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The 15 minutes that marked the icy relationship between Elizabeth II and Margaret Thatcher

2020-10-30T15:33:11.955Z


The queen and the prime minister respected each other but did not understand each other after hours. Their story of disagreements is told in the fourth season of 'The Crown'


Elizabeth II of England and Margaret Thatcher, the woman who served as the country's prime minister from 1979 to 1990, were said to be swallowed but not carried away.

One could have expected female complicity between two women - who were also only born six months apart - on whom the task of leading the United Kingdom weighed, but their personalities were very different and their relationship never ceased to be institutionally correct and almost icy in personal treatment.

Neither made mistakes or indiscretions about their relationship, all the more that Margaret Thatcher came to comment when she published her memoirs, where she described her weekly encounters with the monarch at Buckingham Palace as "very professional, a" working relationship. "The Prime Minister would arrive there every week 15 minutes in advance, and the Queen would leave her there, also every week, 15 minutes waiting to mark the distance that separated a politician, who came and went, from a sovereign who has become the longest living on the planet.

The good and the bad of that relationship, the first cold and the warmth that came to unite them after years of relationship, has a second

round

today, seven years after Thatcher's death.

Because one thing and another is a central part of the plot of the fourth season of

The Crown

, which is already warming up with the first

trailers

of the new chapters of the famous series that will arrive on Netflix from November 15.

Margaret Thatcher admired Elizabeth II for who she was, the monarch;

but she hated that deference which she understood as condescension.

Time placed each one in their place and the queen came to improve her opinion of that woman whose impatience bothered her so much.

That doesn't mean Thatcher didn't make him lose his nerve because their personalities were opposite.

According to the chroniclers of the time, the Iron Lady did not understand what it was to waste time and in politics she did not find the middle ground, everything was "either with me or against me."

For Isabel II, used to meeting people non-stop as part of her work, harmony and cordiality are part of her day to day.

Between them there were tense moments in the performance of power but also in more daily encounters.

Analysts agree that among the former the worst occurred in 1985, when the queen feared Thatcher's opposition to sanctions against the racist South African regime would fracture the Commonwealth.

Thatcher was more to the liking of the Queen Mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, closer to her right-wing politics than her daughter Elizabeth II.

The queen did not like the fragmentation and altercations that took place in the United Kingdom because of some of the decisions of her prime minister, including the serious conflicts with the miners in 1984 and 1985.

The dry humor of Elizabeth II did not match well with Thatcher's lack of this quality.

The documentary

The Queen and her prime ministers

goes so far as to say that their relationship became "sometimes uncomfortable."

As the journalist Anthony Sampson wrote in 1982, aware of their differences, "the queen's style is more practical and domestic, while Mrs. Thatcher (who is taller) is the one who behaves as if she were the queen."

Others claim that admiration really prevailed, at least on the part of the prime minister.

This was pointed out by the British playwright Moira Buffini, author of the play

Handbaged

, who stated about Thatcher: "Her hats, her gloves and her coats were her seeking to resemble the woman she admired."

Another book,

The real Elizabeth

, by Andrew Marr, tells some anecdotes about the personal relationship between the two.

Like when the queen exclaimed, “Can anyone tell that lady to sit down?”, Bored that the Iron Lady insistently offered to help at the queen's annual barbecue at Balmoral.

Or when the monarch wryly told one of her aides about whether Thatcher would join a mountain hike during one of her summer stays at Elizabeth II's favorite palace: “I think you will notice that Mrs. Thatcher only walk down the road ”.

Be that as it may, the British queen was very upset by the way Margaret Thatcher was removed from office after Michael Heseltine, a member of her own party, challenged her type of leadership.

Only two weeks after this event, Elizabeth II awarded the former Prime Minister the Order of Merit, and when she died she attended her funeral.

It was the first time he had attended a prime minister's funeral since he did so to pay his respects to Winston Churchill.


Source: elparis

All news articles on 2020-10-30

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