‘Hectoring and bossy’: the man who dared tell Thatcher the truth

one who is clearly going to be very hard to beat”.

Thatcher did not reply to Ingham’s memo, although earlier in the year, she defended herself when the TV AM interviewer, David Frost, put it to her – rather more tactfully – that some people saw her as “intolerant” and “uncaring”. Instead of claiming that she was actually tolerant and caring, as other politicians might, she replied: “You do have to be firm sometimes.”

Chris Collins, a historian who has studied the archive, said: “Looking at this document, there is no sign of massive dissent from Thatcher – no scribbled notes or underlining, like you often see on her personal files. It is nothing he wouldn’t have said to her before.

“She simply would never have worn her heart on her sleeve like that, partly because it would have gone against her instincts but also because, by that point, it would have seemed inauthentic.”

Ingham gave Thatcher the bad news in October 1985, as the Conservatives prepared for their conference after Kinnock had dramatically denounced Liverpool’s left-wing council at the Labour conference.

Later the same month – perhaps to cheer her up – he sent her another list of headlines, which demonstrated that feuds on the left were still making the news. They included one that said: “Robert Kilroy-Silk in Commons scuffle with Jeremy Corbyn.”

Kilroy-Silk was a Labour shadow minister, who quit the Commons for a television career soon after his altercation with Corbyn, claiming that he was being hounded by the hard left, then joined Ukip, then fell out with it and