Here are some links to some of the contextual references in the article.
Margaret Thatcher
Miners' Strike
laissez faire
Cecil Parkinson
Jeremy Thorpe
Ronald Regan
Charles de Gaulle
Stephen Sondheim
I'm Still Here
Francois Metterrand
Marilyn Monroe
Caligula
mater dolorosa - the Virgin Mary sorrowing for the death of Christ, especially as a representation in art.
Taki The Spectator
Miss Havisham - a character from the novel Great Expectations by Charles Dicken's who after being jilted in marriage lives her life wearing her wedding dress in the wedding dinning room now full of rotten food and faded flowers. For her time has stopped.
