Soon after Margaret Thatcher was elected leader of the Conservative party she came for lunch at The Spectator and our then proprietor, Henry Keswick, wanted to offer his congratulations — and his advice. It was time to crush the trades unions, he told her. ‘Mr Keswick,’ she replied. ‘You have spent the past 14 years
Home Margaret Thatcher, the prime minister from 1979 to 1990, died aged 87. She had suffered a stroke while reading in her room at the Ritz hotel, where she had been staying since being discharged from hospital at the end of 2012 after a minor operation. David Cameron, the Prime Minister, cancelled talks in Paris
Whenever feminists have complained in my presence about neglect of female high-achievers, other than rock singers and courtesans, I always like to mention brilliant Margaret Thatcher. It always makes them furious. They can’t bear to think of her as one of the most successful women of the 20th century. I had afternoon tea with her
Class is back in the news, and the BBC’s online do-it-yourself ‘class calculator’ confirms that wealth is the overriding determinant of class status. No change there, then. The Athenians had a term for a member of the upper class: he was (pl.) kalos kai agathos (shortened to kalos kagathos), ‘handsome and good in action’. It
Health tourists must pay Sir: The extent of the use made by non-entitled patients from abroad (‘International Health Service’, 6 April) should come as no surprise. This increasing stream of information demonstrating the volume and variation will cause even louder gasps and shock. The NHS is the standard-bearer of the politics of equality and, like
