Editorial: the multilayered legacy of British Iron Lady

Photo: SCANPIX

Remember the restive and protest-minded students chanting, singing, even roaring «I love That­cher!» and glorifying the «NATO family»? Defying Iron Curtain, the Iron Lady broke into Soviet student folklore, stirring spirits if resistance and turning a UK PM, Margaret Thatcher, into an anti-communist icon. Only reinforced by red media ideologists painting her in decidedly dark colours.

However, the protest singers did indeed include people genuinely captured by the British politician, who yesterday left us, at age 87. Purposing to mimic her both in ideas and style of government. Singing «I love Thatcher!» from the depths of their hearts.

Including Mart Laar, head of the first constitutional government of the newly liberated Estonia. Ms Thatcher’s famed stubbornness, guts and mettle, in the face of opinion polls, and her overall economical-political stands were abundantly reflected in Mr Laar’s first government decisions. «Verily, Ms Thatcher has called me her favourite disciple. I’m proud of that, even having, obviously, learnt both the good and the bad from her,» Mr Laar told Postimees upon Ms Thatcher’s 80^th jubilee, in an interview.

Ms Thatcher’s economic policy key words like «thin state», «free market», «privatisation» etc. sold like fresh bread in Eastern Europe’s post-communist states, while at home, attitudes were far from rosy toward their first (and, up to now, only) female Prime Minister. More than the victorious Falkland war and economic growth, the Thatcher-led conservative government is associated with high unemployment and other social ills – eagerly emphasised in UK even upon news of her death. At the same time, it is worth recalling that in 1980ies, the UK economy stayed stable and GDP grew briskly.

In her own way, Ms Thatcher was a euro sceptic, without being a populist. Forecasting problems for a tightly integrated European Union, Ms Thatcher called it a utopia, rather envisioning a large free trade area.

We, however, most remember her next to the US president Ronald Reagan as a winner in the cold war, a destroyer of the Soviet empire and a staunch ally in later times as well. In a book of hers, published ten years ago, called Statecraft, Ms Thatcher recommended receiving the Baltic Trio into NATO: «These are developed, very talented and European-to-the-core nations, who see themselves as part of the West and desire to be deeply integrated with it. Russia has no right to stand in their way.»