Tom Griffin (London, OK): The Wall Street Journal suggested last week that Barack Obama was the 'Anti-Thatcher'.
In the Independent today, Steve Richards offers deeper reasons why that title might be a realistic aspiration for today's politicians. The nationalisation of Northern Rock in Britain, and of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the USA, have shown the limits of Thatcherite market fundamentalism, he argues:
Over the next few weeks, during the party conference season, you will read and hear a lot about who is up and who is down in British politics. When I come to think of it, you will read much on the theme in this column. But the long-term future belongs to the politician and party that come to terms with the ending of one global era and the beginning of another, one in which a new relationship will be required between governments and markets, subtler than the flawed models from either the 1970s or the 1980s.
Richards' point is not a narrowly partisan one. If his 1970s-in-reverse analogy is correct it could be a future Conservative government which has to face up to this challenge, just as it was Jim Callaghan's Labour government which began the shift towards Thatcherism at the behest of the IMF.
