MAGGIE? SHE'S AN ICON

Petronella Wyatt canvasses youthful opinion

about Lady Thatcher; and finds it surprisingly favourable

CONSIDER Thatcher. The word. Its associations. Its images. A woman who no longer matters. A woman who said cruel things like there was no such thing as society; who divided Britain. A pathetic hasbeen who may occasionally be seen at parties with her husband Denis, imbibing just a little too much and not making much sense with it. In particular, a person of no relevance to the young.

This is how the media would have us see Margaret Thatcher. On television and radio she is either satirised, excoriated or written out of history. I have heard presenters refer to her variously as that stupid old bat', an evil woman' and 'someone who doesn't matter any more'. How different is her position from that of Winston Churchill in his retirement. Then men of stature and fancy tycoons, including Stavros Niarchos, fell over themselves to lavish hospitality on him. Yet this woman who was so significant for Britain cuts a lonely, unappreciated figure.

Although lain Duncan Smith has claimed to be Thatcher's 'heir', the Tory party seems intent on hiding her away, to the extent of banning her from attending its conference in Bournemouth. A Central Office aide, who did not wish to be named, told me, 'It's rather hypocritical behaviour. But they think her actual presence turns young people off. The leadership is desperate to get the young on board.'

While Blair and Duncan Smith do battle over her mantle, the received wisdom is that the younger generation regards Thatcher as a hate figure. But where does this received wisdom come from? Mostly from Labour-biased television or radio surveys on what the young really think about her. Is the Tory leadership being misled?

A couple of months ago, staying overnight at the Feathers hotel near Oxford, I struck up a conversation between two law students at Balliol — one male, one female. I asked what Lady Thatcher meant to them and was surprised by their answers. The young man, Damian, said that, though he intended to vote Labour at the next election, this was because all the Tory leaders after Thatcher 'were so pathetic. At least Blair looks like a leader. He borrowed that from her. I mean, who knows what Duncan Smith stands for?'

His I9-year-old companion agreed. 'She should be given icon status. Not only was she the first woman prime minister, but she revitalised the country, though she got a bit batty towards the end.'

I was inclined, however, to dismiss this couple as a fluke. They were both drinking champagne and were probably not representative of the country's undergraduates. So I asked a friend of mine, who is studying history at Oxford, to do a tour of the JCRs. His report tended to confirm my earlier findings. He spoke to about 50 undergraduates from varied backgrounds Their views on Thatcher failed to divide on 'class' lines. If anything, the undergraduates from poorer backgrounds tended to respect her more as a self-made woman. Roughly 50 per cent thought of her as a great historical figure, about 20 per cent were anti, and the rest didn't know enough about her.

Most undergraduates have little memory of the Thatcher years and rarely discuss her unless specifically asked to do so. Dr John Casey, the Cambridge don, said, 'I don't really talk to my students about her because she doesn't impinge on their world. She doesn't come up in their conversation much, As a result there are very few articulate Thatcherites. Not that there aren't many who think she was a good thing, but some think she stood for naked individualism which is not in fashion now.'

Standing outside my alma mater, University College London, I asked the students whether they thought Thatcher was being treated too harshly by the media and her own party. A startling number did. 'Even if you disagree with her unhinged capitalistic approach, you have to respect her for what she did, against so much opposition.' said Eve, an English student from Liverpool. 'She was the first woman prime minister, for God's sake. And the Tory party treated her like dirt.'

A number of students pointed out that her longevity makes her deserving of recognition, 'She is an historical character, like Churchill. We can't pretend now that she never existed,' said Dr Alan Sked, who teaches international history at the LSE, 'She is like one of the great prime ministers of the past to them. Some students look at her in the same way as they would Gladstone.'

But surely modern history writers and dons are so left-wing that they itch to teach the young to loathe Thatcher and her works? Sked disputed this. 'A few dons may present a negative image, saying she undermined the welfare state, etc., but most don't. The books the students read contain a variety of views. I'm sure history will be kind to her, but perhaps not immediately. She is already moving up the historical scale. with American historians, and this will all filter over to here.'

Thatcher is in a similar position to Robert Peel after his downfall. He forced through unpopular free-trade reforms, and was shunted out of office and attacked as the man who split his party and kept it from winning subsequent elections. Now historians recognise that Peel was a courageous and significant man who put country above party. In order to get the Tories back into office after decades in the wilderness, Disraeli realised that he had to reorganise the party on Peelite lines.

My researches in pubs and on streets continued to suggest that young people do not necessarily decry the former premier. In my local in north London I approached a table of drinkers who appeared to be in their twenties. 'What do you think of Lady Thatcher?' I asked the man at the end of the table. 'Piss off. We're drinking.' Emboldened by such encouragement, I persisted and the debate eventually ended in a show of hands. Four of them thought Thatcher largely a good thing, and three not.

Part of the reason that the informed young admire Thatcher is that she makes today's Tories look like pygmies. One of the girls in the pub, Claire, 22, who works in a shoe shop, said, 'My dad hates her. He thought she was harsh. But then he was unemployed and couldn't be bothered. He walked out on me and my mum. But when you think of these recurring Tube strikes now, it's hard not to think we need someone like her again.'

I asked if she thought it was fair to have banned her from the Tory conference. 'No, it was unfair. She made that party popular again, didn't she? It's not much of a thankyou.'

It certainly isn't much of a thank-you. And Central Office, harken to this: the young don't hate Margaret Thatcher, and to treat her as a pariah while claiming her legacy may be bad policy as well as bad manners.