A new BBC drama about the life of Margaret Thatcher is getting panned on left and right. It seems the show’s creators could not decide whether to treat Britain’s first woman PM as a feminist icon– with a “sexy side”, according to the Daily Telegraph–or to resort to predictable leftist excoriations of Thatcherism. The result, critics say, falls into awkward farce.

Still, the very fact that the Beeb attempted–however half-heartedly–to cast Maggie in a new light suggests that times might be a’ changin’ in the UK.