Tim Hudak wants Ontario voters to know he’s a changed man.

He’s strong now, not weak. He’s ready to fight, not compromise. He believes in hard-right politics, not the mushy middle.

In a revealing interview this week with Martin Regg Cohn, the Star’s provincial affairs columnist, Hudak portrayed himself as a protégé of Mike Harris, the former Conservative premier who is providing advice to the current Tory leader.

Harris’s advice is “to put out what you believe in and you fight for it,” Hudak said in the interview.

While he is getting advice from his old boss, Hudak’s real political inspiration isn’t Harris. It’s Margaret Thatcher, the controversial British prime minister who died this month at age 87.

Clearly, Hudak’s new “I’m tough” self-image and basketful of policy proposals are taken straight out of Thatcher’s political playbook.

It’s all there for Ontario voters to see, from Hudak’s union-bashing and tax cuts to crackdowns on criminals and welfare recipients. It’s a belief in the magic of markets and the evil of government. Together, it’s Hudak’s version of Thatcherism.

Indeed, Hudak is easily the last Thatcherite heading a major Canadian political party.

It’s risky for Hudak to model himself after Thatcher because what might have been right for Britain in 1979 when Thatcher came to power isn’t right for Ontario today.

True, we are facing some difficult times with Queen’s Park running a large deficit, some of it the result of Thatcher-like tax cuts introduced under Harris. But we don’t have conditions anywhere close to those that propelled Thatcher to power in Britain.

Also, the vaunted economic transformation that Thatcherites love to brag about didn’t last. Britain is a mess today.

Even many Conservatives, including Stephen Harper, have distanced themselves from some of Thatcher’s most controversial policies. The most obvious case was when Harper ordered a huge increase in government spending — something Thatcher always opposed — to deal with the 2008-09 economic downturn.

Still, Hudak, who came of political age in the 1980s when Thatcherism was at its peak and was influencing a generation of conservative politicians, including Brian Mulroney, Stephen Harper and Harris, remains enamoured with her brand of politics. The signs are everywhere in his recent “makeover.”

In the 1980s, Thatcher defeated the miners’ union after a year-long strike. Today, Hudak wants to play tough with “union bosses,” proposing that employees in a unionized workplace won’t have to pay dues if they don’t want to. Even Harris didn’t go that far.

Thatcher privatized many public enterprises. Hudak wants to sell off the LCBO and parts of Hydro One and Ontario Power Generation.

Thatcher slashed business and personal taxes in the early years of her government. Hudak favours huge cuts in corporate taxes, reductions in the HST and lower personal income tax rates.

Thatcher cut thousands of government jobs, sold off public housing and reduced social assistance for the poor. Hudak is offering cuts in welfare payments, smaller government and is demonizing public employees and their “gold standard” pensions.

Thatcher favoured the death penalty for some crimes and harsher prison sentences. Hudak has called for prisoners to work on chain gangs.

Why is Hudak copying Thatcher?

Hudak is smart enough to know he’s not likely to win a majority in the next election. Polls show the Tories slightly ahead of the Liberals and NDP, but point to another minority government. They also indicate Hudak’s personal numbers are below those of his party. So his plan is to buck up his party’s hard-core base and to give up on winning over voters in the middle.

That’s important because many Tory loyalists perceived Hudak as weak and vacillating in the 2011 election. He needs these party diehards to turn out on voting day to provide at least a crack at forming a minority government.

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One bit of advice Harris has given Hudak is to “have some patience.” Patience is a trait Thatcher professed to hold, but with a twist. “I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end,” she said in one of her most famous quotes.

Hudak’s patience will be severely tested in the coming election. It’s still questionable though, despite his Thatcherite zeal, whether he will ultimately get his way.

Bob Hepburn’s column appears Thursday. bhepburn@thestar.ca

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