Thatcher's Heir?

Cheery couple, aren't they? But the surprising turn of events in Britain has led the gruff, boring, earnest Gordon Brown seem quite conservative in temperament and affect, especially compared with the Blairite, hipster style of the young Tory leader, David Cameron. Maybe Thatcher's surprise visit to Number 10 earlier this month was a sly rebuke to Cameron who has pitched himself as Blair's heir. Old warhorse and Thatcher ally, Norman Tebbit, a man who makes John Derbyshire look like Graham Norton, has made the point explicitly, just to piss off the current Tories:

"I'm quite sure that Margaret Thatcher knew exactly what she was doing. She is first too well mannered to rebuff the Prime Minister and second of course the present Conservative leadership has been at great pains to distance himself from her and she is after all a woman."

Lord Tebbit also criticised the Conservatives for being out of touch with half of Britain's population.

He said: "What a lot of people will suggest is that they don't know how the other half lives.

"David and his colleagues - the very clever young men they have in Central Office these days - are intellectually very clever but they have no experience of the world whatsoever.

"He has spent much of his time in the Conservative Party and as a public relations guy. Well it's not the experience of most people in the streets. That's the real attack and its damaging to him."

So the neocons are warming to Hillary and the old guard Tories are warming to Brown. Interesting ...

(Photo: Alessandro Abbonizio/AFP/Getty.)