Iron Lady Rising

In October 1968, Margaret Thatcher, then a rising young Tory on the Opposition front bench, appeared on the popular radio discussion program “Any Questions?” Among the other panelists was Malcolm Muggeridge, later a celebrated Christian apologist, then an ornament of both serious and satirical journalism. One questioner asked how the panelists felt about being imitated. This was clearly aimed at Muggeridge, who had a highly mannered style of speaking and writing, rather than at Thatcher, whom no one had bothered to imitate at this early stage of her career. Muggeridge responded with one of his most familiar tropes: that such things scarcely mattered since all people were “intrinsically ridiculous.” Let biographer Charles Moore take up the story: