Letters | 25 April 2013 | The Spectator

Lady Thatcher’s club

Sir: Charles Moore’s excellent paragraph (Notes, 20 April) on Baroness Thatcher’s life achievement in the context of much less social advantage than that of Sir Winston Churchill concludes on one mildly false assertion: ‘At the end, as at the beginning, she had no club.’ In fact, from 1978 until the end, she was the only female member of Buck’s Club (save for a period where she shared the distinction with the HM Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother). She was a regular visitor, for a time with Sir Denis, a member himself over many decades. As it happens, Sir Winston was also a member, from 1920, and subsequently patron, from 1953 to his death in 1965, and he remained a frequent visitor throughout his life. So not only did she have a club at the end (and for many years before), but it was the same one as her only other 20th-century peer. We are modestly proud of that here.
Major Rupert Lendrum
Secretary, Buck’s Club
London W1

Loved more than loathed

Sir: Like Charles Moore, I have been perturbed by the BBC’s lamentable coverage following the passing of Baroness Thatcher and their continual emphasis on how she was loved and loathed ‘in equal measure’. This is demonstrably untrue. Lady Thatcher won three successive general elections, notably being the only leader in modern history to win more votes in her third election than in her first. Only last week, YouGov found that 52 per cent thought Thatcher was a good or great PM (just 30 per cent said she was not). ICM had very similar figures. Perhaps Nick Robinson suffers from a guilt complex, having served as chairman of the Young Conservatives in 1986, when Thatcherism was at its height.
Declan Lyons
Warrington, Cheshire