Margaret Thatcher: Power and Personality Read Online Free PDF Page A

could use wilder words and take up more extreme stances. Since she was broadly right about both issues, her principled beliefs deserve respect.
    Unfortunately for her reputation, the human bitterness began to damage the political respect. She abandoned some of the qualities that had stood her in good stead in her early years as Prime Minister, such as self-discipline, caution and an acceptance of the norms of political conduct. She no longer listened enough to objective, let along critical, advice. Instead, she was misled towards further furies by voices who pandered to her worst fears and prejudices. Her denigration of John Major was a bad blot on her record.
    Internationally, the picture was much more positive. On her global travels she did the state some service, built up her finances, and enhanced her reputation as an icon of historic achievements. Yet, even so, this chapter of her life was a sad one. Her agony after the fall did not enable her to go gently into the twilight of retirement.
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    * New codes and push buttons had been introduced by the privatised British Telecom.

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    Snapshots of her retirement years
    STRATEGIC IDEAS AND PERSONAL CONVERSATIONS
    The newly ennobled Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven did not settle comfortably into the House of Lords. Her early speeches on Maastricht were listened to politely but voted against by overwhelming majorities. She tended to misjudge the mood of the upper house, particularly on 14 July 1993 when she launched an emotional attack against further erosions of sovereignty to Brussels unless sanctioned by a national referendum. 1 The motion she supported was defeated by 445 votes to 146. Such speeches, aggravated by her continuing snipings against John Major, began to irritate not only the Tory establishment but also the party rank and file, who gave her noticeably shorter ovations when she appeared at party conferences.
    None of these fluctuations in her domestic popularity worried her in the slightest. The contrast between the acclaim she was receiving on her international speaking tours and the anxiety she caused by her interventions in domestic politics could have been an echo of the biblical line ‘a prophet is without honour in his own country’. 2
    On the world stage some of her speeches deserved the adjective prophetic. In March 1996 at Fulton, Missouri (where Winston Churchill had given his great ‘Iron Curtain’ address in 1945), she coined another memorable phrase by warning of the threat posed by ‘rogue states’. She specified in this category ‘Syria, Iraq and Gaddafi’s Libya’ and highlighted ‘the danger from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction’. 3
    Despite Margaret Thatcher’s vast experience of geopolitical issues, her hostility towards John Major meant that he and his government had ceased to consult her on foreign policy. However, there was no ban on ministers takingadvice from the former Prime Minister. So a few weeks after my appointment as Minister of State for Defence I went to see her. Despite some handwringing from my officials (‘Are you sure it would be wise, minister?’) I felt I would benefit from her advice over the biggest decisions on my desk involving potential orders for missiles, torpedoes and aircraft. The rationale for them ultimately centred on a strategic question: Was there or was there not likely to be a future military threat to the UK from Russia now that the Soviet Union had collapsed?
    I asked Margaret Thatcher if I could come and talk to her on this issue. She had unrivalled experience of making geopolitical judgements and an unequalled range of contacts in both Washington and Moscow. So for over an hour we had a deep and detailed discussion about the various factors that might cause a Russian resurgence as an aggressive military power.
    She was still at the top of her game, well understanding why a new Defence minister might want to ask her advice on questions that could decide whether