In 2002, twelve years after Margaret Thatcher left office, she was asked at a dinner what was  her  greatest  achievement.  Thatcher  replied:  “Tony  Blair  and  New  Labour.  We forced our opponents to change their minds.”  (Conor Burns, April 11, 2008)

As Tony Blair himself told: “[Thatcher] was immensely kind and generous to me when I was Prime Minister… Politicly, certain reforms she made, for example in Trade Union Law…, we kept the basic legal framework… We didn’t renationalise many of state industries that she privatized… I always thought my job was to build on some of the things she had done rather than reverse them… Many of the things she said… had a certain creditability… Whenever I wanted to ask her for advice, she would always give it… in a genuine, spirited way… She was very kind.” (BBC News, April 8, 2013)

These excellent books elaborate on this matter:
— The Political Economy of New Labour: Labouring under False Pretences? by Colin Hay (Manchester University Press, 1999)
— New Labour and Thatcherism: Political Change in Britain, by Richard Heffernan (Palgrave Macmillan, 2000)
— New Labour, New Language? by Norman Fairclough (Palgrave Macmillan, 2000)
— Transforming Local Governance: From Thatcherism to New Labour, by Gerry Stoker (Palgrave, 2003)
— A Brief History of Neoliberalism, by David Harvey (Oxford University Press, 2005)
— The Thatcherite Offensive: A Neo-Poulantzasian Analysis, by Alexander Gallas (Haymarket Books, 2017)

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