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‘What would Maggie do?’ Painful scenes from the Tory conference
It was always going to be a bizarre spectacle to watch the party try and walk off crashing the economy mere days before, but resorting to literal idol worship of Thatcher cut-outs surely spells the end of days for Truss's Tories, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
A cardboard cutout of Thatcher stands on the platform of a Tory conference fringe meeting titled “What would Maggie do.”
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THE Tory government decided to push the self-destruct button right in the middle of its own conference. Normally guaranteed to be the showcase that gets them good headlines, instead Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng engineered a financial crisis before the conference and crowned this with an embarrassing U-turn in the middle of their showcase event.
To get a sense why, I went to a Tory conference fringe meeting organised by the Thatcherite Centre for Policy Studies titled “What would Maggie do.” The short answer for how the Tories screwed themselves is that a life-size cardboard cut-out of Thatcher was put on the platform, as if this lifeless icon could join the debate.
The real-life Thatcher was a tactical fighter for their side, who by a mix of force and guile transferred money and power from working people to big business and the rich. Unable to repeat the trick, the Tories have settled for a cardboard imitation, which is rigid, thin and doesn’t work.
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