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“... Irish claim of century-long over-taxation and for the Irish demand, so eerily similar to that of Margaret Thatcher in relation to the European Community almost a century later, to ‘get its money back’. Political historians recognise the significance of the impact upon nationalist opinion of the Report of this Commission. What seems to have been less ...”

“... Isherwood on the left of the group portrait with Spender and Auden in Rügen? He cites the pair of Margaret Thatcher and D.H. Lawrence as Larkin’s main men, refers to the ‘crappy brainwaves’ of Spurs chairman Irving Scholar and the ‘uncolourful speech’ of Andrew Motion, putting me immediately in mind of the ‘brown teapot’ in his Arvon ...”

“... Reece and Saatchi and Saatchi. The only surprise is that in this context the prime minister whom Margaret Thatcher most closely resembles is Macmillan. Like him, she instinctively understood the importance of television; like him, she was not naturally good on the box; like him, she was prepared to work at it and to take advice; and like him, she has ...”

“... exposition like this?) Between the big players, people like Genscher and Kohl and Petra Kelly and Margaret Thatcher – who, thrillingly, appear as themselves – and the fictional characters, Polina Mertz and Richard Fisher, is an intermediate layer of lightly fictionalised or disguised or à clef types, Polk and Kurtsovsky (i.e. Nitze and ...”

“... has been a trahison des roturiers which has not only led to working-class votes being cast for Margaret Thatcher but might, even now, lead to their being switched to Roy Jenkins instead of Tony Benn. It is true that the record of an internal debate among the committed is not to be read as a prospectus for potential converts. But the cries of ...”

“... but futility and evil. Wilson’s symbolism is none the less effective for being comic: on the day Margaret Thatcher wins her election Fanny’s church collapses, killing her beloved corgis. In this story nobody’s dreams come true. The weaknesses that Oswald Fish could at least to some extent resist and sublimate are refracted through descendants ...”

“... the downward path into stagflation and excessive public expenditure – all the tendencies which Margaret Thatcher is trying to reverse, although it is nice to know that personally she gets on admirably with the Grand Old Man. But who can say how all this will appear to people ten or twenty years hence? For that matter, who can guess what will be ...”

“... in her bed during a country-house weekend – and ran away. When she was 60 she helicoptered Margaret Thatcher to meet Anthony Eden: she found her ‘a model passenger’. Mrs Aitken Kidd has been a giddy girl, a pig farmer, a breeder of rare hens, and the wife of one gambler, one philanderer and one good egg. She is also the daughter of Lord ...”

“... exercise a sway over Congress remotely comparable to the grip which party majorities have given Margaret Thatcher. The uncertainty which the absence of a Parliamentary majority caused James Callaghan in the last Labour government was of a kind and degree for which many an American President would gladly have settled. The Constitution fragments ...”

“... to the changing character of industry and technology (British sulphur emissions declined after Margaret Thatcher destroyed the coal industry); they are also a result of more energy-efficient practices and political initiatives – again, especially in the developed nations. The watershed period politically was the 1970s – another reason to salute ...”

“... in outlook, as alien from the rest of Ireland as the inhabitants of Fife and Aberdeen’. Margaret Thatcher would agree, claiming that Northern Ireland was ‘as British as Finchley’. When Ireland was partitioned in 1921 Pettigo was cut in two. The IRA occupied the village, until the British army moved in to take it back. The men commemorated ...”

“... absolutism of the Westminster parliament. Remember 1986? With a scratch of her pen, Margaret Thatcher ended the democratically elected self-government of English cities. She did it because some of the six ‘metropolitan authorities’, London especially, were daring to pursue their own un-Thatcherite policies. And she got away with it. In ...”

“... Whigs. It is of course fitting that his Tour should come into prominence again now, for Margaret Thatcher has taught us to ‘think Whig’, and the present so-called Tory Party is really a throwback Whig (not Liberal) party, with a fringe of puzzled Tories. However, this presentation of Defoe combs away much of the ...”

“... that it helps governments to foresee and manage change – appears especially thin. In the Thatcher years there was a semblance of diplomatic success amid the triumphalism: in retrospect, it is evident how many events were incompetently managed. Two wars, over the Falklands and Kuwait, could have been prevented if those responsible for judging the ...”

“... insurrection in London and all is lost,’ epitomised the sage Lord Liverpool. We think now of Margaret Thatcher and Ken Livingstone, but the pattern can be traced back to King John, when London sneaked its own municipal charter under the lee of the barons, and even before. From almost the start, the dominance of Roman London in the affairs of Britain ...”