Politics

Could an article by Boris Johnson have doomed Magaret Thatcher as PM?


A “not quite right” news story written by Boris Johnson may have played a role in the downfall of Margaret Thatcher, newly released documents suggest.

Then journalist Mr Johnson’s report on a Commons statement by Mrs Thatcher caught the eye of the PM who was fighting for her political life.

The story, published on October 24, 1990, and written by Mr Johnson when he was the Daily Telegraph’s Brussels correspondent, was about European Commission president Jacques Delors.

It was headlined ‘British Right Of Veto Faces Axe In Delors Plan’ and Mrs Thatcher marked two lines beside the headline on a cutting of the article in her despatch box file.

She also marked two lines beside a paragraph which read: “M Delors said the plans were intended to pave the way for a Federation of Europe, a super-state with the Brussels Commission as the executive government and the Council of Ministers as a senate.”

The original article written by Boris Johnson in the Daily Telegraph

A letter describing discrepancies in an article written by Mr Johnson

But Chris Collins, from the Margaret Thatcher Archive Trust which is making the documents available to the public, said Mr Johnson’s article was “not quite right”.

A memo written two days later by senior Foreign Office official Richard Gozney to Mrs Thatcher’s Private Secretary Charles Powell, and also kept in the Number 10 file, noted: “The Commission Opinion itself… does not contain what M Delors is reported by the Daily Telegraph as having suggested.

“It does not propose any radical change in the present institutional plans of the Community – although it does contain a lot of other horrors.”

On October 30, Mrs Thatcher made a House of Commons statement in which she defiantly declared “no, no, no” to M Delors.

The statement came during a time of intense division in the Tory party over Europe and proved too much for Sir Geoffrey Howe, who quit as leader of the Commons and deputy prime minister days later and made a devastating resignation speech from which Mrs Thatcher never recovered.

Margaret Thatcher was ousted by the rivals a few days later

She was ousted a few days later.

Mr Collins said Mr Johnson’s article was “not quite right” and Mrs Thatcher “knows it’s not quite right.

“While I’m not saying this is the cause of her downfall or anything like that – it would be absurd to suggest that – the forces that are in play are somewhat revealed by the presence of that article.”

The archives also reveal that Mrs Thatcher met the composer of The Wombles theme tune at the world-famous Abbey Road recording studios because Kate Bush and The Who’s Roger Daltrey were unavailable.

During the visit in 1990, Mrs Thatcher bonded with Michael Batt over their shared low opinion of the Musicians’ Union and he gave her some Wombles CDs.





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