Last Friday, we were joking in TAC’s offices that Sarah Palin was “America’s Maggie Thatcher”. We should have known that we wouldn’t have to wait long before this ridiculous comparison made it into print.

One doesn’t have to be Thatcherite – I’m fairly sure I am not – to see that the Palin-Thatcher analogy is absurd. For a start, Thatcher was an exceptionally intelligent woman; Palin, for all her canny snark and tough-gal know-how, is not.

Another, more important point is that while sexual — and to a lesser extent, class — identity was important in Thatcher’s success (“the Lady’s not for turning,”) she was never, never an identity politician in the way that Palin so transparently is. Maggie T was not plucked from obscurity by a party establishment eager to play personality politics; she had to fight her way through often hostile Tory ranks. Unlike Palin, she achieved in spite of her sex, not because of it.

Palin’s appeal is almost the antithesis of Thatcher’s. The amazing thing about Thatcher was that she was never really popular — she was viciously hated by the working-classes — yet she still won elections. Her success was based on a personal strength, a certain philosophy of government, and perhaps a degree fearsomeness. Palin’s is founded on her class, family, lipstick, and puerile class baiting (it’s too cheap to be called class warfare).

The British equivalent of hockey moms – goodness knows what they might be – never fell for Thatcher in the way that American females are now slobbering over Palin. Nobody related to Margaret Thatcher, at least not in the way Americans are being told they can relate to Sarah Palin.

John O’Sullivan, a Thatcher expert, resisted the Palin-as-Iron Lady line. Janet Daley should have done the same.