The growing fascination with Thatcher as a historical figure is very evident at Churchill College, Cambridge, where her papers are kept and where last year no fewer than 629 files of material were requested by researchers into such esoteric student dissertation subjects as “The Fashioning of Margaret Thatcher 1974-79” and “The German Social Market Economy and Economic Social Development in the Conservative Party 1975-79.” Almost every week there are visits to her archive from undergraduate history groups, summer schools, business organisations and others such as the Friends of the Imperial War Museum and the National Churchill Museum of the United States. Perhaps surprisingly for so doughty an anti-communist, she for some reason enjoys a huge following in China, and several Chinese delegations—including the ambassador—have visited her papers in Cambridge. The decision to decommission Britain’s two aircraft carriers in 2020 casts doubt on whether another operation to relieve the Falkland Islands could be successful, and in that sense Thatcher’s shadow falls over the present defence cuts of the coalition government.
more from Andrew Roberts at Prospect Magazine here.