The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
Australian PM called Thatcher a ‘f------ b----’
Roger Maynard
FORMER Australian prime minister Bob Hawke called Margaret Thatcher a “f------ b----” during an angry phone call in 1986, a new memoir claims.
Mr Hawke, the Labour prime minister from 1983 to 1991, contacted his counterpart in London to persuade her to call off the British Lions rugby tour of South Africa in protest against apartheid.
In his new memoir, John Brown, the former Australian sports minister, writes that the conversation proceeded on diplomatic lines for about 10 minutes when “suddenly the mood changed”.
“Thatcher had popularised the expression ‘the lady is not for turning’ and she was obviously determined to maintain her stance supporting South Africa,” he recalled.
“I could see Bob, as I had seen him many times before, becoming agitated and angry.
“Eventually he reached the limit of his patience,” Mr Brown wrote.
He goes on: “He shouted into the phone: ‘Listen, you f------ b----, get that f------ team to withdraw from South Africa or otherwise the Commonwealth ‘Get that team to withdraw from South Africa or the Commonwealth Games will implode...’
Games will implode and possibly the British Commonwealth of Nations. You are the f------ prime minister of England and the future of both is in your hands.”
Mr Brown, who was the only witness to the extraordinary conversation, said
Television
BBC1
The first series of Vigil was the BBC’s most-watched new drama in years. Can 13 million viewers be wrong? Yes. What were you all thinking?
Well, it’s back for series two and Suranne Jones is at it again: barging around annoying the Armed Forces. This time she’s on an air base in the Middle East. Her modus operandi is the same, the main differences being that in this series she wears aviators and people can get away from her because they’re not trapped on a submarine. To give the show its due, it starts with a great set piece. In Scotland, Air Vice Marshal Marcus Grainger (Dougray Scott) is showing off the RAF’s latest drone technology to some visiting potentates. It’s a training exercise which ends in horror when one of the machines goes rogue and starts gunning people down. Someone has taken control of it and only one woman can solve the mystery.
Enter DCI Amy Silva (Jones), who reminds us within the first minute that
Angry phone call between former leader Bob Hawke and Iron Lady over British Lions tour of South Africa
Vigil
silence prevailed for a few seconds before, he claimed, Mrs Thatcher replied: “I will withdraw that team from South Africa.”
The retired politician, now aged 91, said he had “demurred from revealing the full text” until both Hawke and Thatcher had died.
After the call the former Australian leader felt sorry about using such colourful language, Brown said.
“Bob expressed to me at the time his admonition of himself for his language.
But who cares? His absolute obsession with getting rid of apartheid and his ultimate desire to see that sporting boycott of South Africa continue was enough to engineer a very important victory.”
Hawke attempted to apologise to Thatcher, but she “dismissed his protest”, Brown claimed.
The love-hate relationship between the two leaders was well-known at the time and Hawke’s use of colourful language was well-documented.