A conviction politician who survived by twisting and turning

By Andrew Gimson
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Did Margaret Thatcher have a sense of humour? This was the first question I put to her biographer, Charles Moore, when I met him in Westminster on Monday afternoon.

The first volume of Moore’s life of her, Not For Turning, is published today, and contains (among much else) so many comic moments that I did not wish this aspect of her to get forgotten because we had plunged into more momentous themes.  

Moore replied: “I’d say these things called jokes, which have punch lines and a set-up and say things like ‘there’s an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman’, are fundamentally male, and she had absolutely no understanding of them whatever. But this does not mean she had no sense of humour. It’s just different. She had a sense of wit because she had a verbal directness which is almost biblical Judaic. Something would come out quickly in riposte, which was sort of funny, yes it was funny really, it was crisp. Another thing was a sense of fun which was about enjoying a situation. There’s a sense of theatre. So one reason why she was such fun to work for I think – not fun to work with, as a Cabinet member, but to work for as say private secretary - is that she’s always terrifically enjoying all this, and there’s a pantomime element in her which is camping herself up, spoofing herself, you know, wanting to go and tap you on the shoulder and wave the handbag. You know, playful. She didn’t understand double entendres at all, of course. That comes into the book.”