‘She can’t stand that woman,’ an aide of Mrs Thatcher once said of Dame Shirley Porter, the notorious, scandal-prone leader of Westminster City Council during the 1980s. Such contempt was perhaps surprising, for Lady Porter was seen by many as the mirror image of Mrs Thatcher both in her outspoken character and in the aggressive way she ran her municipal fiefdom. Domineering, energetic and impatient, she liked to pose as the champion of business and the ratepayer against sclerotic civic bureaucracy. Like Mrs Thatcher, she was ferociously partisan, relishing battles with her opponents, while she could also be brutally intimidating to her own senior officials.

Blackwell Bookshop

Purchase your copy here, 10% off RRP