Editor's Letter

Happy and Glorious

Margaret Thatcher models herself on an American political figure. Which one? You have to read Gail Sheehy's tenthanniversary portrait of the British prime minister on page 102 to know the answer to that, and it is as surprising as much else in this remarkable character study of a woman in the full bloom of power.

The question is the kind Mrs. Thatcher herself likes to throw out to the discomfort of an inattentive Cabinet minister: life is a term paper to the grocer's daughter who got to the top of a man's world and went on to outlast two U.S. presidents, three Soviet leaders, four French prime ministers, seven Italian leaders, and a whole generation of the British squirearchy.

The standard view of the Iron Lady is that she has succeeded because she is "the only man in the Cabinet." Gail Sheehy's is that she has succeeded because, as she says herself, she is the only woman. As Mrs. Thatcher has grown dominant she has also grown more feminine. Her sexuality, so long suppressed in the garb of a Tory termagant, is now openly and charismatically wielded. It shows in her wardrobe and physical rejuvenation. Gone, says Sheehy, are her "Falklands dress," her "Polaris slacks," and her battle-ax hairdo; in their place are classic chic suits to show off her good legs and a peachy glow to her complexion stimulated by a mysterious Indian health guru. The power of femininity shows, most of all, in her political manipulation. Today, having remade Britain in her own image, she is surrounded by courtiers rather than colleagues. Her only touch point with reality is her husband, Denis, a clubbable reactionary satirized in the gossip mag Private Eye's "Dear Bill" letters.

She has seduced or muzzled the press, outfaced the intellectuals, cowed her party critics, and taken to using the royal "we." The achievements would be enough for some, but Sheehy finds that the harsh imperatives of Margaret Thatcher's youth are still in force. In the mind of the P.M., the Thatcher revolution is incomplete if a new proposal can arouse opposition. There is no one left to tell her she may have gone far enough. As she girds up for a fourth election triumph, the question that lingers is: Who does she most resemble—Elizabeth I rallying her people and smashing the armada, or the Queen in Alice in Wonderland, crying "Off with his head!"?

Editor in chief