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Humor Title: Aide To Britain's Iron Lady Calls Palin "Nuts" To many British people, the name "Margaret Thatcher" will still generate a shudder. She was the Iron Lady, Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1979 to 1990 and, to her supporters, Thatcher is the hard-headed woman who revitalized Britain's economy, impacted the trade unions, and re-established the nation as a world power. It is her policies on world relations that still make her an extremely popular figure in the United States. Back in the UK though, she is remembered by many as a woman with no heart. In 1987, she said in an interview with Britain's Woman's Own magazine, "I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand 'I have a problem, it is the Government's job to cope with it!' or 'I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!' 'I am homeless, the Government must house me!' and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbor and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations." It is this lack of empathy for those less fortunate that earned her most of her critics, who regret her influence on the abandonment of full employment, poverty reduction and a consensual civility as bedrock policy objectives. She is, without a shadow of a doubt, the British female icon of the right. So how damning is it for Sarah Palin that Thatcher is refusing to meet with her during her planned trip to London this coming Summer, with one of Thatcher's aides going so far as to call Palin "nuts"? Unsurprisingly, Palin is an admirer of Thatcher. A strong woman who believes in nationalism and self-reliance, it isn't difficult to imagine Palin soaking up as much information as she could on Thatcher and using her as a role model. However, Thatcher had something that Palin is severely lacking: sharp intelligence. Thatcher simply couldn't be talked down (and former Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock really, really tried). When she effectively destroyed the mining industry in the UK and families suddenly found themselves balancing on the poverty line (much like with the auto industry in Detroit), she remained emotionless and single-minded, like a shark on the prowl for seal. It was near-impossible to debate with Thatcher, because she wouldn't really contemplate alternatives to what was already in her head. On old recordings, she is impressive, if incredibly frustrating. It's like playing Monopoly with someone who won't make a deal to sell a property, no matter what. Thatcher would have known that Africa is a continent. She would have known that Paul Revere warned Sam Adams and John Hancock, not the British. And she definitely would have known that "refudiate" isn't a real word. Basic political ideas aside, they really have nothing in common so it's not a surprise that the former Prime Minister doesn't want to be seen anywhere close to Palin. For Palin, it's damning and damaging proof that she will never command respect in the way that Thatcher once did.
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