Could Margaret Thatcher’s legacy be taken apart by the same force that brought her to power 40 years ago?

A sea change brought in the Iron Lady at the 1979 general election. Four decades on from that day, believes Sean O’Grady, we may be on the cusp of a similar shift – this time to the left

This lady wasn’t for turning: Margaret Thatcher back in September 1987. She came to power on 3 May 1979 (John Voos)

The story goes that Margaret Thatcher, long after she had left office, was asked what her greatest achievement had been. “Tony Blair and New Labour,” was the immediate, bright-eyed reply. By that she meant even the Labour Party had accepted the economic reconstruction of the country that began exactly four decades ago, when she won the general election of 1979. Socialism, in the sense she had fought against as a force in British politics was, if not extirpated, then certainly dormant.

If the anecdote is correct, then her abiding legacy – that long-lasting Thatcherite settlement, largely accepted by Blair – lies in some jeopardy today. Jeremy Corbyn closes in on No 10; Theresa May’s pragmatic government provides a model in how not to “do politics”; and there is something of a leftward shift in public opinion. Is there a sense of change in the air again?

The 1979 election is counted by historians as one of the most significant of the 20th century. The election of 1906 brought to power a Liberal government that laid the foundations for the welfare state; the Labour government of 1945 made the welfare state complete with the NHS, nationalised of the “commanding heights” of the economy, and embarked on the dissolution of the British Empire; and the Thatcher government elected in 1979 set about reversing much of that established but failing social democratic post-war consensus.