The Thatcher legacy in perspective

Abstract

On the death of Margaret Thatcher we were inundated with claims that she had transformed British politics. Here we argue that we need to contextualize Thatcherism and question arguments that now seem to be taken for granted. We do not argue that nothing changed as a result of 'Thatcherism', that, clearly, would be an indefensible claim. Rather, we would argue that claims of transformation need to be interrogated and that, to some extent, they are based on a particular, and at best partial, reading of the prior period.