Who’s afraid of Margaret Thatcher? Not ex-PM John Major, who has claimed that he went easy on his predecessor because she was a woman. Sir John said last week that his Victorian values on “how you behave towards women” stopped him from hitting back at Mrs T when she criticised his policies such as the Maastricht Treaty in the Nineties.
But is Major being a little generous to himself about his dealings with the Iron Lady? Former health minister Edwina Currie tells us: “Nobody went easy on Margaret Thatcher. She dominated the room, the cabinet, the Commons and the party, especially from the Falklands until she was challenged in 1989”. Currie went on: “The claim suggests [he] was stronger than her. That just wasn’t true”.
Currie had an affair with Major, so she knows him well.
