G t tfilm Major: Thatcher’s dementia caused ‘sniping’

SIR JOHN MAJOR yesterday claimed Margaret Thatcher’s dementia was behind her criticism of his leadership after he took over as prime minister.

Sir John, who replaced her in 1990 after she resigned following a leadership challenge from Michael Heseltine, said subsequent “sniping” from his predecessor “didn’t sound to me like the Margaret I had come to know”.

The former Conservative prime minister said he understood “as a matter of common humanity” why his predecessor may have harboured ill feeling towards him. But he said his belief that she was ill meant he could bear the criticism “though it was uncomfortable”.

Speaking at The Politics Festival at Kings Place in central London, he said: “Margaret was ill. I think for most of the time 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.

“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.”

Sir John said he regularly met Baroness Thatcher after she had left No10 and the pair often dined together at Downing Street. He described their relationship during his administration as “entirely clement”.

Asked if he thought Lady Thatcher’s illness had started to influence her outlook in those early days after he became prime minister, Sir John 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 to be removed in the way that she was removed I think was extremely difficult.

“Then to see someone else who she had nurtured from the backbenches in her position, purely as a matter of common humanity you can understand how difficult that would have been for her and I think I did understand that even at the most difficult moments.”

Lady Thatcher died of a stroke in April 2013 at the age of 87 following a long battle with dementia.