Don’t go on and on, Maggie’s top aide warne d her after 1987 victory

MARGARET Thatcher’s closest adviser told her she should not fight another election after she won a third term.

Her former private secretary said the ‘unbelievable’ level of abuse she had endured had taken its toll.

Charles Powell urged her to protect her legacy, saying her place in history was secure. ‘In two or three years’ time, you will have completed the most sweeping change this country has seen in decades and your place in history will be rivalled in this century only by Churchill,’ he said in a letter.

He concluded by urging her to continue her work in foreign affairs, telling her that the ‘world will look to you for leadership’.

The heartfelt letter from her longstanding foreign affairs aide has not been published in full before.

Released by the Margaret Thatcher Foundation today, it is contained in her personal files, which are held at Churchill College, Cambridge.

Lady Thatcher’s official historian Chris Collins said: ‘The world was out to get her in many ways. It wasn’t a neurotic paranoid assumption that people wanted to bring her down.

‘This atmosphere that was created in the office was partly a response to that, a protection.’

In the letter – from June 13, 1987 and marked ‘strictly personal’ – Lord Powell and his wife Carla congratulated the prime minister on her ‘remarkable election victory’ two days earlier.

‘If ever a party and a country were carried to success on the shoulders of one person, it has been over this last eight years, and the election was the reward,’ he wrote. Commiserating with her on her bruising exchanges with television journalists in interviews during the campaign, Lord Powell said the people were on her side.

‘They know you are right and what you are doing is right and they respect you for it – because they feel better as a result,’ he added.

He compared her to Churchill but warned she must not put herself through another election as the ‘unbelievable’ level of personal abuse would take its toll.

Lady Thatcher had told the BBC that she planned to go ‘on and on’ during the 1987 general election campaign.

Lord Powell wrote: ‘All the same I hope that you will not put yourself through it again. The level of personal abuse thrown at you during the campaign was unbelievable and must take some toll, however stoic you are outwardly.

‘There comes a point where your reputation and standing as a historic figure are more important to your party, to your cause and to the country than even you yourself can be, and it’s not right that you should be subjected to a further round like this time.’

He warned that the Left would ‘redouble’ their abuse as they were unable to defeat her on substance.

He told her it was a ‘tremendous privilege’ to work with her for which he was grateful. He signs off with ‘affection and respect’.

Ahead of the letter’s public release, Lord Powell admitted he had been upset to observe the difficult campaign as Lady Thatcher clashed dramatically with journalists and the opposition.

‘It’s an unusual letter for a civil servant to send a prime minister even on a very personal basis, reflecting the small size and intimacy of No 10 especially in those days,’ he said.

‘I had been distressed to observe at close quarters the stress of a third election campaign and the back-biting it involved on Margaret Thatcher’s health and performance and wanted to discourage her in her own interests from any inclination to go “on and on”.’

He said he had discussed the letter with her at the time, and her main reaction was that she had no successor, ‘though several who thought they were’.

He concluded that in light of what happened later – Lady Thatcher being forced from office in November 1990 – his advice looked ‘pretty sound’.

Mr Collins said the letter showed her close bond with her staff. ‘It is no accident that Carla Powell signs this as well,’ he said. ‘This is actually a letter from friends.’

The files, along with thousands of previously published personal documents, are available online at www.margaret thatcher.org

‘Unbelievable level of abuse’