Mrs Thatcher's coalition

An extremely interesting point raised by the excellent Mark Reckons.  For all the pained harrumphing of Lord Tebbit and the like, what evidence that there is strongly suggests that Mrs Thatcher was as pragmatic a Conservative as David Cameron – the Coalition is something that, in general conception, she could certainly have countenanced.

 

Don’t believe me?  Ask yourself this – is David Cameron politically more different to Nick Clegg, than Margaret Thatcher was to Jim Prior?  Is David Laws more at variance to the mainstream Tory Party than Francis Pym?  It is in the nature of the British political system that the big parties contain a bewildering variance of opinions – the step from maintaining the unity of an intra-party coalition to that of an inter-party coalition is not so very big.