In January 1982, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had a host of headaches. The intelligence services were warning her that the Argentine military junta was likely preparing an invasion of the Falkland Islands, demonstrations were taking place against her decision to raise taxes, and her son had disappeared. On January 13, 1982, before giving a speech to the National Federation of Self-Employed Workers, Thatcher even lost her balance, visibly shaken. iron lady It seemed on the verge of collapse, as her son, Mark Thatcher, had been missing for five days in one of the most inhospitable places on the planet: the Sahara Desert.

Some books stand the test of time remarkably well. False dawnJohn Gray's book offers a good example. It was published in 1998, before the euro, before Vladimir Putin, before social media, but its diagnosis of the effects of the "free market" (a concept invented in the mid-19th century) and its logical evolution, "global capitalism," remains accurate: social disintegration, the impotence of politics, and a brutal rise in inequality.

Margaret Thatcher was born on October 13, 1925. A century has just passed since her birth. The Iron Lady (a nickname given to her by the Soviets when she was still in opposition) was a pioneer in many ways. She was the first woman in Downing Street and the first proponent of neoliberalism in an industrialized country, for example. But not only that: she was aware of the usefulness of what later became known as the "Overton Window," a concept that hadn't even occurred to the American Joseph Overton, still a teenager. Today, the "Overton Window" refers to the range of ideas acceptable to the public. If one wants to undertake a conservative revolution, as in Thatcher's case, it's necessary to shift the window to the right and make political measures, previously unthinkable, mainstream, or at least open to debate. For Joseph Overton (1960-2003), this task fell to ideological think tanks. Even before coming to power in the United Kingdom, Thatcher understood that the real power lay with the mainstream media. And she didn't have them. The BBC, the public broadcaster, was not in favor of neoliberalism. Neither was the traditional conservative press, such as "The Times" or "The Daily Telegraph," aligned with classic right-wing politics. The popular press, with the "Daily Mirror" at the forefront, defended Labour positions, with one exception: "The Sun," a left-wing tabloid acquired in 1969 by the Australian Rupert Murdoch, underwent a complete about-face in 1975 and became the main supporter of Thatcher's ideas, precisely in 1975 when she was elected leader of the Conservative Party. But Thatcher and Murdoch wanted more. They both wanted "The Times" and "The Sunday Times," the most influential newspapers of the time. They were owned by a Canadian group, Thompson Corporation, which in 1978 had ordered a lockout to subdue the unions, opposed to the technological restructuring proposed by the owners. Both newspapers were off the streets for a year. Thompson Corporation lost 30 million pounds in the struggle and, after this financial drain, decided to divest itself of the two "Times."

Ultraconservative nationalism is on the rise. We can quickly see it by mentioning a few names: Trump, Orbán, Milei... It is in this context that historian Eric Storm (Netherlands, 1966) published Nationalisms, a world history (Crítica), a book that doesn't focus on a single country or continent, but rather, as its name suggests, examines the history of nationalism worldwide in an exhaustive work that allows us to draw the similarities that exist between regions and understand why it is advancing worldwide.

Twelve years after her death, Margaret Thatcher—or her ghost—continues to stir passions in the United Kingdom. In favor, among those most nostalgic for a government that, after the turbulent Labour administrations, gradually ended the power of the unions from 1979 onwards, forever changing the face of the country's work and society. Against, among the left, more aware that the Iron Lady was able to "change the times," according to the reference of the speaker of the Commons, John Bercow, in the session in the fourth April 10, 2013, on the occasion of his transfer. Bercow also quoted Churchill in Parliament: "There are some politicians who make the weather [some politicians 'change time' in the sense that they make history] and Margaret Thatcher was certainly one of them."

The real star of the political conference in tribute to Margaret Thatcher last Monday in the City of London was not the president of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who acted as keynote speaker, nor the leader of British opposition leader Kemi Badenoch, which closed the event. With speeches lacking much intellectual rigor, which would probably have been better delivered by ChatGPT or a high school student, they caused the same astonishment as Van Morrisson at his concerts: three songs and goodbye. It was the conservative Scottish historian, Niall Ferguson (Glasgow, 1964), who captured the audience's attention once Ayuso had already left the stage. The author of such stimulating texts as controversial, such as The British Empire, The triumph of money and The square and the Tower, He is a professor at the Chair of Europe at Stanford University.