When we talk about women succeeding in male-dominated fields it’s usually because someone has excelled in STEM or started a war. And in fairness, Margaret Thatcher did actually do both. But according to a newly released biography – the Incidental Feminist by Tina Gaudoin – she performed in another area classically associated with men: having affairs.
Gaudoin claims that multiple sources, including novelist and former minister Jonathan Aitken, told her that Margaret Thatcher was involved with somebody other than her husband “very early on in her parliamentary career” and then “quite possibly” later involved with Sir Humphrey Atkins, the MP for Spelthorne, who allegedly kept being promoted despite not being terribly good at his job.
It’s an interesting claim and I’ve no idea whether it’s true or not. Over the years I’ve met a lot of male journalists and politicians who worked closely with Thatcher, all of whom told me about flirting with her, and how much she loved men, but then it’s entirely possible that she was just a skillful politician who knew that men liked thinking she fancied them.
If it is true that Thatcher was having an affair then I will have to add it to the list of things she did which I sort of begrudgingly admire.
Previously the list of things I particularly enjoyed about Thatcher were limited to glass ceiling shattering (unfortunately mitigated by a bit of a tendency to pull the ladder up behind her when it came to other women) and her apparently relaxed attitude to letting parenting balls drop because her job was important to her.
But there’s no denying that managing to have an affair while running the country is an impressive feat. Most of us find it hard enough to keep an active sex life going with our own partner while balancing a full-time job and the basic levels of human obligation like having a moderately clean house, occasionally taking some exercise or consuming a vegetable.
Having to run the country, illicitly encounter someone you’re not supposed to be, while finding time to shut down most of the mines sounds like too much for anyone to manage in one go. Though these alleged affairs seem to have been with people she worked with, so at least that’s efficient and cuts down on travel time.
My only compunction for Thatcher’s alleged affair(s) is that it would have been quite unjust on her husband, Denis, who history seems to broadly remember as A Good Egg. The interview where Denis Thatcher is asked who wears the trousers in his marriage and he replies, “I do – and I wash and iron them too” has become so famous that I briefly wondered if it might be apocryphal. But it isn’t – he really said it, and it speaks to a lightness of touch that he demonstrated in having an unusually modern marital dynamic.
Perspectives
square Opinion Can relationships survive cheating? Charlotte CrippsI had an affair. It was totally worth it
Emma Parsons-ReidI cheated on my ex out of revenge – it left me devastated
Philippa PerryThere are six types of affairs, but only one is guaranteed to kill your relationship
Being married to the first-ever female PM in a time when a tiny fraction of higher-level jobs were occupied by women can’t have been easy, and wouldn’t have been made any easier by any extramarital activities from his wife.
Though, all of that said, Gaudoin’s book does also make an exploration of Denis’s surprising friendship with Mandy Rice-Davies, a showgirl, model and actor. The implication seems to be that there might have been a more intense friendship than is strictly appropriate between the two, so perhaps we needn’t feel quite so bad for Denis.
There might even be an argument that a ministerial spouse should anticipate, or even expect, infidelity. Looking across the sweep of history it does seem to go with the territory. JFK, John Profumo, and Harold Wilson did it before her. John Major, Bill Clinton and Boris Johnson did it after her. So if there is any truth to the rumours then maybe Thatcher was merely following the example set to her by those who had come before?
Her name on the list of the world’s most profile affairs would add some much needed diversity and inclusion. Not that she went in for that sort of thing.
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