Thatcher and the Victorians: A Suitable Case for Comparison?

Abstract

One of the prevailing lines of commentary upon Thatcherism is that it possessed essentially Victorian attributes. Personally, similarities were posited between Margaret Thatcher and Sir Robert Peel, W. E. Gladstone and Lord Salisbury. Politically, Thatcherism was quintessentially Victorian because its mind‐set was cast in the nineteenth century. The word ‘Victorian’ was also used as a term of abuse by those, within and without the Conservative Party, who wished to deride Thatcher and all she stood for. On balance, the critical usage has the most to commend it. Personally, character contrasts as well as comparisons have to be borne in mind when dealing with Thatcher, Peel, Gladstone and Salisbury. Politically, the selectivity of Thatcher's Victorian vision and its innate ambiguities, the character of the 1980s and the limited success of her attempt to go back to the future must be noted. Further, Thatcherism might actually have a Georgian paternity. It was in the inter‐war years that the lifeblood of Thatcherism, anti‐socialism, began to circulate around the Conservative body politic. From this perspective there were presentiments of Thatcherite statecraft in 1930s Conservative Party practice.