As Margaret Thatcher came up in the world, so the Conservative Party came down.

She cannot see an institution without hitting it with her handbag.

Mrs Thatcher requires devotion as well as obedience.

Although the advice that you get if you got to see Margaret is 'stand up for yourself, shout back, and argue the toss and then she will respect you', the trouble is that sort of advice to the English middle-class male of a certain age doesn't actually help us very much because we've always been brought up to believe that it's extremely rude to shout back at women.

Disloyalty is the secret weapon of the Tory Party.

I was certainly not inclined to decriminalise. However, during my time in the unit, as I saw more and more evidence of 'what works', to quote New Labour's mantra of the time, it became apparent to me that ... enforcement and supply-side interventions were largely pointless. They have no significant, lasting impact on the availability, affordability or use of drugs.

Like Marxism, Thatcherism is, in fact, riddled with contradictions. Mrs. Thatcher, on the other hand, is free of doubt; she is the label on the can of worms.