Thatcher still cool on Blair

Telegraph ^ | 5.6.05

[ambrose]

Thatcher still cool on Blair

May 6, 2005

FORMER British prime minister Margaret Thatcher pointedly declined to pay tribute to Tony Blair today as he stood on the verge of matching her record of three successive election wins, saying history would be his judge.

"I'm not quite sure of his place in history," she told reporters at an election social event in London, as exit polls predicted Blair's Labour Party would win a third straight term, albeit with a much reduced majority.

"History will determine that. I wouldn't like to predict it."

Thatcher, who turns 80 later this year, was one of the most dominant political figures in British political history, winning consecutive election wins with her Conservative Party in 1979, 1983 and 1987.

Nearly a year after the death of her beloved husband Denis and suffering ill health, Thatcher played no role in the just-ended Conservative campaign, and is rarely seen in public.

Yet the politician known as the "Iron Lady" remains staunch in her views.

"I'm Conservative, I believe Conservative is right for the country, it's done a great deal for the country, I hope that we will come on very well," she said of the election.

"They're (the results) not looking good enough for the Conservatives. I hoped that they would look better, as a result of our record and what we have done for the country."

She appeared to faintly praise Blair for leading governments which have "done quite a lot more of what we would have done than any previous Labour Party", but stopped short of anointing the man who has moved Labour from the left to the centre a Thatcherite.

"There might have been a tincture of it, but that is all. He has a long way to come to be purely Thatcherite," she said.

AFP

[Eurotwit]

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[lbjgal]

I have state clearly there is only one Lady Thather, but many imtators and people such as Prime Min. Blair who secretly admire her greatly. Blair may surpass Thatcher's terms she did hold while in office , but it's always different for a powerful and intimidating woman such ask Mrs. Ghadia ..O'h I forgot she was shot. So just living throughout her term Thatcher accomplished alot.

lbjgal