Margaret thatcher

Charles Moore’s biography of Margaret Thatcher promises to be the most important British political book in decades. Tonight, we got a preview of it when Charles delivered the Centre for Policy Studies’ second Margaret Thatcher lecture. The subject was Thatcher and Europe. I won’t say too much about it because we’re running a version of it in the coming issue of The Spectator. But one thing that Charles demonstrated was that even when Thatcher was campaigning for British membership of the European Community, as then was, she was never in favour of the European project. One of the other thing that Charles’s lecture brought out was the shift in the

A big-tent turnout on Saturday evening for the fourtieth birthday of Conor Burns, the Tory MP for Bournemouth West. Burns, fresh from his heroic rebellion against Lords reform, packed the State Rooms of the Palace of Westminster with a big crowd of rising Tory stars and some old stagers including Lord Lamont and Sir Mark Thatcher. Burns is a close friend of Baroness Thatcher; and although the great Lady was unable to join, she did some send some pearls of wisdom in her place. Burns reported that when he had told Lady Thatcher that his friend and speech-giver Thomas Docherty, who has been Burns’ voting pair since they both arrived in Westminster

Westminster’s favourite shaggy-haired do-gooder Andrew Mitchell has been spilling his heart out to Total Politics about Maggie: ‘To me, she was a goddess. When she walked down the  corridors, I used to stand stiffly to attention and hope she would pass by.’ Far too much information from the International Development Secretary, who is known to keep a bowl of condoms in on his ministerial desk, as part of a worldwide health campaign, of course.

To mark the 30th anniversary of the start of the Falklands War, here’s Ferdinand Mount’s column from the time: The last armada, Ferdinand Mount, 10 April 1982 A debacle speaks for itself. All things that inescapably follow — the humiliation, the indignation, the ministers hurrying in and out of Cabinet, the spectacular sitting of Parliament on a Saturday, the calls for the resignation of Mr John Nott, Lord Carrington and anyone else standing in the line of fire — are not only themselves part and parcel of the debacle; they help to explain why it happened. The Falkland Islanders are the last victims of our refusal to be honest with

It is a sign of the influence that Steve Hilton has on the Cameron project that there have been more column inches devoted to his departure from Downing Street than there would be to most Cabinet resignations. But even after he heads to California in May, Hilton will still be part of the Cameron brains trust. He is already scheduled to work on the Prime Minister’s conference speech. Hilton has, I understand, been mulling the idea of taking a sabbatical since last summer. His decision to go ahead and take next year off seems to have been motivated by a variety of factors. But those closest to him stress that

The Times has a fascinating interview (£) with former Soviet leader, Nobel Laureate and two-time Man of the Year Mikhail Gorbachev. He strikes an optimistic tone about the future of democracy in Russia, praising the ‘Moscow Spring’ protesters and saying ‘This is the right moment to start creating as part of this new situation a strong democratic party.’ But perhaps the most eye-catching comes when he compares Vladimir Putin with Margaret Thatcher: ‘Mr Gorbachev recalled Mrs Thatcher, Prime Minister at the time, telling him that she was leaving a summit in Paris early to deal with the challenge to her leadership from within the Conservative Party. He said: “I felt

The feeding frenzy over Liam Fox tells us a great deal more about what is wrong with the Conservative Party than it does about Dr. Fox. The Defence Secretary has been an ass. He admits that he allowed “distinctions to be blurred” between his “professional responsibilities and [his] personal loyalties to a friend”. But if someone has known you and counselled you and worked for you over the years it is all but impossible to maintain such distinctions when you are in power. You just have to cut them off, brutally. Fox’s biggest weakness, and one which was well known before this, is that he is too kind. You might

What’s the most important geo-political event of this century? Most people would say 9/11. The Foreign Secretary believes that it is the Arab Spring. But in The Times today (£), Emma Duncan makes a persuasive case for it being the collapse of Lehman Brothers. Duncan argues that Lehman Brothers’ fall has three claims to be an epoch-making event. The first is its contribution to the financial crisis and subsequent economic stagnation. The second is the way that it has catalysed China’s economic rise vis-à-vis the US, with China now predicted to become the world’s largest economy within this decade. The third, the fact that that the economic troubles of the

Internationally renowned policeman Bill Bratton has agreed to advise the government on how to defeat gang culture. Bratton’s role is not official, but he will arrive for duty in the autumn nonetheless. The former LA police chief has already offered a diagnosis of Britain’s problems. In an interview with the Telegraph, he says that hoodlums have been “emboldened” by timid policing and lenient sentencing. Quite what this means for Ken Clarke’s justice policy, supported by the Liberal Democrats, remains to be seen. But the indications are that the government will bolster its law and order policies. Doubtless a wry smile will have broken across the face of Andy Coulson, who

Sarah Palin will be in town soon and she hopes to meet Mrs Thatcher. She told the Sunday Times: “I am going to Sudan in July and hope to stop in England on the way. I am just hoping Mrs Thatcher is well enough to see me as I so admire her.” However, it seems that the admiration is not mutual. The Guardian’s Wintour and Watt blog reports an old ally of the Lady’s saying: “Lady Thatcher will not be seeing Sarah Palin. That would be belittling for Margaret. Sarah Palin is nuts. “Margaret is focusing on Ronald Reagan and will attend the unveiling of the statue (in Grosvenor Square).

Here’s a game of Spot the Difference for you. Compare Nick Clegg’s comments today — “…there are some very strong memories of what life was like under Thatcherism in the 1980s, and somehow a fear that that’s what we’re returning to…” — with the latest shot from The Spectator archives: Can Nick Clegg sing the blues? Fraser Nelson, The Spectator, 13 March 2010 Nick Clegg’s office already has a Downing Street feel to it. Since becoming leader of the Liberal Democrats, he has had it redecorated so that portraits of old party leaders hang on the staircase up to his room, as portraits of former prime minsters do in No.

As you’ve no doubt deduced from the cover image on the left-hand side of this page, the latest Spectator is out today — and it’s a soaraway double issue for Easter. By way of peddling it to CoffeeHousers (buy it here, etc.), I thought I’d mention one article among many. It’s a celebratory list of some of the country’s “most inspiring and influential over-80s,” and it includes tributes to them from some rather notable under-80-year-olds. So we have Matt Ridley on David Attenborough, Alex Salmond on Sean Connery, Ian Rankin on P.D James, and plenty more besides. Anyway, there are two entries that CoffeeHousers might care to see in particular,

Lord Lawson has given George Osborne’s Budget an A-minus. Writing in today’s Times (£), the former chancellor said that his successor ‘got the big questions right’ by sticking to deficit reduction and assisting hard-pressed taxpayers where he could. The only blemish was the carbon price floor for the energy sector, which Lawson describes as ‘nothing less than an anti-growth strategy’.  Also, Lawson warns Osborne against uniting income tax and national insurance. Unsurprisingly, Mrs Thatcher’s great reforming chancellor looked into this measure and is convinced that it is a non-starter. ‘This superficially attractive reform, which is by no means a new idea, was known in the Treasury in my time as