment, and poisoned the well of privatisation by selling off nat-
ural monopolies in ways that favour investors over customers. In
Tony Blair’s day, Thatcherites reconciled themselves to opposition
by arguing that they had forced Labour to come to terms with capi-
talism. Today the Labour Party is run by people who spent the 1980s
arguing that Michael Foot was insufficiently left-wing.
The biggest problem with Thatcherism is that its two most im-
portant components—belief in free enterprise and belief in na-
tionalism—are at war with each other. Thatcher was a nationalist
who believed that the best way to reverse Britain’s decline was to
unleash the spirit of enterprise. Freed from the burden of rules and
regulations, entrepreneurs would restore Britain to its 19th-cen-
tury glory. But a striking number of the businesses that took ad-
vantage of the free market were foreign. Britain is now the Wim-
bledon of global capitalism, more successful at hosting
world-class players than producing them.
The battle between business and nationalism is at its most in-
tense with Brexit. Thatcher was the architect of the single market,
which tilted the eutowards liberalism. But in her later years she
became increasingly critical of the European project and fanned
the flames of Euroscepticism, first with her Bruges speech of 1988
(when she warned of a “European superstate”) and then with a fu-
sillade of behind-the-scenes interventions. The tension she
stoked is now tearing the Tories apart. Some self-identified
Thatcherites argue that the euis the world’s biggest free-trade area
and that a retreat to narrow-minded nationalism would be a disas-
ter. Others say that the euis a restraint on trade and that national
sovereignty would allow Britain to be more global. And still others
maintain that Britain needs to put up barriers in order to “take
back control” of its destiny. Most big companies oppose Brexit. But
some buccaneering capitalists are its biggest cheerleaders.Iron turns to rust
The war over Thatcher’s legacy looks as if it will shift her party in a
decidedly un-Thatcherite direction. Her Conservatives were all
about dynamism and shaking Britain out of its comfortable ways
by embracing risk. Some of that spirit remains with the Brexiteers.
But to get Brexit done, the party is being forced to woo voters
whose overriding desire is for security. The great theme of the re-
cent Tory conference was providing reassurance—putting more
bobbies on the beat, building more hospitals, raising the mini-
mum wage and otherwise spraying money all over the place. The
target voter is no longer the upwardly mobile striver but the left-
behind northerner, and “get on your bike” has been replaced by
“climb aboard your mobility scooter”. Thatcherism has not just de-
composed.It isindangerofgivingbirthtoitsopposite. 7Bagehot Thatcherism today
The sad fate of the ideology that has animated the Conservative Party since the 1980sListen to an interview with Thatcher's biographer, Charles Moore, at
economist.com /charlesmoore