Maggie was showing signs of dementia in last year at No 10, claims Ken Clarke
MARGARET Thatcher may have been showing the ‘first signs of dementia’ during her final year as prime minister, Ken Clarke has claimed.
The Tory grandee, who served in Mrs Thatcher’s Cabinet, said the prime minister’s personality ‘rapidly changed’ towards the end of her tenure, leading him to develop the ‘ theory’ that she was displaying early symptoms of the condition.
The devastating illness ultimately contributed to her death in 2013 aged 87.
Mr Clarke, who served as health secretary and education secretary under Mrs Thatcher, said she ‘lost her judgment’ and became ‘more combative, more paranoid and thought everyone had betrayed her’ in the months before she resigned in 1990.
‘It had gone, her ability [to lead]. I occasionally wonder whether it was the first signs of dementia beginning to actually affect her in the last 12 months or so,’ he told the Henley Literary Festival yesterday. ‘ She changed a lot very rapidly once she resigned.’
Asked to elaborate on this, he said: ‘ She got more combative, paranoid and she believed she had been betrayed.’
Speaking to the Daily Mail afterwards, Mr Clarke – who was the
Speaking out: Ken Clarke first minister to speak to Mrs Thatcher after her failed bid to remain leader – said: ‘I don’t know, I’m not a medic, but she did rapidly start developing dementia when she left. It may have been the result of resigning. I do think that her judgment wasn’t what it was. She made a serious misjudgment both in the poll tax and her relationship with the party.’
Last night another former member of the Cabinet said that, ‘with the benefit of hindsight’, several ministers from that time think that Mr Clarke’s ‘pet theory’ is correct. Until now, it was thought that Baroness Thatcher first began to show signs of dementia in 2000, eight years after she resigned as an MP.
Her daughter, Carol Thatcher, has recalled the moment she first noticed the symptoms, writing in her memoir: ‘I almost fell off my chair. Watching her struggle with her words and her memory, I couldn’t believe it. She was in her 75th year but I had always thought of her as ageless, timeless and 100 per cent cast-iron damage-proof.’
However, Mr Clarke’s comments at the festival, which is sponsored by the Daily Mail, suggest she may have started developing dementia at the age of 64. Last week, sleep scientist Matthew Walker drew a connection between a chronic lack of sleep and dementia. He said, ‘unscientifically’, he has always found it curious that both Baroness Thatcher and Ronald Reagan relied on little sleep and went on to develop the disease.
The former president was formally diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 1994, five years after he left office. But in 2011 his son Ron claimed his late father’s battle with the disease began while he was in the White House, possibly as early as 1984.
Mr Clarke was interviewed by the Mail on Sunday’s political editor Simon Walters.