WHILST believing it very unlikely that Mrs Thatcher would ever become Prime Minister today, TN Michael does discern in the main party leaders "an apparent greyness" (Viewpoint, April 18).
You can say that again!
An intelligent young person, viewing the political scene for the first time, could be forgiven for thinking them to be all the same.
An example is immigration. Amazingly, and seemingly within a few weeks, all three major parties came to the same conclusion, ie it is now appropriate that the rules should be made somewhat tougher.
Another is the admittedly more difficult and complex matter of the economy. Whilst the government is partly tied by the need to maintain the coalition, one would think that the current situation offers the Labour opposition almost "an open goal".
Shadow chancellor Ed Balls is bright but seems unable to deviate from neo-Keynesian orthodoxy, which decrees that the cause of this, and any other economic downturn, is lack of demand, for which government should compensate by way of "stimulation".
Extrapolating, it is then suggested that any failure to deal with the aftermath of a debt crisis caused by an unsustainable credit boom is down to the fact that the government is failing to get the country even further into debt quickly enough.
Given the wealth of history and economic theory available for study, cannot Labour come up with something more original?
At the time, some people were attracted to Mrs Thatcher's policies, but even more were impressed by the fact that she was obviously sincere.
On an important matter, her view would not change overnight on the basis of an opinion poll. Voters believed they knew where she stood, and the value of this cannot be overstated.
I disagree with TN Michael, in that I believe a really top-class "conviction politician", of whatever political colour, would still attract widespread support.
Michael Swaby, Hainton Avenue, Grimsby.
