Margaret Thatcher

...and no she's not dead.

It's her 80th birthday, celebrated with a gala reception with the Queen and various other political glitterati in attendance. But when I saw the headlines "Margaret Thatcher" on tv last night, I sort of assumed she had died. She hasn't been in the best of health recently, her husband died and her son has been in a spot of trouble.

Poor old Maggie. She's still such a figure of hate in the UK. Growing up in the US, she was a bit of hero figure, so I was really surprised by the level of hatred that many people on the Left have here for her. She sure did shake things up in the UK and she made a couple of big blunders, too - the extremely unpopular poll tax being one of them.

But the folks over at the Adam Smith Institute still love her.