Terence Blacker: I'm feeling sorry for Lady Thatcher

It was at this point that Carol, exercising the twin's right of revenge, stepped into the spotlight

Published: 13 December 2005

The end of the year must be approaching because a mellow, generous perspective on major current events is beginning to set in. Edwina Currie has another diary on the go in which she promises to tell us even more about her affair with John Major, and that is just fine. It is also excellent news that the BBC has found a new Queen of Chat in Davina McCall and that she is going to be paid a million a year. As for the reports that a TV highlight this Christmas will be the unveiling of Rolf Harris's portrait of Her Majesty the Queen, I personally can hardly wait.

All the same, one involuntary surge of seasonal warmth and sympathy has taken me by surprise. I find myself feeling rather sorry for Lady Thatcher. It is not her decrepitude and ill health that are tugging insistently at the heartstrings, so much as the deplorable behaviour of those closest to her. For a decade, she led a government committed to the idea that, as she put it, "children need to be taught to respect traditional moral values", and what has happened to her in her dotage? Her children have thoroughly misbehaved.

Article Length: 821 words (approx.)