Margaret Thatcher: gay icon  How's a man to resist the Iron
Lady's way with an Aquascutum twinset?   • Jump to comments ()
It was the quietly outrageous, leftfield artists Gilbert &
George that first hinted at Margaret Thatcher's status as a gay
icon, back in the last, crumbling moments of her leadership. If
their admission of admiration for the Iron Lady came as
something of a cultural left hook, it was rather less surprising
to hear the smug bleating of perma-tanned Tory gay poster-boy
(well, poster-man) Alan Duncan on the Today programme
reiterating the sentiment.  Is Thatcher a gay icon? Look, I
struggle with this one. I can remember being at school when
Clause 28 was introduced and a weary teacher saying they could
probably be sacked for letting us understand the subtext of
Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie. My living, breathing,
socialist self can still see the crying eyes of grown men on the
street where I lived as an 80s teenager, falling into their
withered wives' arms as their jobs fell like