ABSTRACT
The attack on the Keynesian consensus had gained purchase on both sides of the Atlantic at least a decade before Margaret Thatcher became prime minister. Thatcher's knowledge of 'her people' and understanding of her own image, however, played a more important role in her success than is generally acknowledged. Thatcherism had a substantial and lasting impact on the culture of Britain in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Thatcher placed excessive emphasis on supply-side economics, monetarism and privatisation and too little on social cohesion. Thatcher's personal domination as prime minister is beyond dispute. She not only set the course for change; the general direction of travel did not significantly change under her successors. Thatcher could boast a number of high-profile political successes. Thatcher was both distinctive and powerful but, for much of the 1980s, her policies followed economic and intellectual fashion.
