HOW THEY SNUBBED THATCHER TOO

THERESA May is not the only Tory prime minister to have faced issues over her legacy at Oxford.

Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s only other female PM, has also been snubbed by the university.

She was passed over for an honorary degree following protests by embittered academics over cuts in university funding.

It meant she was the only Oxford-educated PM not to have been given an honorary degree.

Mrs Thatcher received an invitation to allow her name to go forward for the degree in 198 , with the proviso that it had to be confirmed ‘in Congregation’ – a vote taken among all the university’s academics. Her principal private secretary, Robin Butler, warned her that ‘Left-wingers will campaign against you before the vote’.

Against his advice Mrs Thatcher wrote a letter of acceptance. However, her aide – now Lord Butler – was right. The Congregation rejected the honour by 738 votes to 319.

Mrs Thatcher’s only public reaction was succinct. She said: ‘If they do not wish to confer the honour, I am the last person who would wish to receive it.’ But Mr Butler thought the snub deeply affected Mrs Thatcher. He felt that privately, ‘the degree of hurt was huge’.