Margaret Thatcher: The Autobiography

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It was Powell who, in 1964 after the defeat of the Home government, took Keith Joseph into the Institute of Economic Affairs, the IEA, and introduced him to Ralph Harris and Arthur Seldon, who were very close to Enoch, and said, ‘Give him some of your pamphlets. He’s a clever man with a mind that is tilting towards us.’ I remember Ralph Harris saying to me—and he got this from Hayek—’If you pay people to be unemployed, you’ll have unemployment. If you stop paying them to be unemployed, jobs will turn up.’

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For me, the heart of politics is not political theory, it is people and how they want to live their lives.” Charles Hilary Moore is an English journalist and a former editor of The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Telegraph and The Spectator. He still writes for the first and last of these publications. I was 18 or 19 during the Winter of Discontent and I remember the despair I felt as a young adult, that a lot of men were coming in and out of Downing Street from their trade unions telling me exactly how my country should be run and what they were prepared to put up with when, not only did I not vote for them, but most of their members hadn’t either. She understood this, the wrongness of unelected over-mighty subjects running the country and she was determined to face them down. Overall, this is a book well worth reading for those who have a interest in political biography or wish to understand Thatcher better. It may not change your views of her, but the time invested in reading this volume will be worth your while.Mrs Thatcher had a real understanding of her massive responsibilities towards this country. This is something that her present successor does not have. She really understood how crucial it was that this country function properly. And she understood that, as a stateswoman, she had the ultimate responsibility for ensuring that everything went well here. You see that in things such as her reaction to the invasion of the Falkland Islands—‘I’m not going to let some jumped-up fascist from Argentina go in there and oppress our people, even if we have to strain every possible sinew to prevent it.’ On November 1 1990 Sir Geoffrey Howe resigned over Europe and in a bitter resignation speech precipitated a challenge to Margaret Thatcher's leadership of her party by Michael Heseltine. In the ballot that followed, she won a majority of the vote. Yet under party rules the margin was insufficient, and a second ballot was required. Receiving the news at a conference in Paris, she immediately announced her intention to fight on. Her response was characteristic: at the Conservative Party's annual conference in October 1986, her speech foreshadowed a mass of reforms for a third Thatcher Government.With the economy now very strong, prospects were good for an election and the government was returned with a Parliamentary majority of 101in June 1987. No, not really. What you saw was what you got. The one thing that everybody says, which is true, is that she was very good with what the Labour party patronisingly calls ‘ordinary people’. She came to our house for Sunday lunch on about half a dozen occasions from the late 1990s until she became too infirm. Whenever she came here we would ask two old treasures, Vera and Edna, in from the village to help wait at table and she would always say, ‘Now, the ladies will want their photographs taken with me.’ And she would go into the kitchen. I would obediently follow with a camera. She’d stand by the Aga with Vera and Edna and I’d take a photograph of the three of them.

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Thatcher died on 8 April 2013 at the age of 87 after suffering a stroke. Margaret Thatcher: The AutobiographyLet’s move on to your selection of Margaret Thatcher books. First up is Charles Moore’s three-volume biography. It’s kind of obvious why you might read this; it’s the official biography. But what are its merits as a book? She served in Heath’s cabinet, I think for the duration of that government, 1970-74. Was she close to Enoch Powell in the 1960s, or was she just quietly sympathetic, or was she actually not converted at that stage? Mrs T wasn’t grand, but she knew that her coming into some people’s lives was a big deal for them and she wanted them to be happy”