Margaret Thatcher on Vladimir Putin

Nineteen minutes and fifty seconds into the YouTube clip below of a lecture which Lady Thatcher delivered in America in the year 2000, she made a few comments about Vladimir Putin, then the newly elected President of Russia, which seem remarkably prophetic today and have been quoted rather a lot on Twitter in the last couple of days.

One person called the gif which was shared with the relevant parts of this lecture "a weird splicing of eras. As if George V was doing a TikTok." 

This is, of course, because Margaret Thatcher was speaking a decade after leaving office, though the comments she made about Mr Putin prove she was still capable of some very shrewd insights, while Vladimir Putin had only been in power for a few months but has since held it, initially alternating between doing so as President and Prime Minister, for 22 years. 

"I looked at the pictures of Mr Putin," she said, "Trying to look for a trace of humanity. I should have known better." 

She went on to explain (and in my opinion fully justify) those comments. 

I wish more of us in the West had got the measure of Mr Putin as quickly as the Iron Lady did.

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