Thatcher
And then came Margaret Thatcher. Tales of bad blood between these two women of vastly different personality are exaggerated, but their relationship was undoubtedly more businesslike than warm. The Thatcher government, with its emphasis on meritocracy and its lack of sympathy for the underprivileged, cared little for the monarchy and its function, and its leader found audiences more of a chore than a pleasure, especially when she had to travel all the way to Balmoral.
In 1986, at the height of Thatcher’s premiership, The Sunday Times published a remarkable report claiming fundamental disagreements between the two women. The Queen, it said, regarded the whole Thatcher approach to government as ‘uncaring, confrontational and socially divisive’.
The Queen, according to the report, believed the government should be more caring towards the disadvantaged, that Thatcher’s confrontation with the mineworkers in 1984 had done great damage to the social fabric of the nation, that Britain should not have lent the United States its airbases from which to bomb Libya, and that Thatcher was threatening to undermine the basic political consensus which had kept the nation united since the war. The paper described the Queen as ‘an astute political infighter who is quite prepared to take on Downing Street when provoked’.
Buckingham Palace backpedalled furiously, especially when the source of the story was revealed as the Queen’s Press Secretary. But there was undoubtedly more than a grain of truth in it, even if the Queen was far too astute to utter or even sanction the views herself.
Monarch and Prime Minister were at least united in their condemnation of the United States when the superpower invaded the tiny Commonwealth country of Grenada to overthrow a coup d’état without even informing the British. But the women were deeply divided over the issue of economic sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa. Thatcher, who opposed the sanctions, found virtually every other Commonwealth country, not to mention the Head of the Commonwealth, rallied against her.
As her 11-year tenure progressed, Thatcher’s demeanour became ever grander, and her political style more presidential; she spoke and acted at times as though she were Head of State. But, like Heath, she did perform a kindness in fixing the Civil List for a decade to spare the Palace the annual embarrassment of having to negotiate for more money.
