Hitler was a vegetarian. Probably the first vegetarian to become head of a European country. That's no reason for vegetarians to rejoice.

No she wasn't at all like Hitler, apart from this belief that she was always right, which is a quality which most successful politicians have. Her father, whom she revered, admired Hitler, I read, and had a bust of him in his study while she was growing up. She can't be blamed for that, but maybe it's an indication of the influences on her in her formative years.

"English Patriot" cited the way she sat out the hunger strikers in Northern Ireland as an indication of what a great leader she was. Without that "great leadership" I believe the Peace Process could have started a lot earlier, and the war in Northern Ireland could have ended a long time sooner, in the same kind of way it eventually did (touch wood).

And as for "...the state of the country in the late '70s was pretty grim." Well, I remember it as quite a good time - far better than it became for the next 20 years or so. Some strikes, true enough, which resulted in a small fraction of the disruption and waste and squalor caused by the way industries were butchered in a doctrinaire way over the Thatcher years.

Thatcher's approach to reform reminded me of Charles Lamb's "Dissertation on Roast Pig" in which he explained how roast pork was invented - a child accidentally set fire to a house with a pig inside, and the villagers poking around in the embers discovered a new delicacy. This eventually led to a rash of house fires. The moral of the story being when you do not understand how the pig gets cooked, you have to burn a whole house down every time you want a roast pork dinner.