Margaret Thatcher outside 10
Downing Street following her
election as prime minister in 1979.
Photograph: PA
Perhaps it's a sign of the paucity of intellectual debate among Britain's front-rank politicians, but the best fringe event of the week at the Tory conference - indeed by far the best of this three-week party conference season - was a sparsely-attended and under-advertised Policy Exchange event pitting a former editor of the Daily Telegraph, Charles Moore, against a former editor of the Times, Simon Jenkins, on the subject of the former prime mininster, Margaret Thatcher. With not a politician in the room.
Jenkins, who is also a Guardian columnist, has just published a book baitingly entitled Thatcher and Sons, positing - in what he calls an argued history - that both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are not only her heirs, but Thatcherites themselves.
Moore disagreed. He is engaged as Lady Thatcher's official biographer, setting up a perfectly-pitched debate between two fierce intellects.
No comments:
Post a Comment