{"id":2757,"date":"2013-04-09T21:57:31","date_gmt":"2013-04-09T21:57:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=2757"},"modified":"2025-09-28T18:34:54","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T18:34:54","slug":"ny-times-on-thatcher-transformed-britain-more-thoroughly-than-any-other-prime-minister-of-the-past-h","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=2757","title":{"rendered":"NY Times on Thatcher: &#8220;transformed Britain more thoroughly than any other prime minister of the past half-century&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/04\/09\/opinion\/margaret-thatcher-prime-minister.html?nl=todaysheadlines&amp;emc=edit_th_20130409&amp;_r=0\" target=\"_self\">A leader who transformed Britain by pushing the nation in new directions. <\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Margaret Thatcher, who <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/04\/09\/world\/europe\/former-prime-minister-margaret-thatcher-of-britain-has-died.html?hp&amp;_r=0\">died of a stroke<\/a><br \/>\non Monday at age 87, transformed Britain more thoroughly than any other<br \/>\nprime minister of the past half-century. She was a pathbreaker from the<br \/>\nmoment she took office in 1979 as Britain\u2019s first, and so far only,<br \/>\nfemale prime minister. And she was the rare conservative leader to come<br \/>\nnot from the upper echelons of Britain\u2019s class-obsessed society, but<br \/>\nfrom a modest apartment above her father\u2019s grocery.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\nBut much more than that distinguished the 11 years of Mrs. Thatcher\u2019s<br \/>\ngovernment, which followed years of tepid leadership, economic<br \/>\nstagnation and high inflation. She tamed the power of Britain\u2019s once<br \/>\npowerful labor movement by shutting down inefficient coal mines and<br \/>\nprivatizing state-owned industries. She encouraged an entrepreneurial<br \/>\nculture that had grown timid and somnolent. With her powerful,<br \/>\nplain-spoken approach to issues large (like Saddam Hussein\u2019s invasion of<br \/>\nKuwait) and relatively small (the brief war over the Falkland Islands),<br \/>\nshe reawakened Britain\u2019s taste for military engagement.        <\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\nIn the process, she revived policy debates among political parties that<br \/>\nhad grown too comfortable with safe consensus mumbling. As she pushed<br \/>\nthe conservatives to the right, she pushed the Labour Party to the<br \/>\ncenter. Without Mrs. Thatcher, there probably would have been no Tony<br \/>\nBlair.        <\/p>\n<p>Five more paragraphs &#8211; hit the link. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A leader who transformed Britain by pushing the nation in new directions. Margaret Thatcher, who died of a stroke on Monday at age 87, transformed Britain more thoroughly than any other prime minister of the past half-century. She was a pathbreaker from the moment she took office in 1979 as Britain\u2019s first, and so far [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2757"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8500,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2757\/revisions\/8500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}