Strong leaders consult. They listen to advice and aren't afraid to take it. Margaret Thatcher did none of these things, which fact severely compromises the claim that she was a strong leader, as opposed to one determined to impose an ideology come what may. Thatcher wasn't quite Reagan's poodle as Blair is Dubya's but she came pretty close. Who was happy to allow American nuclear weapons to be based in the UK? Who was prime minister when the number of US military installations in the UK was in triple figures? Which European prime minister not only endorsed the US attacks on Tripoli in 1986 but allowed their warplanes to take off from her own country's bases? Granted she opposed the invasion of Grenada, a Commonwealth country, where Blair might have said "walk right in", but in most respects when it came to playing good guys/bad guys US-style she made Rumsfeld and Co. look like a bunch of pacifists. Short-sighted Americans are trying to claim that Reagan single-handedly brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Margaret Thatcher is on record as saying that she did it. She made greed, materialism and self-centeredness respectable again. She became power-drunk on her own hubristic belief that she was infallible. Blair is equally consumed by hubris, but compounds the fault by turning on the charm and trying to convince us he's a nice guy. At least Margaret Thatcher's one redeeming feature is that she knew she couldn't get away with that trick. "Greed, materialism and self-centeredness respectable again"? Sounds like a fitting description of the last coin fair I attended. I am not among President Reagan's admirers, but as I recall the attack on Tripoli was not without cause.