Her latest diatribes about the politically beleaguered John Major, her successor, can leave the impression that he stumbled into her shoes by accident. She chose him. Major, a man so colorless that he has inspired a search for a superlative of the word “gray,” would never have become prime minister without her. Then there is Thatcher’s new-found belief that policies should return to “traditional Christian values.” Given the adulterous antics of some of her cabinet ministers, this is quite a stretch.
Even some of Thatcher’s friends thought she had crossed the line. “This isn’t very helpful,” says one old Thatcher ally and Tory power-broker. But what may be equally discouraging to Thatcher is that the poison in her pen doesn’t pack the sting it used to. “Is the handbag losing its clout?” asked The Independent, So why does Thatcher persist? Not for the money. She maintains a heavy speaking schedule in the United States, where some circles still regard her as the most heroic woman since Pocahontas. Fans will nap up the new book, due next month; the first volume of her memoirs was a best seller in both the United States and Britain. “What she does need, nd craves,” wrote Tory M.P. Robert Rhodes James, “is attention, like a retired great actress distraught by the passing of the limelight.” Time, please.
