Thatcher had political vision, and Brown lacks it, but looking at their legacies from abroad, I'm curious to know: Why would anyone trade the Brown Era for the Thatcher Era?  Vision is nice and all, but it doesn't trump double-digit unemployment, wild swings in output resulting from the Monetarism-meets-ADHD adhered to by the Thatcher government, and ideological warfare against the working class that left Britain stuck in under a regime championing the causes of the world's current malaise.

Brown, for all his flaws (and they are many), has been one of very world leaders few to come up with a semi-coherent plan to deal with the crisis, even if a huge amount of money appears to be used in a similar way to the Paulson Plan ("Buy lots and lots of Big Shitpile at inflated prices!").  It demonstrates at least some familiarity with the Swedish plan of the '90s -- a plan, by the way, which many leaders elsewhere seem to have been completely oblivious to until a few days ago.

Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin