Authoritarian populism


 * 1) Authoritarian populism was a term coined by the cultural theorist Stuart Hall to describe Thatcherism. He argued that Thatcherism was a popular reaction to the British post-war settlement, mobilized along right-wing lines and aiming to strengthen the State.

Criticism
A good deal of evidence from opinion polls suggests, as demonstrated notably in the work of Ivor Crewe, that Mrs. Thatcher had little success in winning over the population. Indeed, polls suggest that opposition to Thatcherism grew as time went on.

Bob Jessop et al. argue, along similar lines, that "Thatcherism must be seen less as a monolithic monstrosity and more as an alliance of disparate forces around a self-contradictory programme."