An ex Guardian journalist, David McKie, wrote a wonderful travelogue entitled Great British Bus Journeys, and I quote from the preface,
"Margaret Thatcher is often quoted as saying that any man over the age of twenty- six traveling by bus must have lost out in life. One can't help feeling though that it might have done her good to travel just now and then, in heavy disguise of course, on a humble bus service alongside the people over whom she presided.
Had she so demeaned herself at the height of her power, to catch the bus from Grantham to Sleaford for instance, she might have heard conversations cautioning her against the fatal poll tax or her apparent assumption that people work best when they feel insecure. [...] you will certainly hear a lot more on the buses of Britain about the country you live in than you ever could if you travelled only by train or car."
While the idea of Thatcher doing a Haroun al-Raschid has potential comedy value, suppose some ministerial aide did make that trip- someone important enough to ring the alarm bells. They could and should have known how much potential it had for going wrong. (Oddly, the KGB at the time is supposed to have the same problem.)
The more I think about it the more confused I get, actually. I don't understand how the late eighties Tories could have been unaware of the size of the landmine they were choosing to step on. The last poll tax someone tried to bring in caused the Peasants' Revolt, didn't it?
Blind, blinkered or buffoonish? I just can't reconstruct the thinking.