Read The Real Iron Lady Online
Authors: Gillian Shephard
The Real Iron Lady (13 page)
It is interesting to read Michael Brunson's slightly disapproving account of a national figure making such play with photo opportunities in a general election campaign. But Mrs Thatcher and her advisers were in the vanguard of presentational change for political figures. By the time I fought my first parliamentary election in 1987, everyone was doing it. The advice from Conservative Central Office by then was: âOne image is worth a thousand words.'
The 1979 election campaign, which put Mrs Thatcher into No. 10, culminated in another innovation: the first big public election rally at the Wembley Conference Centre. Harvey Thomas describes what happened.
The chairman of the Conservative Party, Lord Thorneycroft, a great man, had, with other party hierarchy figures, decreed that we could not use the song âHello Maggie' (to the tune of âHello Dolly') at the Wembley rally because it would be
infra dig
for the woman who was going to become Prime Minister. We had a fantastic warm-up with many stars well known at the time, and Lulu had been prepared
to lead the audience in singing the song âHello Maggie'. However, as instructed, I deleted it from the scheduled programme.
But then Mrs Thatcher was announced and began a walk to the platform and there was another of those split seconds in time when there is total silence and someone yelled out, âWhat about the song?'
The time was right. I was standing behind Lulu on the platform, touched her shoulder and said, âGo.' Another friend, Pete Bye, was sitting at the organ, his eyes professionally glued on me and, as I pointed my finger at him, he struck the first chord of âHello Maggie'. What followed, forgive the cliché, is history. The audience sang their hearts out, Mrs T. was almost in tears and people cheered and cheered. It was after that rally, while we were still in the conference centre, that Mrs T. asked me if I would stay on working with her in the whole field of presentation.
Margaret Thatcher loved campaigning, and was at her most energetic dynamic self when she was on the campaign trail. Even so, she was determined to adopt the most professional approach possible to campaigning, and in 1980 sent Harvey and Marlies Thomas to see what the Republicans were doing in the United States.
In 1980, when Ronald Reagan was running for the Republican nomination for President of the United States, Marlies and I were sent over to study the election campaigning techniques in America to see if there was anything that might be adapted for British use. In Victorville, in the Mojave Desert in California, we were introduced to Ronald Reagan, and the three of us sat on a bale of hay backstage,
while Roy Rogers and Dale Evans sang to a 10,000 crowd outside on the stage.
Harvey Thomas points out that, on the subject of presentation, Margaret Thatcher expected and accepted professional advice, based, no doubt, on some of the experience he had gleaned in the US. No effort was too great. No detail was too small.
A significant mistake by Neil Kinnock's advisers and the infamous Sheffield Rally in 1992 (at which it was said Kinnock lost that election), was to allow him to make a triumphal entrance walking through the whole length of the arena in Sheffield, so that by the time he reached the platform his mind was on everything but the content of his speech. With Mrs Thatcher, in contrast, we always made sure she had the shortest possible distance from backstage to the lectern, so that her mind could totally concentrate on the content and message she wanted to project.
To help, I would rig a couple of bright 800-watt television lights backstage and for three or four minutes before she went on, she would be looking directly into these lights, so that when she appeared in front of all the television lights on stage, she no longer had to squint. If there was a guest or friend backstage, she would comment to them, âHarvey likes to blind me before I go on, you know!'
When I introduced the idea to her in the 1983 election, she accepted it immediately and took it for granted that it would help her to be ready for the TV lights on stage.
Introducing the autocue was not quite so straightforward, at least
until she saw how effectively Ronald Reagan used it when he spoke to both Houses of Parliament on his visit to the UK. It was quite a major introduction to British speech-making at the time, and, once she agreed to try it, she asked if we could do at least three or four solid rehearsals before she used it for real. And that's what we did. I think there were four separate occasions when we set up the autocue in Downing Street, using some of her old speeches, and she quickly understood its principles and began to use it efficiently.
She also understood the need for careful integration of every aspect of her presentation â not just herself and her speech, and the way she dressed, but positioning the teleprompter screens, lighting and backlighting, positions of cameras, adequate space on the lectern, and microphone at the right height.
In 1985, at the Capitol in Washington, Mrs Thatcher was going to speak to the joint Houses of Congress. Setting things up beforehand, I had an argument with the then Speaker, Tip O'Neill, about whether we could have Mrs Thatcher's favourite mineral water, Ashbourne, on the lectern when she spoke. He claimed it was commercial but common sense won the day, and I had the bottle of Ashbourne on the lectern in good time. After the speech, Tip O'Neill asked the Prime Minister whether she really did like her Ashbourne water as much as I had said. She replied, âWhen I see that Ashbourne bottle on the lectern, I know that everything is ready, that the lighting, microphones and teleprompter will all have been properly arranged. That gives me the confidence to focus on the speech.'
I remember when the proceedings of the House of Commons were first televised, in the autumn of 1989.
We ministers were all offered training, perfunctory in the extreme, and which in my case made no difference at all, although most would agree that after a short time, we all forgot the cameras were there. Margaret Thatcher, however, predictably took the innovation very seriously, and was said to have had many rehearsals in the Chamber at the dead of night. The result was that the television news almost always carried sound-bites of Prime Minister's Questions, with her in devastating form.
Despite all this care and attention lavished on the visual media, the written press was still vitally important to politicians at this time. Most Prime Ministers and Cabinet ministers made a point of being in regular contact with key journalists and editors, and were on first-name terms with them. Mrs Thatcher had a less hands-on approach, although her attitude to the media during elections was different, like everything else.
Although Mrs Thatcher seldom saw political journalists at Westminster, Peter Riddell recalls how, during election campaigns, she was very accessible.
That was the era when the leaders of the main parties still saw the need to hold daily news conferences, then in and around Smith Square. She treated these events as seminars, as her daily chance to educate backward political journalists. Each political editor was given his â and it was still largely his rather than her â chance to ask a daily question. Even if the question was addressed to some other minister, she invariably intervened. While the broadcasters sat at the front to catch the cameras,
some of us preferred to sit at the back in the crowded room used for press conferences. This was to allow us to hear the comments of Denis Thatcher, who stood at the back with some Conservative Central Office stalwarts. He offered an audible running commentary â âbloody silly question', âa leftie' etc. It was the world of
Private Eye's â
Dear Bill' letters made flesh.
One day during the 1987 election, I had stayed behind after the Labour Party news conference to raise a point with Neil Kinnock at what is now Local Government House in Smith Square, just across the road from the then Conservative Central Office. When I got over to Central Office, the small news conference room was full, so I watched proceedings on one of the television monitors in the foyer outside, knowing that a couple of my colleagues from the
Financial Times
were inside. I was standing there when the press conference finished and Mrs Thatcher came out, accompanied by Norman Tebbit, the party chairman. (No one ever called him the Chair.) She walked up to me and said, in the dismissive tone of the schoolmaster chiding a naughty pupil for not having done his homework, âYou didn't ask your usual question today, Mr Riddell.' I stumbled out with my explanation about following up some point with the Labour leader. She questioned me about this, and then said, âYou'll want to know what happened here, then.' She then gave a summary of what had happened at the Conservative press conference, much to the amusement of Norman Tebbit standing behind her. The truant had to be instructed â a strange but characteristic use of prime ministerial time.
At the Party Conference, during elections, on the international stage, there was no trace of the ârather brown
unmemorable girl' who had so singularly failed to impress the world of Oxford. Quite simply, politics was her métier, and in it she shone.
The last time I saw her in the House of Commons was the day before William Hague was elected as Leader of the Conservative Party in the summer of 1997. There had been a press conference at the Atrium restaurant at 4 Millbank. Afterwards we all streamed back to the St Stephen's entrance of the House of Commons for a photo call. Margaret Thatcher made a staged exit to join us, sweeping down the steps immaculately dressed and coiffed as usual.
The media were there in force, of course, and in the scrum, the ITN producer, Graham Forrester, squatted on the ground so that his microphone could catch Mrs Thatcher's words of wisdom. Looking down at him at her feet, she said, âNow, the name's Hague, William Hague, H-A-G-U-E, Hague, are you quite sure you've got that?'
I was then asked to persuade her to come into the Commons Tea Room. âYes, dear,' she said, âbut I don't have any money with me.' Charging her for a cup of tea was far from our minds. We swept through the House, with her in the vanguard, and sailed into the Tea Room, to the amazement of the newly elected Labour women MPs clustered there. She went straight up to a male MP, sitting enjoying a quiet cup of tea, and said, âNow, you must vote for William Hague!' He said, âI certainly would, but I am a Liberal Democrat.' Nothing daunted, she swept
up to another, hidden by a newspaper, snatched away the paper and boomed, âYou do support William, don't you?' The MP in question was Sir Richard Body, who did in fact intend to vote for Hague, but it would have taken a brave man to enter into discussion with her on the subject at that moment.
It was a splendid if slightly farcical episode. But it did remind everyone in the Tea Room that day of just what verve and style she had brought to politics. Margaret Thatcher was on the campaign trail again, and the effect was electrifying.
S
ome commentators have claimed that foreign policy was less congenial to Margaret Thatcher than domestic reform. Whether or not that was the case, she had no choice other than to become deeply involved in foreign policy, as all Prime Ministers have to be. Indeed, public perceptions of her still include the many reports of rows in Europe over the British rebate and national sovereignty, not to mention her relationship with Ronald Reagan, the Falklands conflict and the Iraq War. But it is also the case that her election as leader of the British Conservative Party, of all things, and later as Britain's first woman Prime Minister, created a sensation around the world.
Jean Lucas, a senior Conservative Party agent, visited New Zealand and Australia in 1980, and remembers that âwherever I went I was questioned about Mrs Thatcher
as the first woman Prime Minister'. In an interview with the
New Zealand Herald
of 5 February 1980, she pointed out that just six years earlier, people had said that there would never be a woman Prime Minister in Britain â indeed, Mrs Thatcher said it herself. She added,
Before Mrs Thatcher, most people believed that women could not reach the higher political positions. But Mrs Thatcher has shown that there is no bar to how far a woman can go. British women are very active politically behind the scenes ⦠a few years ago the ratio of women to men in the Conservative Party organisation was one to nine. Now it is one to three.
Miss Lucas added that at least ten years were needed to
get the country back on the rails. I am hopeful this will happen under Mrs Thatcher. She is familiar with the day-to-day problems that people face, and she has a first-class brain.
I also recall that wherever I went, either as a government minister or as an individual, people would ask questions about Mrs Thatcher. In France, graffiti mentioning âTatcher' abounded, on bridges, alongside railway lines, and on the sides of derelict buildings, usually in the form of âA bas Tatcher', or âMort a Tatcher', or indeed worse. Conversations always turned to whether I had dealings with her, what she was like, and if she would last. I had
a particularly lively exchange with members of a French teachers' union at the time of the Miners' Strike in 1984 and 1985, in which they claimed that this was a struggle to the death â her death. I mildly observed that it might be best to wait and see.
In Egypt and in Uruguay and Paraguay, I was besieged by women at receptions and meetings asking if I knew who were Madame Thatcher's couturiers, hairdressers and visagistes. Disappointingly for them, but fortunately for me, I did not know, but given her notably modest tastes in these areas, a factual answer would have been even more of a disappointment for my questioners. On the street more or less anywhere in the world, children trying out their English would rush up and shout âMrs Thatcher, Mrs Thatcher' and later âIron Lady', a sobriquet she told Sir Richard Parsons she would like to âdivest' herself of as she considered it âunhelpful'. In Argentina, where, in late 1993, as Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, I was the first British minister to visit after our Embassy had reopened following the Falklands conflict, points made on the street about Mrs Thatcher (and indeed many things British) were a little different. Fortunately for me, I was there with a trade delegation, mostly to sell bull semen â which, while it may seem strange to many audiences, was well understood in Argentina, and very obviously nothing to do with territorial interests.
At international gatherings, and especially at EU meetings, her presence hovered over proceedings, and people
would say âBut what would your Prime Minister say to that?' or âHow will you tell Mrs Thatcher that?' I could not help but notice that male ministers were particularly persistent with such enquiries.
Peter Riddell writes,
My most vivid memories of her were on overseas trips when she was invariably at her most formidable. In Washington in 1985, shortly after Ronald Reagan's second inauguration, she addressed a joint session of Congress and then hosted a dinner party at the British Embassy with the President as guest of honour to mark the 200th anniversary of diplomatic relations after the Revolutionary War.
Later that evening, while Ronald Reagan was making a typically charming speech, she interrupted and capped one of his anecdotes. Not many people can do that with an American President, but she could, and did. âThere you go, Maggie,' he smiled.
Michael Jopling recalls Margaret Thatcher's first meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev.
I was with her at Chequers when she first met Gorbachev, at that time in charge of Soviet agriculture, but about whom the Foreign Office brief was very thin. It took only hours for her to pronounce, âThis is a man with whom I can do business.' How right she was!
That judgement led to an overseas visit which gave a boost to domestic politics, as Peter Riddell remembers.
In March 1987, in the Soviet Union, she held her talk-in with Mikhail Gorbachev, the prelude to her successful re-election a couple of months later. It was a triumph for her, not least by contrast with the troubled visit to Washington immediately beforehand by Neil Kinnock, which had been undermined by some behind-the-scenes manoeuvring with the Reagan White House by Charles Powell, her foreign affairs Private Secretary. Mrs Thatcher was the conviction leader, the epitome of Western values engaging in vigorous debate with the reforming Soviet leader. Even Stalin might have been impressed. On the final day, in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, she looked as unlike a Soviet-era leader as possible, and, with her fur hat, was almost like a Russian empress. As an elderly lady kissed her hand opposite the seminary (now a museum) where Stalin had trained, I remarked to Bernard Ingham beside me within the security cordon that nobody in London would believe the scene. âIt's your bloody job to tell them.' As, indeed, it was. On the crowded and noisy VC10 flying back over the Black Sea and up the Danube, she famously said she would âgo on and on'. Ingham muttered, âNow I'll never be able to retire.' Hubris is always followed by nemesis, and three-and-a-half years later, he, and she, did.
It was no accident that Margaret Thatcher's visit to Russia made such an impression worldwide. She needed a positive overseas event as a launch platform for the 1987 general election campaign, and her wardrobe had been carefully planned with the help of Margaret King of Aquascutum, who was helping to advise her on clothes at this stage of her premiership.
I clearly remember Margaret Thatcher's appearance during her Moscow visit, which received extensive press coverage in Britain. She wore stunning fur hats, beautifully cut warm Aquascutum coats, and had the bearing of at least a tsarina. She also performed memorably on Soviet television, and aroused enormous interest wherever she went.
On 11 June, she won her third term in government with a majority of 102. I was elected to Parliament in that election.
Margaret Thatcher's premiership had a profound effect in France, where she had constructive relations with both FranÒ«ois Mitterand and Jacques Chirac. She wrote of the two French Presidents, âM. Chirac was blunt, forceful, argumentative, had a sure grasp of detail and a profound interest in economics. M. Mitterand was quieter, more urbane, a self-conscious French intellectual, fascinated by foreign policy, bored by detail, possibly contemptuous of economics. Oddly enough, I liked them both.' She had certainly not liked Mitterand's predecessor, the lofty and snobbish Giscard d'Estaing, who referred to her as âla fille de l'épicier'. It was one thing for her to vaunt her own background, and quite another to have to put up with condescension from the other side of the Channel. One of her own very senior civil servants told me that she had dreaded her first one-to-one meeting with FranÒ«ois Mitterand, which took place over dinner in Downing
Street, but that by the time the French President left, she was glowing.
Geoffrey Howe describes an incident at a difficult EU meeting in Copenhagen in 1987, where it had proved well-nigh impossible to make progress, and where Margaret Thatcher had come to the aid of the French President.
Suddenly, President Mitterand asked for the floor. He spoke gravely. His voice was laden with foreboding. We had come to the end of the road, he said. The brightest hopes had been blighted. The dreams of the founding fathers would turn to dust. Perhaps a community of twelve nations could never be made to work. And so on, for ten minutes or more. This semi-spontaneous epilogue, as may be imagined, cast something of a pall over the proceedings. Then, to my surprise, Margaret Thatcher leaned forward and asked to speak. âCome on,' she said brightly, âit isn't as bad as that. We've made a lot of progress. But we haven't finished today. Don't you remember just how gloomy things looked in Brussels in 1984? Yet three months after that, at Fontainebleau, under your brilliant chairmanship, President Mitterand, we did reach a major agreement. And I am quite sure that, under Chancellor Kohl's chairmanship in a few months' time, we can do the same. So' â
very
brightly â âcheer up, President Mitterand, cheer up!' And President Mitterand, catching the mood of the occasion, replied, âI begin to wonder whether Madame
Thatcher isn't even more intriguing when she is saying yes than when she is saying no.'
All those present at Copenhagen were indeed heartened by the tone of Margaret's closing remarks. We were still all on the same side, they felt â and I hoped â whatever the difficulties from month to month. This was reflected in the continental press. The French, Italian and Belgian newspapers spoke of Margaret Thatcher's âgood will', portrayed her as ârestrained but firm', and commended the âclarity and consistency of her views, and particularly the way in which her “soft approach” contributed to showing divisions among others'. It showed very clearly what could be done.
There is no doubt that M. Mitterand was intrigued by
la dame de fer,
whether she was saying yes or no. In August 1992, I had to act as interpreter for him at a private dinner organised to mark the opening of âthe Grove of Albion' in the newly restored garden of the Château de Cormatin, near Cluny. The official opening was performed by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, who was staying at Taizé, the well-known Christian evangelical centre in Burgundy. The owners of the château had taken advantage of the presence of the Mitterands on holiday at Mme Mitterand's home in Cluny to invite them to attend in a private capacity. Much to everyone's surprise and pleasure, they accepted, although what followed, perhaps inevitably, was anything but private. The tiny village was
invaded by at least eighty of the President's security staff, displacing members of the local
garde champêtre,
who had been in charge of traffic arrangements, and causing the boulangerie to have to reopen as bread supplies ran out. From apparently nowhere there appeared a number of French ministers, including Jack Lang the Culture Minister, and a distinctly carnival atmosphere developed, enhanced no doubt by the copious amounts of marvellous wine which flowed in all directions.
Over dinner, I interpreted for the President and the Archbishop as they engaged in conversation, but in the interstices, M. Mitterand was questioning me closely about Mrs Thatcher. How had her downfall come about? Were British politicians mad to get rid of such an outstanding Prime Minister? What role had the Queen played in all this â surely she could have prevented such a disaster? (A question I thought particularly rich from a Republican.) Who was her couturier? Did I understand that such a thing could never happen in France, the constitution specifically prevented such a thing, and why did the British not have such constitutional arrangements? What did I think of her husband, and what kind of man could be married to such a woman? It went on and on, interrupted from time to time by the Archbishop asking what the President was talking about, and Jack Lang capering about taking photographs of the occasion. I was not prepared to gossip with the President about Mrs Thatcher, at least partly because I did not know the answers to most of his extremely indiscreet
questions, and eventually, but with no less enthusiasm, he turned to discussion of the Duchess of York. Photographs of her on holiday in the south of France had appeared in
Paris Match
that summer, apparently having her toes sucked by a lover. Fortunately, when we reached this stage, it was time for us to leave the table for the opening of the Grove of Albion, to which we all proceeded, more or less steadily, according to the amount of wine we had enjoyed.
Dr Sophie Loussouarn, a distinguished French academic and commentator on British politics and the British economy, interviewed, for this book, Hubert Védrine who was Mitterand's diplomatic adviser from 1981 to 1988. He was appointed Conseiller d'Ãtat and Head of Staff at the Ãlysée Palace from 1991 to 1995, and was Foreign Secretary in the Jospin government from 1997 to 2002.
Dr Loussouarn gives Védrine's reflections on Mrs Thatcher, and describes the relationship between her and Mitterand and Chirac, while also drawing on the memoirs of Jacques Attali, adviser to M. Mitterand, who became the first President of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development in London.
When Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979, Jean-Marie le Pen was the only French politician who paid tribute to her and welcomed âthe first victory over impoverishing socialism'. Later, her championing of capitalism and her monetarist revolution caused her to be a role model for other French politicians, including Léotard, Madelin and Balladur. But when Mitterand became President of
France on 10 May 1981, thanks to Communist votes, he was determined to improve relations with European countries, and he was the first head of state to call Mrs Thatcher to express support in the Falklands War. There was good mutual understanding between President Mitterand and the Iron Lady on the Falklands, their attitude to Gorbachev, and on the Channel Tunnel. But there were antagonisms between the two over the European budget, the Common Agricultural Policy and German reunification.
The first meeting between Margaret Thatcher and President Mitterand took place ahead of the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. The French President wanted to have a good relationship with Britain, to avoid a right-wing coalition between the UK and the US. The Iron Lady enjoyed FranÒ«ois Mitterand's culture and finesse, and got on well with him. The disagreements between Thatcher and Mitterand over Europe mattered less than their mutual understanding. Besides, in 1981, Europe was not Mitterand's priority.
The first Franco-British summit took place in London on 10 September 1981, a few months after Mitterand's election as President. Mitterand and Thatcher discussed Europe and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). Margaret Thatcher reasserted the importance of the EU for Britain, but underlined the problems of the CAP. She wanted her money back, as she constantly repeated. Mitterand felt that she did not share the values of the European community, but praised the commercial genius of Britain, and called for cooperation between the two countries in computer engineering. This summit saw the start of the Channel Tunnel project, which ended Britain's isolation as an island and linked it to continental Europe. On the plane back to Paris, President Mitterand spoke to his
adviser, Jacques Attali, about Margaret Thatcher, saying, âShe has Stalin's eyes and Marilyn Monroe's voice.'
[President Mitterand is more frequently quoted as describing Margaret Thatcher as having âthe eyes of Caligula and the mouth of Marilyn Monroe', which apparently he also said.]
When the Falklands War broke out, Mitterand at once understood that the honour of the British nation was at stake and that international law should prevail over the use of force. On 3 April 1982, he was the first Western leader to telephone Margaret Thatcher to express his support for the United Kingdom after Argentina's invasion of the Falklands on 2 April. Mitterand was born during the First World War in 1916 and he strongly disapproved of Argentina's attack, believing that frontiers should be safeguarded. In this he differed from his Foreign Secretary, Claude Cheysson, who wanted to back Third World countries against developed nations. According to Védrine, Mitterand's position was âone of principle: he was neither an atlanticist nor pro-Thatcher, but he disapproved of the military policy of the Argentinians.
âMitterand did not break off diplomatic relations with Argentina, but he did his very best to help Britain, and supported Britain at the United Nations.' Margaret Thatcher wrote in her memoirs, âI was to have many disputes with President Mitterand in later years, but I never forgot the debt we owed him for his personal support on this occasion and throughout the Falklands crisis. France used her influence in the UN to swing others in our favour.'
The British attack started on 24 and 25 April and military operations lasted until June. Had Mitterand been in Margaret Thatcher's place, he told Jacques Attali that he would have sent in the whole French
Navy. On 5 April, he confessed to Attali, âDo I admire Mme Thatcher, or do I envy her?' The answer came when she forced him to give the codes of the French-made missiles, especially the Exocets, to disable Argentina during the conflict. The Falklands War marked a high point in Franco-British relations. During a state visit to the Ivory Coast on 23 May 1982, Mitterand reasserted France's support for Britain. âOur solidarity to Great Britain must never be questioned. It is our first duty. Yet France must try as much as it can to maintain its friendships, its interests and this historic community which binds her to Latin America. France will always be in favour of peace and against the infringement of the law. France will do its utmost to stop the fighting as soon as possible. But we will not surrender to either Britain or Argentina. We will fight for the restoration of peace which is a pillar of French foreign policy.'
On 1 June 1982, the French President welcomed Margaret Thatcher to the Ãlysée. They discussed the Falklands, subsidies to Eastern countries, relations with the USSR and Beijing. Mitterand reasserted the importance of Franco-British relations: âSolidarity with Great Britain is one of the major elements of stability for France in the tumultuous world we live in.' When Britain defeated Argentina in the Falklands War, Mrs Thatcher asked European nations to maintain their economic sanctions as long as Argentina refused to accept defeat. Once again, Mitterand supported her.
Accord on many defence matters was a feature of later Franco-British summits between Mitterand and Thatcher. They discussed nuclear weapons and future relations with the USSR. At their last full summit, at Waddesdon Manor in May 1990, they finally agreed on strengthening Franco-British cooperation on defence. This paved the way for the eventual Franco-British defence agreement in 2011.
The agreement to construct the Channel Tunnel was another significant accord between President Mitterand and Mrs Thatcher. The signing ceremony by the two leaders took place, picturesquely, in the chapter house of Canterbury cathedral in 1986, but the final ratification by Britain and France had to wait until after the 1987 British general election. It was a great political achievement for Margaret Thatcher and FranÒ«ois Mitterand.