So much of present toryism goes back to Thatcher. She gave rise to perhaps the most shameless political ideology of modern times and her rotten philosophy infected the Labour and Liberal parties giving us Blairism and the Tory/Lib Dem coalition. Thatcher was, I think, deranged, and people like Tebbit, Parkinson, Lawson and Whitelaw, who
should have reigned her in went along with her in the most cowardly, yet opportunistic way imaginable. Thatcherism undermined our civil society and scuppered any kind of liberal idealism. Every man for himself, stuff the less well-off. A new idea arose as Thatcherism went along: the rich can never be rich enough, so make savings by avoiding the taxes that any self-respecting person would pay. Make the poor pay more in tax instead to make up the shortfall. Starve the NHS of funds, but subsidise privatised industries. Put rogue, scarcely accountable outsourcers like G4S, Serco and their ilk in charge of national matters and now, turn the UK into a tax haven for the extremely rich, the giant corporations and multi-nationals. Get foreign countries to build our power stations and other enterprises at a breathtaking cost. Thanks, Thatcher, your real legacy is the unutterable immorality and shamelessness of the tory party.