How Maggie took her whisky

The whirligig of time brings in his… astonishments. Who would have thought it? Even a couple of decades ago, the notion that the Tory party could be led by a black woman would have seemed incredible. I remember 1975, and the doubts that were expressed about Margaret Thatcher: much louder than any adverse comment about Kemi Badenoch now. There seemed to be a widespread belief that the country was simply not ready for a female PM.

I recall a lunch with Barbara Castle not long after the 1979 election. A former street-fighting termagant, she seemed to have eased into post-partisan serenity. When I confessed that I was a Tory, she merely responded with a tut-tutting smile, as if I was an errant grandson. ‘Of course I wanted you Tories crushed under foot,’ she said with a flash of the old passion.