George R. Urban, Diplomacy and Disillusion at the Court of Margaret Thatcher (London: I.B. Tauris, 1996)
"One of the problems with kiss-and-tell books is that they tend to be written by those who were kissed once and never got over the experience." When Mrs. Thatcher was Prime Minister, some such formula was suggested to her for a speech dealing with a spate of indiscreet memoirs by former ministers. And if she were reviewing Mr. Urban's account of his appearances at her "court", she might well be tempted to revive it.
For this book is a record of disappointment in love. The tale is an old one-a version of Faust in which Margaret and Mephistopheles merge. Mr. Urban, a high-minded intellectual specializing in culture and the Cold War, falls for the Iron Lady from afar. He is introduced and experiences a meeting of minds. Bliss! Asked to help with drafting speeches, he is soon invited to discuss high policy at Downing Street and Chequers, and is eventually admitted to the (moderately vast) circle of occasional outside advisers to the Prime Minister. Then-rejection! Mrs. Thatcher fails to take his advice on important questions. He smarts, they bicker, and before long he is back in his ivory tower lamenting that she never really understood him or the imperatives of History. Kissed once, he never got over the experience. Accordingly, the picture of Mrs. Thatcher that this book gives is a mixture of the amorous and the actionable. But it tends ultimately to be a hostile one.
