Locating Thatcherism in the here and now
Résumé
This concluding chapter assesses the legacy of Thatcherism in the light of the preceding analysis. It does so by returning to two influential earlier assessments, written whilst Thatcherism was very much still a work in progress, re-assessing and re-evaluating its enduring significance with the benefit of hindsight. It argues that whilst Thatcherism may or may not ‘be with us’ today, the effects of the shifts in social and economic policies initiated by her governments will continue to work their way through the UK in a number of different ways. In ways which go unrecognized or are obscured by more immediate concerns, the legacies of Thatcherism can be distilled along economic, political, social and cultural lines. That not all of these consequences were intended—and that a number of the unintended consequences may appear more dramatic than some of the intended ones—does not make these legacies any the less important.