The Iron Lady still packs a punch

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, MAY 15. Those who had written off the British election campaign as too boring, given the predictability of its outcome, had not reckoned with Baroness Thatcher who, on a good day, can still enliven the proceedings. And that's precisely what she did on Monday when she returned to where it all began for her many, many years ago - her old constituency, Finchley, which she represented in Parliament, for 33 years.

``I never lost'', she boasted and she might as well have added that after her came the deluge with Labour snapping up Finchley in the last election. It was vintage Margaret Thatcher - famously intimidating when asked the ``wrong'' question as when someone mentioned Sir Edward Heath, her bete noire from the days when they still counted in the Tory Party. Asked what she thought of Sir Edward's description of the Tory chief, Mr. William Hague as a ``laughing stock'', she fixed the questioner with what one newspaper described as a ``bayonet glance'' and said:``That description could be referred better to some others that I can think of.'' Sir Edward, for instance? But as The Times remarked:``No one, of course, dared ask to whom she was referring.''

It was her day out on a familiar territory and her husband Sir Dennis, trailing her from a safe distance, was heard to remark that it seemed to ``bring it all back''. She swept in and out of shops - checking out prices, keeping her distance from French cheese in an emphatic public demonstration of her europhobia, overwhelming shoppers with her imperious ``hello, dears'' and marvelling at the variety of goods in the local shops compared to the days when her father ran a grocery shop and they all lived above the shop in Grantham. And then, of course, she became famous - and ``never lost''.

Thatcherism may have become a dirty word thanks to some of her policies, but her well-off loyalists had no doubt that she was ``wonderful'' and that without her, life in Finchley had never been the same again. Meanwhile, back in London Labour and Tories remained locked in a spat over taxes with Mr. Tony Blair calling the Tory plans for tax cuts a ``joke'' and a strange case of ``Haguenomics''.

The Tories' campaign, which had been remarkably smooth in the first week, was suddenly and disastrously thrown off course by contradictory claims on tax cuts raising doubts over the party's credibility. The trouble began with a report in The Financial Times, which was briefed by an unnamed senior Tory leader, saying that Tories planned tax cuts to the tune of œ20 billion in the event of their coming to power. This was œ12 billion more than what the Tories said in their election manifesto, and within hours Labour was up in arms accusing Tories of pursuing a ``hidden agenda'' on taxes.

Mr. Hague had a difficult time denying the report and maintaining that what had been stated in the manifesto was the last word. The damage, however, had been done and The Guardian gleefully declared that ``Mr. Hague's election honeymoon'' was over. For Labour too, the day was not without hiccups as Mr. Blair had a torrid time in a radio interview over questions relating to sleaze as the interviewer - the combative Mr. John Humphrys - reduced him to a shambles. Trouble also came in the form of continued criticism that the Labour campaign was dominated more by ``spin'' than substance, and this morning's headlines - ``Blair under pressure...''; ``Blair is irritated...''; and ``Blair shows irritation...'' - were not exactly flattering.

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