Free The Real Iron Lady by Gillian Shephard Page A

all iconic figures, Margaret Thatcher attracts stories which are an absurd travesty of the truth to those who know her and wish her to be fairly and accurately represented. And those of us who know her owe her no less than she expected from us: the unvarnished truth – not least for the sake of historical record.
    Harvey Thomas provides an interesting explanation of Margaret Thatcher’s behaviour:
    Margaret has a clear and simple approach to friendship. She has said many times, ‘Friends are there to be taken advantage of – and I expect them to take advantage of me.’ This was both a strength and a weakness, because sometimes her unwavering belief that you could say anything and do anything to ‘trusted friends’ could have negative consequences. I think her approach comes from an openness that for the most part is straightforward, but could occasionally leave the wrong impression.
    On the positive side, in 1981, the late playwright, Ronnie Millar, John O’Sullivan and I, and Mrs T., were sitting in No. 10 working on a speech. On one section, I made the comment, ‘I don’t really like this bit.’ ‘Don’t you, Harvey? What would you put in its place?’ I hadn’t thought through any further than an initial negative reaction to the section, and I stuttered, ‘Er, er, er, well I, er…’
    â€˜For goodness’ sake, Harvey,’ she exploded, ‘I’ve got a country to run, and we’ve got to finish this speech. If you don’t have anything better to suggest, let’s get on with it.’
    Of course I was chastened, to say the least, and tucked my head down to let Ronnie Millar do most of the talking for the next few minutes. But it was not even five minutes later when she turned and said, ‘What do you think about this, Harvey?’ as though there had never been a cross word.
    As we left the room, Ronnie Millar turned to me and said, ‘Well, Harvey, welcome to the family.’ I asked him what he meant, and he said, ‘Well, you do realise she would never have raised her voice to you unless she regarded you as a trusted friend.’
    I had only been working with her for two or three years, and those words were spoken privately in a small group, but they still ring proudly in my ears more than thirty years later.
    Robert Armstrong was Secretary of the Cabinet from 1979 to 1987. Margaret Thatcher appointed him in a typically decisive manner, on 9 July 1979.
    I was of course no stranger to her. I had come to know her and see something of her when she was Secretary of State for Education in Edward Heath’s administration and I was his Principal Private Secretary, and I had had occasional meetings with her on security-related matters when she was Leader of the Opposition. So I went to 10 Downing Street with a cautious hopefulness when I received a summons to go and see the Prime Minister.
    I was disconcerted when the first thing the Prime Minister said when I went into her study was, ‘Robert, you’re looking very tired.’ It was a worrying opening to a meeting at which I hoped that I was going to be invited to take on one of the most onerous positions in the civil service. I mumbled something about having been up rather late the night before, and then the Prime Minister said, ‘Robert, I want you to succeed John Hunt as Cabinet Secretary when he retires in October. I should like you to know that I have not thought of asking anyone else.’
    How could I have done otherwise than gratefully to accept an offer so generously expressed? So I went downstairs and told the Principal Private Secretary that the Prime Minister had offered me the job but that it had been a little disconcerting when she started by remarking
that I was looking very tired. He laughed, and said, ‘Oh, you don’t need to worry about that, she’s saying that to everybody this morning.’
    That was the introduction to eight