Thatcher’s Post Script

Even decades after her premiership, and despite vicious criticisms from both the left and right of the political spectrum, Lady Margaret Thatcher remains a dominant figure in Britain’s political imagination. The centenary of her birth has been marked by a festival, an academic symposium, and numerous new books. The two that have particularly stood out to me, so far, are Terrence Casey’s Forging the Iron Lady (which I have previously reviewed for this online magazine), focused on Lady Thatcher’s years before she became prime minister, and now Peter Just’s, Margaret Thatcher: Life After Downing Street, focused on Thacher’s years after her time as prime minister. Together, these studies mark the bookends of Thatcher’s political career.

Just’s book is on, as is stated in the subtitle, Thatcher’s life after Downing Street; that is, from 1990 to her death in 2013. It is the first full-length examination of this period of her life, which, as Just writes, is “under-researched and largely misunderstood, if not actively misrepresented.” Just has achieved a true reassessment through thorough research—the book is erudite and full of fascinating quotes from people who worked with Thatcher, met her, and wrote about her. These provide a kind of insider’s view, and readers of the book receive a glimpse of what it would have been like to be on the receiving end of a Thatcher talk, grilling, or a handbagging. 

One prominent misrepresentation of Lady Thatcher in her post-premiership years is that she was permanently unhappy. Just makes a strong case that this is not true and that Lady Thatcher’s premier emerita years ought to be viewed more positively. Certainly, as Just notes, Thatcher found it difficult to transition from being prime minister to a backbench Member of Parliament. Thatcher recalled, “I remember hearing when the tanks had gone into Vilnius. I kind of leapt up and dialled the telephone. Then I realised it was no longer me anymore.”

Just provides us with some tools to study Lady Thatcher after her time in 10 Downing Street, as well as frameworks and categories to enable our evaluation. He frames the book around Thatcher’s private life, public life, political life, her work, philosophy, party, policy, performance, and her legacy. In addition, he provides us with categories for this period of her life. From 1990 until 2002, he refers to these as Lady Thatcher’s “siren” years. From 2002 to 2013, the year of her death, he calls these Thatcher’s “symbol” years. In her “siren” years, Thatcher was active in the political world on topics such as the “European Union, the former Yugoslavia, General Pinochet, and Hong Kong and China.” Moreover, the “symbol” years were when her presence or support could be just as powerful as when she was delivering commanding speeches across the world. Just recounts the time when Thacher attended President Reagan’s 80th birthday party, where she “received two standing ovations,” and as Just remarks, “one of those standing ovations was the longest of the night,” as she was the party’s “superstar.”

Another useful categorization that is utilized in the book is “between Margaret Thatcher the person and Margaret Thatcher the persona.” Just was quick to note that “when Lady Thatcher was playing the character that was Margaret Thatcher, she was true to herself.” He also added that “her performance was authentic and was played with conviction. The character that was Margaret Thatcher was simply the dramatic persona that gave voice to Margaret Thatcher’s beliefs and illuminated her character.” I would highlight here the word dramatic. Just claims that “the character that was Margaret Thatcher, and the way Lady Thatcher played her after Downing Street, was crucial to her legacy.” Why is this, according to Just? He argues that “it helps to explain why, in her centenary year, she persists in British political consciousness, arguably as potent now as an idea as she was as a person between 1979 and 1990” and we must “recognise that, as important as what Lady Thatcher did after No. 10 was the way she did it.” This is because “there’s as much showbusiness as ideology in her performance.” Indeed, this is quite true; substance is important, but how you argue for your beliefs and how you present them is paramount.

Lady Thatcher is fascinating as a political figure in her own right, but her career also teaches us broader lessons about the nature of statesmanship. To name just one example, Just’s treatment of her time after Number 10 raises the question of what other British prime ministers ought to do after leaving office. The same question applies to American presidents or any politician who has reached the top of the “greasy pole,” as Benjamin Disraeli said on becoming prime minister himself. What should one do when one has to slide back down the greasy pole?

There are multiple and overlapping options for a post-greasy pole politician. Should they heed the Roman general, Cincinnatus, and go back to the plow, or return to Mount Vernon, like George Washington? Should one engage in philanthropy or establish a center or foundation, like Jimmy Carter? Should one stay politically active like John Quincy Adams did in the House of Representatives? Should one take up a hobby such as painting, like George W. Bush and Sir Winston Churchill? Or go and earn a significant amount of income from speaking engagements like Bill Clinton and Sir Tony Blair?

This question of what a post-term politician should do and what they do, in the case of Lady Thatcher, was one of the most interesting aspects of the book. Nevertheless, Just could have made the lessons that we can draw from Lady Thatcher’s emerita years more explicit.

What, then, did Lady Thatcher do? We can garner from Just’s books that Thatcher did most of these things, except the painting. She set up the Margaret Thatcher Foundation and wrote two volumes of memoirs: The Downing Street Years, which was published in 1993, and The Path to Power two years later. The latter was much more Burkean in the sense that Thatcher did not just look backwards, but also expressed her views on the current policy situation. Most definitely, throughout the remainder of her emerita years, she remained active in the political world, giving speeches around the world and expressing her views back at home.

Just notes that “Lady Thatcher evangelised on Thatcherism’s behalf.” As he writes, it was a “symbol in the UK and also around the world,” and that “Lady Thatcher frequently spoke about her ‘ism’ on her visits abroad, as well as in the UK.” Just asks the question, “But what was Thatcherism?” Answering this question was going to be an immense task, as whole books can be and have been written trying to provide answers to this very question. Unfortunately, this was one of the areas of the work that was quite slim; of course, the book is not on political theory, yet this section could have been thickened up. Just writes about Thatcher and her “ism” that “sometimes she seemed to suggest it was a leadership type or personal style,” and at “other times, Lady Thatcher spoke of it as if it were a philosophy.” Just added that “she did not need to use the word to emphasise its continuing significance.”

All of this got me intrigued, but Just did not try to unpack this. All the same, he does go on to demonstrate the influence of Thatcherism and Lady Thatcher, as President George H. W. Bush put it in 1991, as a “prophet and crusader.” It would have been interesting for Just to tackle Thatcherism’s continuing significance and relate it to the debate within the conservative movement, both within the United Kingdom and the United States. Despite these minor shortcomings, Margaret Thatcher: Life After Downing Street is a stimulating book, and readers will learn a great deal from it about Lady Thatcher’s character, her policies, and her political priorities and interests in her post-premiership years. We can learn what the path to post-power can be like for a statesman of Lady Thatcher’s eminence.