Strange how time shapes the views we hold of events and, for the purposes of this piece, of people.

Consider the war criminal who had 180 Neapolitan POWs executed and whose funeral was shunned by most of his Admiralty peers.  His statue stands proudly in Trafalgar Square.

Or Richard the Lionheart, revered as the quintessentially “good” English king, but who bled his Exchequer dry prosecuting the Crusades to the neglect of home affairs, having spent less than one  of his ten year reign in England; and, of course, being French he couldn’t speak a word of English.

Conversely, the king who defeated the Vikings at Edington, halting their southwards and westwards conquest, who built a system of defensive burghs and an English navy to rival theirs, levied taxes to promote Christian learning and founded a system of fair laws.  Populist history simply recalls him as having burned some cakes.

The phenomenon is not confined to these shores.  The sanctified champion of racial equality in nineteenth century America is not remembered for having said, “I am not, nor ever have been, in favour of…the social and political equality of the white and black races…nor…of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people.”

So looking forward, what will be the judgement on that most divisive of our contemporaries, Margaret Thatcher?  Forceful democratic leader who dragged Britain up from being the “sick man of Europe” and radical reformer of lame duck economies? Or destroyer of a better, socialised Britain, of industries and communities deserving of support?

History, my friend, and not you will decide.