Margaret thatcher

My first reaction on hearing of Margaret Thatcher’s death in 2013 was: ‘Great — now my autograph from her will go up in value.’ This wasn’t callous. It was a simple application of demand and supply. As a child of the 1980s I had learned my lesson well. The Lady wouldn’t have objected to me viewing her signature as a pension plan. Indeed, it’s what she would have wanted. How many Caribbean villas, then, should I be thinking of buying? Because this is no ordinary autograph. I asked Mrs T. (as she then still was) to write out ‘There is no such thing as society’ and sign it. She embellished the quote, adding ‘…there are only individuals, it is we who bear the responsibility’.

It is natural to assume that, if a majority votes No in the referendum on Britain’s EU membership, we shall then leave. It is not automatically so. After the vote, we would still be members. The government would then — morally at least — be mandated to negotiate Britain’s withdrawal. In theory, unlikely though it may currently seem, the EU could try to block this. Even assuming that it did not do so, the eventual terms of the withdrawal would not automatically be agreed by Parliament and would not necessarily correspond with the wishes of those who voted No. The context for our vote will be David Cameron’s presentation of a package secured with partners to persuade us to vote Yes. There is no negotiated package offered for those voting No.

The first volume of Charles Moore’s biography of Margaret Thatcher is one of the finest political books of recent times. With the second volume due out in October, Charles, a columnist for both the Telegraph and this magazine, has agreed to also become a visiting scholar at the think tank Policy Exchange where he will work on what lessons contemporary politics can learn from Margaret Thatcher’s career. Policy Exchange has long been the favourite think tank of the Tory modernisers. With Charles and Steve Hilton’s arrival, it will be at the centre of the debate about where the Tory party should go next. For a flavour of the discussions to come, do watch Charles interview Hilton about his new book.

On the weekend of 25 April 2015 I started to believe that the party I supported might not win an impending general election. I’m used to that. But I started to believe, too, that my fellow citizens might be about to make a stupid and unfathomable mistake. I’m not used to that at all. It has come as an awful shock. For the first time in my life I have understood how it must have felt to be a convinced socialist in Britain these past 36 years since 1979: to live in and love a country whose people had got it completely wrong. ‘Well, diddums,’ I can hear left-wing friends reply: ‘Welcome to our world.’ In the general election of 1979, as a parliamentary candidate, I knew the voters would return me and believed they would return a Conservative government led by Margaret Thatcher.

‘If you’re not a socialist before you’re twenty-five, you have no heart; if you are a socialist after twenty-five, you have no head,' goes the old, oft-misattributed saying. But if you’re a Green party supporter on a university campus today, you’re more likely to have no friends. It was reported last week that the Green party's share of the student vote has almost halved in the past two months – falling from a peak of 28 per cent to a paltry 15. In January, the Greens’ vote was creeping up on Labour (the consistent student favourites) but it has now plummeted below even that of the so-called ‘Tory scum’ you hear so much about on tuition-fees demos.

As I swink in the field of Thatcher studies, this book brings refreshment. It is a welcome and rare. Far too many writers attitudinise about Margaret Thatcher (for and against) rather than studying her. I doubt the author likes Thatcher much, but all the more credit to her that she makes a fair-minded effort to understand what she believed about God, and how she succeeded and failed in applying her beliefs. Not all who knew Mrs Thatcher agree that she was religious. In a way, they are right. She was not churchy or denominational, which is good. She was not sacramental (she once told me that her twins were baptised but ‘didn’t have the water’) or spiritual, which is not so good. But Denis thought she had a serious Christian faith, and I think he would know.

As the election approaches, politicians will find their diaries packed with various events. It's an equally busy time for those born with the gift of looking like a politician. ‘I’m lucky that I look like Boris,’ says Drew, a Mayor of London 'lookalike' who is on the books at the Susan Scott agency. ‘I often get stopped and while it’s not always pleasant, it’s nowhere near what a David Cameron lookalike I know gets.’ Alas, Boris won’t have Drew’s vote. ‘I may make money out of Boris, but I have never voted for him and that’s not going to change.’ With election party season on the horizon, Mr S has gathered a selection of his favourite lookalikes to invite to your own soirées.

It seems hard to believe now, but only The Spectator supported Margaret Thatcher in the first leadership ballot.  She had been Keith Joseph's campaign director, and when he faltered she took his place. The Economist, true to its endearing habit of being wrong in major calls in modern British history, said she was "precisely the sort of candidate who ought to be able to stand, and lose harmlessly" The Spectator has different tradition: of being isolated, but entirely correct. We were for Maggie all the way, and when she triumphed we devoted a front page leading article to her triumph under the cover line "Britain's Second Lady". The leader (below) was written by the Patrick Cosgrave, our then political editor, who loathed Ted Heath.