Thatcher broke her promise many times when she met the Queen.
1979 in may, Margaret Thatcher became the British prime minister. She is the eighth prime minister and the first female prime minister after Queen Elizabeth II ascended the throne. Mrs Thatcher and the Queen were contemporaries. Margaret Thatcher was born in 1925, and the queen was born in 1926. Unlike the previous seven prime ministers, this new queen has no "generation gap". Since the day she entered Downing Street 10, the relationship between the Queen and the female prime minister has been closely watched by the media and the public. But in the eyes of the public, the relationship between the Queen and Margaret Thatcher is "tepid".
But in fact, according to the followers of these two people, their temperament is completely different. The queen is cold and humorous, while Margaret Thatcher is considered to lack a sense of humor. Many politicians and courtiers who knew the inside story found that the Queen and Margaret Thatcher were "difficult to get along with". Although the two most powerful women in Britain are similar in age, their backgrounds are too different. The queen was born a royal aristocrat, and Margaret Thatcher was the daughter of a grocer. She ascended the throne of the Prime Minister by her own efforts. Before Margaret Thatcher came to power, they were strangers, and they came together in the most turbulent and confrontational era of British politics after the war.
According to the regulations, Margaret Thatcher meets with the Queen every week to discuss political affairs. For any prime minister since Churchill, it is considered an important duty to listen to the Queen's opinion every week. However, memos and notes written by Mrs. Thatcher's assistant revealed that in the first three years of Mrs. Thatcher's administration, the female prime minister risked damaging her relationship with the Queen to rearrange the original audience. According to a secret memorandum dated1July 24, 980, the person who signed CS (this person should be Mrs. Thatcher's secretary Caroline Stephens) wrote to Clive whitmore, Mrs. Thatcher's chief private secretary, requesting to reschedule the meeting with the same queen in February of that year. The memo said: "The meeting on Tuesday, February 9th, 65438 is not convenient. She (Mrs. Thatcher) is going to entertain a high-level French delegation mainly composed of bankers. " Stephens' other memo to whitmore was dated1980165438+10/7, and they were obviously worried that repeatedly asking the queen to change the interview time would anger the queen. Stephens wrote: "I don't want to ruin our relationship with the court, but this week we have many of the same problems as last time." In the handwritten note of the memorandum, Stephens warned: "I really think this will put our relationship with the court in danger. 」
British media said that Margaret Thatcher had repeatedly asked to change the time of her audience with the Queen, and she would rather take the risk of damaging her relationship with the Queen. Another audience meeting in March 1982 was cancelled because Mrs. Thatcher failed to keep the appointment. On one occasion, Mrs. Thatcher even directly refused the invitation to "eat and live" at Windsor Castle, because her husband Dennis had a board meeting the next morning. Margaret Thatcher's repeated requests to change the date of her audience with the Queen have aggravated the tension between Buckingham Palace and Downing Street. Moore, the Queen's private secretary, wrote in a note that the planned talks should now be "regarded as final".
The queen called Thatcher "that woman"
Mrs. Thatcher's failure to stand up to the Queen was only a superficial phenomenon, and some careful people also found that these two people rarely appeared together. Some senior British sources also admit that the relationship between the Queen and Margaret Thatcher is a bit "stiff". It is said that some officials under Margaret Thatcher tried to ensure that the Prime Minister would not clash with the Queen during the talks. A book written by writer Dean Palmer claims that the Queen and Margaret Thatcher don't like each other. The Queen sometimes imitates Mrs. Thatcher's accent and calls her "that woman" in front of other world leaders.
In addition, some radical followers of Margaret Thatcher tend to regard the United States as a model of political and economic model. They hated the Queen's tolerance for Commonwealth dictators. These enthusiastic young people regard Margaret Thatcher as their real "queen". Margaret Thatcher unconsciously played the role of "Queen". 1982 The war between Britain and Oman made Britain appear in the world. When the army won after the war, Mrs. Thatcher stood on the parade platform to pay tribute to the soldiers, which was in sharp contrast to the great victory of 1945. At that time, King George VI saluted the crowd on behalf of the country, not Prime Minister Churchill. The Independent commented that Margaret Thatcher not only wanted to be remembered by the public as a powerful leader, but also wanted to go down in history as a war leader.
Since the mid-1980s, the relationship between the two most influential women in Britain has attracted more and more attention. 1986, the Sunday Times incident, which caused a sensation all over Britain, finally broke out. 1On July 20th, 986, The Sunday Times broke the news with the sensational headline "The Queen is very disappointed with the indifferent Mrs. Thatcher", saying that the Queen was worried that Mrs. Thatcher's economic policies would lead to social division. Moreover, the Queen was shocked by the high unemployment rate, a series of riots, miners' violence and Margaret Thatcher's refusal to sanction the apartheid regime in South Africa. The Sunday Times reported in detail the Queen's worries about the future of the Commonwealth, because Margaret Thatcher refused to impose sanctions on the apartheid regime in South Africa. It is said that the sources of this news include the Queen's press secretary Michael Shea and the Commonwealth Secretary-General Shridas lavr. People around Mrs. Thatcher recalled that after the report was published, Mrs. Thatcher felt "at a loss" about the story. Strangely, the royal family did not deny the contents of the report. Later, Xie Yi Cheng qin, the Queen's press secretary, said that his comments were taken out of context and the article was full of speculation. Margaret Thatcher's biographer, john campbell, said that the report was "the product of dissension".
Thatcher's husband was an "icebreaker"
After the 1986 incident, Margaret Thatcher's aides insisted that the first relationship with the Queen was purely official and there was no so-called "palace fight". Fortunately, with the efforts of several "icebreakers", the relationship between Mrs. Thatcher and the Queen has been improved, and Mrs. Thatcher's husband Dennis played a very big role in it. Dennis gets along very well with the Queen's mother, Queen Elizabeth, who likes drinking as much as he does, which makes it easier for him and his wife to visit Balmoral Castle (the Queen's private residence in Scotland) every year. Queen Elizabeth appreciates Margaret Thatcher's policies more than the Queen.
As time went on, the queen gradually began to get used to Mrs Thatcher. 1990165438+10 In October, Margaret Thatcher was expelled from Downing Street10 by her own cabinet. At this time, the queen felt that the prime minister who had been together for 1 1 year had been treated unfairly. As a gesture of goodwill, the Queen invited Mrs Thatcher to watch a jockey club. Mrs Thatcher's friends recalled that Mrs Thatcher, who was frustrated politically at that time, was not in the mood to watch horse racing, but she was moved by this unexpected invitation.
On April 8, 20 13, Mrs Thatcher died of a stroke at the age of 87. 17 In April, the Queen and Prince Philip attended the funeral of Margaret Thatcher, which was the second time that the Queen attended the funeral of the former Prime Minister during the reign of 6 1. The last time the Queen attended the funeral of the former Prime Minister was in 1965, when she said goodbye to Churchill.