Four Who Also Shaped Events: Putting the Great Back in Britain

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As the Falklands factor wanes, Thatcher remains her self-assured self. Unemployment is 13.2%, the industrial base continues to shrivel and growth may not exceed 1.5% in 1983; still she boasts that her policies have brought the inflation rate down to 6.3%, the lowest in ten years. She continues to promise that she will "put the 'Great' back in Britain." Thatcher has taken on the powerful trade unions and thus far has not come a cropper. At the same time, she has staunchly resisted industry's pleas to soften her austere monetarism. She has also been lucky. The Labor Party opposition is a shambles, split by left-right fratricide, and the Social Democratic Party's momentum has faded as fractious Britain united behind its resolute leader in the Falklands war.

A Thatcher associate, suggesting that the next election could turn on the contrast in leadership, observes: "This Prime Minister leads from the front, with her chin out." The man on the street puts it plainly: "She's gutsy." Even many of her numerous enemies acknowledge that the lady is a leader, even as they despair over where she is leading them.

Meanwhile, Thatcher, 57, looks ahead with a confidence she could not command twelve months ago. At the Tories' annual convention in Brighton this year, the slogan was THE RESOLUTE APPROACH, and no one doubts that in any election campaign Thatcher will trumpet her readiness to battle any comers, whether they be crusty trade union chiefs, Argentine generals or hectoring Commons members. And, as ever, she plans to prevail. When a close friend recently asked her, "Who will come after you?" she replied insouciantly, "After me—there's me!" No one thinks she is joking.