By Political Correspondent of Telegraph
George Osborne, the Chancellor, has admitted that the Conservative leadership is still in the shadow of Baroness Thatcher and said that her achievements are “impossible to live up to”.
In an article for The Times newspaper, Mr Osborne said that Conservative leaders since Lady Thatcher have all faced “invidious comparisons” with the former prime minister.
“Whatever we try to achieve and whatever parliamentary battles we fight, all seem to shrink in size alongside the struggles and triumphs of Margaret Thatcher,” Mr Osborne said. “Successive Conservative leaders have all faced invidious comparisons that are impossible to live up to — sometimes from the very people who were the most strident critics of her early years as leader.” Describing Lady Thatcher as a “political force”, Mr Osborne disclosed that Tory backbenchers still urge him to deliver Thatcherite Budgets.
He added: “I don’t think that we in this generation of politicians need to be unsettled by living in her shadow. We do live in her shadow and we should just embrace it. She was a great prime minister — probably the greatest in our peacetime history — and we are fortunate to live in a country she did so much to transform.”