The Thatcher Frit

Recently opened government papers under the 30 year rule have revealed that the Margaret Thatcher revolution came to a juddering halt at the gates of State education and one paper dealing with possible privatisation or radical reform of the state system was marked in favour of maintaining the nationlisation of education.

This may have been the greatest failure of her rule as if real change is to be effected in a country's culture it begins with education and as a result of her unwillingness to confront the issue more generations have been blighted by the bankruptcy of the state education system which should have been completely opened up to the market to bring innovation  and academic rigour into the schools and to smash the union ideological hegemony in the classroom with the catastrophic results that have accrued.

We see the same hesitancy and loss of will over the NHS which Thatcher avowed was 'safe in her hands' and the disasters which that failure have brought in their train to know that the much famed radicalism of Thatcher had its severe limitations and that her tenure was more often characterised by caution than is generally appreciated.