Major: Maggie ‘had dementia’ when she quit

Sir John Major suggested last night that Margaret Thatcher’s criticism of him when she left office was due to her dementia.

The former prime minister received a hostile reception from his predecessor after she was forced out of No 10.

He implied this was due to dementia. At a Political Festival event in London yesterday, he said: ‘Margaret was ill... I don’t think anyone quite knew when her illness started.

‘ But the comments that came out from Margaret after she left office didn’t sound to me like the Margaret I had come to know.

‘You have to realise there are several Margaret Thatchers. There is the real Margaret Thatcher... that most of us who worked with her knew and there is the Margaret Thatcher of legend who is an artificial construct and very different.’

Sir John said he did not believe her criticism of him was due to his actions when he took over as PM, but down to her condition.

‘So although it was a very difficult period when she was sniping, when she was bored, not very well and out of government, I don’t really think that was the Margaret Thatcher that I knew and so I could bear that though it was uncomfortable,’ he said.

When Sir John took over as prime minister in 1990, Lady Thatcher said she would be a ‘very good backseat driver’.

She was said to hound him with daily phone calls, accusing him of tearing up her legacy. Sir John described her behaviour during his time in Downing Street from 1990 to 1997 as ‘intolerable’.

But last night he said he saw her regularly and often dined with her at Downing Street, and their relationship was ‘entirely clement’.

When asked if he thought her illness affected her outlook, he said: ‘Well, I do actually. She was very frustrated once she left Downing Street because she had been there a very long time. She saw it as her job and I think it was quite hard to leave the way she left when she had fought three general elections and won three general elections.’

‘She was very frustrated’