With Britain’s venerable Conservatives desperate to avoid political oblivion, delegates at the party’s annual conference found themselves prompted to seek guidance from a prime minister who left office 35 years ago. “Ask the Iron Lady,” urged a poster from the Conservative Women’s Association.
The sign invited Tories to pose questions to the late Margaret Thatcher, who would’ve turned 100 this year, about problems of the day — a representation of the totemic position she still holds within the party’s diminished core. Her latest successor as Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, appeared to offer her own answer in her conference speech on Wednesday: a promise to kill a much-hated tax blamed for stifling the British dream of homeownership.