May follows Thatcher with Alpine holiday
Prime Minister to recharge batteries with hiking break – which didn’t always work for her predecessor
Theresa May is to follow the path of the late Baroness Thatcher by taking a two-week hiking holiday in Switzerland. The Prime Minister has taken holidays in the country for more than 30 years and previously praised the Swiss Alps as a “wonderful destination” where “the air is clear and you can get some peace and quiet”. Lady Thatcher visited several times during her premiership, staying with Sir Douglas Glover, a retired Tory MP.
THERESA MAY is to follow in the footsteps of the late Baroness Thatcher by taking a two-week hiking holiday in Switzerland.
Mrs May has taken holidays in the country for more than 30 years and previously praised the Swiss Alps as a “wonderful destination” where “the air is clear and you can get some peace and quiet”.
Lady Thatcher visited several times during her premiership, staying with Sir Douglas Glover, a retired Tory MP, and his wife Lady Eleanor at their lakeside home in Schloss Freudenberg.
According to Charles Moore, the former editor of The Daily Telegraph and Lady Thatcher’s biographer, Lady Glover would “scour Switzerland and neighbouring countries for people of sufficient brainpower and eminence to come to the daily lunches and dinners given for the Thatchers”.
On one occasion Lady Thatcher came “steaming back ... even less relaxed than when she had left” after Swiss economists criticised the Bank of England’s management.
Mrs May’s and the late Lady Thatcher’s choice of holiday destination is in stark contrast to that of former prime ministers David Cameron and Tony Blair, who preferred warmer climates.
During his time in office, Mr Cameron took holidays in Lanzarote and the Algarve, while when in office Mr Blair frequently travelled to Tuscany.
Mrs May, however, has long enjoyed visiting Switzerland with her husband Philip.
In an article for The Daily Telegraph in 2007, she said: “If you’re a keen walker, Switzerland is a wonderful summer destination: the views are spectacular, the air is clear and you can get some peace and quiet.
“A good time to go is June when a lot of wild flowers are blooming. Sadly, Parliament is sitting at that time of the year so we usually visit in August.” She said it was key “to go well prepared”.
She recently gave fellow walking enthusiast Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, two books on hiking – Coast
to Coast with Wainwright, a photographic book from 1973, and Great
Mountain Days in Snowdonia – with a handwritten message of best wishes.
Despite her desire for privacy, Mrs May is likely to be accompanied by a team of at least six armed close protection officers at all times.
One retired diplomatic protection officer said they are likely to remain within 15 yards of her at all times.
“She won’t enjoy quite the same level of privacy she had as Home Secretary,” the former officer said.
Margaret Thatcher was not much one for holidays, but she could be prevailed upon to stay for a few August days with Eleanor, Lady Glover at her Swiss schloss. Strenuous efforts were made to keep her mind off affairs of state. In 1984, we learn from her biographer, she was asked to lunch with the celebrated conductor Herbert von Karajan, who, unlike many, relished her interrogatory line in conversation. “How do you best control an orchestra,” she asked, “is it by force of will?” Alas, holiday distractions soon ran out and back in England Peter Gregson of the Cabinet Office was interrupted in tending his apple trees by a telephone call from an official at No 10: “She’s coming back!” Today, Theresa May is walking in Mrs Thatcher’s footsteps in Switzerland on a wellearned holiday. We wish her an undisturbed break.