This is essentially true; whether we like it or not Thatcher and Thatcherism irrevocably changed the way British politics operates, both in terms of policy and the inner workings of government. Gone was the consensus politics within cabinet, replaced by prime ministerial government - the PM was no longer 'first among equals' but just 'first'. Major attempted to return to consensus politics because the tory party was simply too split to work in the same way as Thatcher did. He was too weak and that ultimately failed. Blair picked up where Thatcher left off in that respect - cabinet was very weak. There was one story where Blair asked Cabinet to decide on the Millennium Dome project. Cabinet made a decision to let Blair decide - Blair was already at the site of the Dome taking pictures.BrianW said:
New Labour was essentially Thatcherism with a smiling face - it has been said that one of Thatcher's greatest successes was that she forced the Labour Party to reinvent itself to become electable, to the extent that it had essentially adopted the economic policies of the tories (as in they did not renationalise the privatised industries, such as the rail network, which really they should have done). The only real difference is the greater spending on public services such as the NHS and education, although many were financed using the tory-introduce PFI scheme.