The significance of the Iron Lady

Charles Moore’s essay on the Iron Lady in today’s Telegraph is required reading. Here’s how he starts:

‘The best way to understand why a feature film about Margaret Thatcher might work is to imagine trying to make one about other 20th-century British prime ministers. How about Safety First (Stanley Baldwin), A Period of Silence (Clement Attlee), Crisis? What Crisis? (James Callaghan) or In No Small Measure (John Major)? It doesn’t do, does it? Even Tony Blair, already the subject of several films, invites a satire treatment, not a life story. There is a case, perhaps, for David Lloyd George. There is the towering subject of Winston Churchill. And then there is Margaret Thatcher. Of course she should have a biopic. This is almost nothing to do with the precise content of politics. It is to do with character, with the effect of character on power and the effect of power on character.’