Ian Gilmour

George IV was highly unpopular in his lifetime, and almost equally unpopular after it. Nobody regretted his death except his mercenary mistress, Lady Conyngham – the supply of jewels and trinkets had been cut off – and even she was bored with him. Grief was absent at his funeral. ‘A coronation could hardly be gayer,’ noted a peer, and the Times reported that there was ‘not a single mark of sympathy’ in the congregation. It seemed, wrote Mme de Lieven, that George IV had ‘never seriously inspired anyone with attachment’. Later observers viewed him no more favourably, Thackeray catching the prevailing flavour in 1855 and fixing it for future generations in his brilliant essay in The Four Georges.’‘

For most of the last half-century, Britain has had two options: to be a whole-hearted member of Europe or to be a satellite of the United States. In this field there has been no ‘third way’. Full-hearted co-operation with Europe does not mean and never has meant the end of the Atlantic Alliance. The great majority of the countries in the European Union have always been members of Nato. Yet British prime ministers and politicians have tended to think that for Britain to be fully European somehow endangered our allegedly ‘special’ relationship with the United States. This is an odd notion because, at least since the end of the war, the United States has given up treating Britain as an equal and has nearly always been anxious for us to join Europe and play our proper part there. Nevertheless, with the conspicuous exception of Ted Heath, most prime ministers have dithered between seeking to co-operate with Europe and accepting American domination, while inclining heavily towards the latter.‘

Some body said of the 18th-century Spencers that the Bible was always on the table – and the cards in the drawer. Certainly, that was true of the first Countess Spencer, mother of Georgiana and Harriet. She was conspicuously religious and a compulsive gambler. Up at 5.30 in the morning, she spent an hour at her prayers and a further hour with her Bible. The evenings were spent more congenially, at the gaming table. ‘I staid ’till one hour past twelve,’ Harriet wrote in her diary as a child, ‘but Mama remained ’till six in the morning’ – which presumably curtailed Mama’s devotions that day. She effectively taught her children to gamble. ‘I can never make myself easy,’ she later wrote to Georgiana, ‘about the bad example I have set you, and what you have but too faithfully imitated.’’‘

I am off to the exotic – in name – Ramada Hotel, Heathrow to give evidence at the Public Inquiry into the British Airport Authority’s application to build a fifth terminal there. The words ‘fifth terminal’ are misleading. Terminal Five would be the third largest airport in Europe, exceeded in size only by the present-day Heathrow and Frankfurt. The Inquiry has already been running for nearly three years; the Inspector, Colin Vandermeer QC, and his co-adjutors, must be almost, so to speak, terminally bored. Yet they are still alert, courteous and formidably knowledgeable.’‘

This book tells how the author fell in and out of love with Margaret Thatcher. Although George Urban found her ‘an attractive lady’, with ‘the movements, the legs and walk of a young woman’, his love affair was wholly ideological. Urban, who is or was on the extreme right, was attracted by ‘the great spirit that animated her policies in many areas’; and he greatly admired her ‘galvanisation of the British people at a time of accelerating decline’; yet it was her attitude to foreign policy which chiefly excited his passion. Urban was an ardent Cold Warrior. While there is nothing intrinsically wrong with that, in his case fear of the Soviet Union seems to have deranged his judgment.