An extract from a blog by Iain Dale, one of Britain's leading Conservative bloggers, who writes chiefly about UK politics but also comments on foreign elections.
...A commenter in a previous thread, Conservative Cabbie, wrote this:
Iain,
I'm genuinely curious. The posts you have made about Sarah Palin have been met with a lot of liberal bile (or should that be bilge). I don't remember seeing the left leave so many comments on your site before on any one subject, particularly an american one. Are you noticing this too or is it just me.
I think it is a relection that they are genuinly worried about what this means for Obama's chances. Because of her appeal to women, the working/middle class in the swing states and to the Rocky Mountain states, they are worried that she can genuinly affect this election.
I think he makes a fair point. Margaret Thatcher got this sort of abuse when she became Tory leader. In fact, she had it throughout her time in office too. No one could quite believe that
a housewife from Grantham could ascend to the leadership of the Conservative Party, let alone the country. Remind you of anyone?
...
UPDATE: Andrew Porter makes a similar point, quoting Norman Tebbit
HERE.
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=6214838&postID=4477479782357385100This is a part of the Andrew Porter article:
...I was reminded of a brilliant tribute Norman Tebbit paid on the 25th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher's arrival in Downing Street. ...
Here is how is brilliantly put it: "Twenty five years since the conventional thinking of the woolly wet political establishment was turned over by Margaret Thatcher. What a joy it was to see the country follow the lead of the bold spirits in the Parliamentary Conservative Party elect a radical - right wing radical, a right wing radical woman, as its Leader.
"Of course it has always amused me that Margaret Thatcher blazed the trail as the first woman to lead a British political party and take office as Prime Minister from the right of politics, not the left, and with no support from the cacophonous hen coup of militant feminists."
Palin-Thatcher comparisons are already being made over the Alaska Governor's lack of foreign policy experience. Mrs T was a novice in foreign policy fields, we are told, and yet still managed to transform Britain's reputation, won a war she was expected to lose and was part of the ending of the Cold war with her old pal Ronald Reagan.
Tebbit again: "Across the board politicians scarred by the fiasco of Suez, held Britain would never again fight a war except as part of a collective alliance. How wrong Margaret Thatcher proved them all. How the people, here and in the wider world, admired her...Her predecessors had failed us. Britain was a "basket case" sick with the English disease, an object of sympathy - or contempt. She left a Britain that was Great again."
Sarah Palin has quite a few fans already.
