NYT-1201: STATE OF THE ART A Thermostat That's Clever, Not ...
NYT-1201: STATE OF THE ART A Thermostat That's Clever, Not ...
NYT-1201: STATE OF THE ART A Thermostat That's Clever, Not ...
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talists with a confidence that they had not felt s<br />
ince the death of Queen Victoria.<br />
She was at her best when the odds seemed against h<br />
er or when she had clear enemies. In 1982, she sen<br />
t an armada to fight the Argentines in the Falklan<br />
d Islands. And in 1984-85, she held out against a<br />
strike by the National Union of Mineworkers, which<br />
had been powerful enough to bring down a governme<br />
nt 10 years before.<br />
Although Mrs. Thatcher has become a respected symb<br />
ol of statesmanship outside Britain, she remains a<br />
reminder of social division within it. In 2008, t<br />
he future foreign secretary, William Hague, sought<br />
to reassure American officials that he and David<br />
Cameron, soon-to-be prime minister, were “Thatcher<br />
’s children.” When his comment leaked, the Labour<br />
opposition seized upon it, keen to circulate the q<br />
uote in the hopes that it would stir up old anti-T<br />
hatcher feelings. And despite being in power today<br />
, Conservative leaders still worry that they are a<br />
ssociated with the bitterness of the Thatcher year<br />
s. They speak of changing their image as “the nast<br />
y party” and the need to “detoxify the brand.”<br />
One reason British politicians feel uncomfortable<br />
with Thatcherism is that Britain has been relative<br />
ly prosperous in the last two decades, at least in<br />
part because of things the Thatcher government di<br />
d: tax cuts, financial-sector deregulation and wea<br />
ker unions all made Britain a more attractive plac<br />
e to do business.<br />
A new generation of politicians who grew up in an<br />
age of prosperity has ceased to think of politics<br />
in terms of hard choices and scarce resources; Mr.<br />
Cameron belongs to that generation. He was just 1<br />
2 years old when Mrs. Thatcher came to power in 19<br />
79 and he became leader of the Conservative Party<br />
in 2005, when the current economic storms seemed a<br />
lmost unimaginable. Even when Mr. Cameron became p