Iain Dale - The Margaret Thatcher Book of Quotations

I t was a cold evening in February. The boy was only twelve years old, yet he knew that something historic had just happened. He tiptoed up the stairs to the bedroom, where his eighty-year-old grandmother lay in bed, suffering from flu. Having gauged that she was indeed awake, he approached the bed.

The woman who lay there was a formidable personality in her own right. She dominated her family in a matriarchal style, reminiscent of the woman who that day had won the leadership of the Conservative Party.

Shes won, he said. Silence. No, really, shes won, he protested. Slowly, a tear ran down her face. Its not possible , she murmured. Its just not possible.

That boy was me. Even at such a young age I was interested in politics. I wasnt a Conservative. Only six months earlier, I remember walking into my parents bedroom with my own thoughts on who should win the general election. I read it to my parents, who quite obviously had a good nights sleep higher on their priority list. All the Conservatives ever did was take us into Europe, I exclaimed. The Liberals have no chance of winning, I said, with a remarkable degree of accuracy. So, give Labour a chance, I advised. Dont be so stupid, said my father. Go back to bed.

My early teenage years were spent supporting David Steels Liberals. My parents had both voted Liberal in 1974, more as a protest against Edward Heath than anything, but my mother said she would not be able to vote for them again after Jeremy Thorpe had disgraced himself.

Like most of my school friends and teachers I found it easy to poke fun at Mrs Thatcher. It was certainly not fashionable to be a Conservative in the mid-1970s. But one day, in October 1978, I heard her speech to the Tory Party Conference. I remember thinking at the end of it that I agreed with virtually everything she said. I got hold of a few policy documents and at the age of sixteen I joined the local Conservative Party.

My first tentative footstep into the political arena was to set up a Conservative organisation in 1982 at the very left-wing University of East Anglia. Only a few months later followed my first encounter with Margaret Thatcher when she invited the chairmen of the various university Conservative Associations to a reception at No. 10.

For a country boy like me, it was unbelievable to have been invited and it was something I had been looking forward to for months. Just to climb those stairs with the portraits of all past Prime Ministers on the wall was worth the trip on its own. And there at the top of the stairs was the Prime Minister. She had obviously perfected the art of welcoming people to receptions and as she shook you by the hand and wished you a good evening, she moved you on into the room without you even knowing she was doing it. Most of the Cabinet were there I remember discussing with Cecil Parkinson the number of free running shoes he had been sent after a recent profile had announced to the world that he was a keen runner. He offered me a pair but it turned out his feet were much smaller than mine! We were constantly plied with wine and I made a mental note to stop at two glasses. But after the second glass was emptied I felt rather self-conscious without a glass in my hand so grabbed another. Just as the Prime Minister walked by I took a sip. All I remember is my stomach heaving and me thinking that I was about to throw up at the Prime Ministers feet, thus ending a glorious political career which had hardly got off the ground. Luckily I managed to control my stomach and all was well. It turned out that it was whisky in my glass, rather than white wine.

Later in the evening, as I was talking to my local MP, Alan Haselhurst, the division bell sounded. Although there were at least forty MPs there, none made a move to leave to go and vote over the road in the House of Commons. Mrs Thatcher started to look rather irritated and was obviously none too impressed. In the end she walked to the middle of the room, took off one of her shoes and banged it on the floor. There was instant silence. The Prime Minister then spoke. Would all Conservative MPs kindly leave the building immediately, she instructed. And the rest of us will stay and enjoy ourselves! Naturally we all laughed uproariously, enjoying the sight of the MPs trooping out of the room in a somewhat sheepish manner.

After I graduated I went to work at the House of Commons as a researcher for a Norfolk Member of Parliament. He was not a particularly well-known MP and never courted publicity. He had a marginal seat and devoted himself to his constituency rather than join the rent-a-quote mob. It served him well as he held his seat for the next two elections. If ever there was an MP less likely to be involved in sleaze it was him. But one day, a careless error by me left him open to charges of dirty dealing. We ran a businessmans club in the constituency, called The Westminster Circle. It served two purposes first, to keep the MP in touch with local businesses, and second, to raise a little more money for the very poor constituency association. For 100 a year business people joined and were given a dinner in the House of Commons, usually addressed by a Cabinet minister, and another dinner in the constituency, addressed by a more junior minister. These clubs were common in all parties up and down the country. But in a publicity leaflet designed to attract new members I used the phrase with direct access to Government minister. By this I had meant they would be able to meet and speak to a Government minister at the dinner. In those pre cash for questions days we were all rather innocent. But it proved to be my undoing and very nearly my employers.

Early one Tuesday afternoon he found out that at that days Prime Ministers Question Time, the Liberal leader, David Steel, would raise this subject with the Prime Minister. He immediately went to see her in her office behind the Speakers Chair. He must have been quaking in his boots but he later told me she had been brilliant. She sat him down, offered him a coffee and heard him out. She did not disguise her dislike for Steel and thought it was typical of him to operate in this manner. She told him she would let Steel have both barrels, and of course she did! He returned to the office after PMs Question Time and related the events of the day to me. I had been completely oblivious, which was just as well as I would no doubt have been having a premonition of what a P45 looked like.

A few months later I was having lunch with a couple of Tory MPs in the Members Cafeteria. We had just finished our lunch when in walked Mrs T. and her entourage. She grabbed a tray and chose a light lunch of Welsh rarebit. Unfortunately, as we had finished, I did not have cause to hang around too much longer so left the room, cursing that we had decided to have an early lunch. A few minutes later I realised I had left some papers and magazines on the table in the cafeteria and returned to retrieve them. As luck would have it, the Thatcher group had sat themselves at the table we had been sitting at and Mrs T. had her elbow plonked on my papers. I decided to summon up the courage and interrupt them to ask for my papers. Just as I had started I looked down at the pile of papers and to my horror saw that my copy of the new issue of Private Eye was on the top of them and with a front cover of a particularly nasty photo of Denis Thatcher. Mrs Thatcher cottoned on to what I wanted, removed her elbow, and gazed down at the offending magazine. My heart stopped. Oh, Private Eye, Denis loves it, she gushed. To my eternal shame, I just picked it up, along with the rest of my papers, made my excuses and left. What a wimp.

In 1994 I took an American friend, Daniel Forrester, to the T. E. Utley Young Journalist of the Year awards at the Reform Club. Lady Thatcher had been invited to present the awards. She treated us to a half-hour impromptu speech on political issues of the moment, which seemed to go by in about five minutes quite an achievement as her entire audience had to remain standing throughout. After she had finished, Daniel whispered to me: I have to meet her, what should I do? Knowing her penchant for strapping , six feet tall, dark-haired American men I encouraged him to go and introduce himself. He suddenly got cold feet so eventually I dragged him over to where she was talking to several of the award winners. In typically American style he launched into a sycophantic introduction which immediately attracted her attention. Mrs Thatcher, he began. I kicked him. Er, Lady Thatcher, he hurriedly corrected himself, May I say how much our country misses your leadership and he continued in that vein for a few seconds. While he was speaking, the diminutive figure of the Iron Lady (for she is much smaller in height than most people imagine) stared up at him, her eyes never leaving his. When he had finally finished having his say, Lady Thatcher hardly paused or breathed. Your President, President Clinton. She paused, heightening the drama for my American friend. He is a great communicator. Up came the forefinger, almost prodding Daniels chest. Then in a particularly contemptuous tone, came the pice de rsistance: The trouble is, he has absolutely nothing to communicate. With that she was away. It was almost a flounce. Daniel eventually came down from whichever cloud he had been on probably nine and said, Ill remember that for the rest of my life and, as a well-known critic of Bill Clinton, has been dining out on it ever since.