Similarities of two Iron Ladies

of the other 27 EU member states seek to intensify pressure on Britain with spin and selective leaks about negotiations.

Much of the propaganda will be amplified by Brexit deniers desperate to paint the most nightmarish landscape of the country’s future outside the European bloc. “We are heading into a choppy few months,” said one source.

Like Mrs Thatcher, the Prime Minister also has the equivalent of the Tory “wets” nervous about her primary project and a divergence with her Chancellor on Europe policy. Philip Hammond has been humiliated by Mrs May tearing up the national insurance rise announced in his Budget. Her decisive intervention suggests she is adopting the leadership style within Cabinet encapsulated by the vintage Thatcher quote: “I don’t mind how much my ministers talk, as long as they do what I say.”

Mr Hammond’s authority has been severely diminished by the past week. The episode has also opened a poisonous rift between officials at the Treasury and Number 10 at a time when the Government needs to present a united front.

Mrs May could soon find that she has some “enemies within” very close to home. As Mrs Thatcher learned rapidly after arriving in Downing Street, the prime minister’s job can be an intensely lonely one. Mrs May’s six-year reign at the Home Office, running the department with a siege mentality and frequent exchanges of cannon fire with the Treasury, will have well prepared her for that state of isolation.

Some of her allies fret that the Prime Minister does not have a dependable Cabinet lieutenant in the way Mrs Thatcher relied on the genial William Whitelaw.

While Mrs May bridles at comparisons with her formidable predecessor, she could soon be forced to learn from the Iron Lady’s record.