As the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition embarks on Margaret Thatcher's Economic Experiment Part Two, and Lloyd George, Roy Jenkins and the departed members of the generation of "wet" Conservatives turn in their graves, I am occasionally asked whether I regret having been so hostile to Thatcherism, Mark One. The answer remains a resounding "no".
When the subject was raised the other evening, there came to mind a conversation I had with a former cabinet minister after the fall of Thatcher in 1990. He was a senior figure, and certainly not in the wet bracket with my friends Ian Gilmour, Peter Walker and Jim Prior. "She must be suffering," I ventured. My interlocutor stared hard at his lunch and picked up his glass. "Yes," he replied, "but is she suffering enough?"
This particular politician had once been a believer but was horrified by the extent of the social damage. It had not been as easy as he thought to reform the public sector without pain; and the simple monetarism he had espoused turned out to be seriously flawed. Now, it appears, it is a case of "here we go again", with our new chancellor congratulating himself in public for "taking the necessary courageous action".
