Free Republic

(Additional reporting by Shyamantha Asokan, Nidhi Verma and Doug Busvine; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Mark Bendeich) New Delhi (Reuters) - When Indian opposition leader Narendra Modi gave a speech on the virtues of smaller government and privatization on April 8 last year, supporters called him an ideological heir to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who died that day. Modi, favorite to form India's next government after elections starting on Monday, has yet to unveil any detailed economic plans but it is clear that some of his closest advisers and many campaign workers have a Thatcherite ambition for him....

Left-wing politicians think voters are stupid. Why do American voters reject big government candidates like John Kerry? Why do European voters reject more power for the socialist bureaucrats in Brussels? The answer, in both cases, is that they are stupid. Or at least that is what left-wingers are convincing themselves according to this article: "Whatever the rights and wrongs of the populist rejection of the EU treaty, the manner in which the 'No' campaign is disparaged by professional politicians betrays a powerful anti-democratic temper. It appears that professional politicians attempt to account for their isolation from the electorate by pointing...

SUNDAY DEC. 19, 2004 by Fraser Nelson SIX WEEKS since President George W Bush’s presidential victory, and all is quiet in Washington. A Jewish Hanukah candle recently joined a Christmas tree outside the White House: this appears to be the sum total of action.

Thatcherism is thriving under Blair THE legacy of the Iron Lady lives on. A study of social attitudes has concluded that Britain is more Thatcherite under new Labour than it ever was in the Tory heyday. The free-market, moralistic views of Baroness Thatcher — which split Britain down the middle when she was prime minister — are now more widely accepted in the mainstream as the country moves further to the right, the report says. Fewer people in Labour-ruled Britain are assessed as holding left-wing views today — on issues such as the redistribution of wealth or sympathy with those...

I left for Hong Kong in late 1998, returning just over a year ago. It was the first time I had ever spent a chunk of time outside Britain. I recommend it. You will never see your own country in the same light again, especially if you choose to live outside the west. You will realise that "our world" is a small and declining fraction of humanity, a fact that we are largely unaware of in our post-imperial hubris. I had left these shores with a feeling of unease. Far from sharing the widespread euphoria for New Labour, I was...

June 10, 2002 Party must crack down on illegal immigration and crime Mandelson tells Labour: we're all Thatcherites By David Charter, Chief Political Correspondent PETER MANDELSON warns Labour today not to throw away its grip on power as the European centre-left parties have by losing its nerve and failing to crack down on immigration, antisocial behaviour and crime. The man who remains one of Tony Blair’s closest advisers insists that the Third Way he helped to create to underpin new Labour is not doomed despite European election losses in France, The Netherlands and Italy. In an outspoken article in The...