A conversation with three longstanding English friends of Firing Line (all have

served many times as guests or panelists, Mr. Riddell and Mrs. Hayman beginning when they were still at Cambridge). The brisk and detail-filled discussion treats of Margaret Thatcher and Thatcherism, alone and in comparison with Ronald Reagan and Reaganism, on specifics ranging from inflation to defense (conventional versus nuclear) to the welfare state (and the fact that, while many Britons would like lower taxation, few would give up, say, the National Health Service). Mr. Knight: "The difficulty that we are finding with the United States is not that it's taking ... a particularly trenchant tone [in world affairs], it is that it's not us any longer that is taking a trenchant view. This is the aftermath of a declining power."