Free Republic

Famous people can be a terrible disappointment when you meet them face to face. I had the opposite experience with Margaret Thatcher. Watching her from a distance in the early Eighties and seeing the impact of what she did, I thought she was loathsome. Later on, as political correspondent for the Daily Mirror, I met her in person and was disconcerted to find that she could be very pleasant and a stimulating conversationalist. ..... It was one of Thatcher's strengths that she did not restrict herself to dealing with the papers civil servants gave her. Everybody and everything was her...

Fury at ‘Tory pig’ poster Flying into a storm ... Labour poster showing Howard and Letwin as pigs       By GEORGE PASCOE-WATSON A LABOUR poster showing Michael Howard and Oliver Letwin as pigs was condemned as deeply offensive last night. Mr Howard and Mr Letwin are Jewish. Jews do not eat pork, and critics accused Labour of deliberately using their faces on images of pigs to cause offence. Just 24 hours earlier, Mr Blair had led solemn tributes to the memories of Jews murdered by the Nazis. Yesterday, Labour unveiled its new “pig” poster of the Tory leader...