How anyone who watched, or heard Thatcher while she was alive could say she was genial or conventional is beyond me.
She was Sarah Palin on steroids with a voice that never sounded screechy. A full bore Trump in a China shop. She destroyed people who debated her, simply eviscerated them. She was awesome.
Wife and I got to hear Lady Thatcher speak in Minneapolis when we lived in the Twin Cities. She truly was the UK’s Gipper.
And, in English terms, Thatcher became genial in her public manner, with a reflexive smile and steady, earnest manner. Her conventional middle-class lifestyle and nerdy, older husband provided further assurance that even if astonishingly smart, determined, and hard-working, she was a reformist Tory and not a radical, rightwing kook. A chemist and lawyer by training, Thatcher made her case and won the detailed political argument over Britain's stagnation before winning election as Prime Minister pledged to dismantle the statism that was its cause.
In contrast, Boris Johnson is renowned for his rakish and unconventional personal life and undisciplined work habits. Where Thatcher was even and steady, constantly making a reasoned case for her policies and slowly accumulating support, Johnson is a brilliant high wire act. He drew attention to and staked everything on the single, politically transformative issue of Brexit and popular sovereignty. It was a grand gamble that won.
To be sure, in private, Thatcher tended to be demanding and hard to please. She accepted the nickname "Iron Lady" as a compliment of sorts even though it originated as a slam by a Soviet journalist. And there is that likely apocryphal story that we all hope is true as it captures an element of her personality. Supposedly, at a working lunch with her cabinet, Thatcher ordered beef for herself, and then, when asked about the vegetables, brusquely replied that they too would all have beef.