The late Queen was the “only person in the world Margaret Thatcher was afraid of,” a former political editor of The Times has revealed.
Julian Haviland, who worked for the paper between 1981 and 1986, told how Mrs Thatcher, who was Prime Minister during the 1980s, drank a large whiskey or two before her weekly audience with Her Majesty to calm her nerves.
Mr Haviland spoke in an interview with Times Radio broadcast this morning, taped just weeks before his death earlier this month at the age of 93.
He also revealed how the Queen was ‘appalled’ by the Battle of Orgreave and described the violent clashes between mounted police and striking miners in 1984 as ‘appalling’.
The retired journalist recalled interviewing Mrs Thatcher in Downing Street and being struck by the amount of whiskey she drank.
The late Queen was the “only person in the world Margaret Thatcher was afraid of,” a former political editor of The Times has revealed. Pictured: The pair in Zambia for the 1979 Commonwealth Conference
When she was done, she took an extremely large whiskey. Margaret had quite the capacity,’ he said.
He added that he believed she had just started before he left. He told his boss, Charles Douglas-Home, the editor of The Times at the time, that he thought it was because he had ‘shaken her up a bit’.
But Douglas-Home said she thought she was drinking because she was about to see the Queen.
“It was 5 p.m. Tuesday and her next engagement was her weekly audience with the Queen,” Haviland said.
The only person in the world Margaret Thatcher feared was the Queen. That’s why she drank a lot.’
Speaking of his claims about the Queen’s reaction to the confrontations between the police and miners, Mr Haviland said: “The Queen was watching the television and when the horses rode through some of the miners and knocked some of them down, the Queen said words ( in the sense of: or) “Oh, that’s terrible! Oh, we shouldn’t do that.”
“And for the Queen to make such a political remark was news.”
Julian Haviland, who worked for the paper between 1981 and 1986, told how Mrs Thatcher, who was Prime Minister during the 1980s, drank a large whiskey or two before her weekly audience with Her Majesty to calm her nerves. Pictured: The Queen and Mrs Thatcher in Downing Street with former Prime Ministers James Callaghan, Alec Douglas-Home, Harold Macmillan, Harold Wilson and Edward Heath in 1985, during festivities marking the 250th anniversary of number 10 as the official residence of the Prime Minister
Violence broke out between 10,000 police officers and 5,000 picketing miners at a British Steel coking plant near Rotherham in a battle that saw nearly 100 miners charged.
The interventions of the mounted police resulted in 123 injuries during one of the most controversial moments of the miners’ strikes of the 1980s.
Mr Haviland said his story was not published after advising it would incriminate his source – because there were only two other people in the room when the Queen spoke.
Prosecution of all 95 miners charged collapsed after concerns arose over police statements.
Mrs Thatcher and Her Majesty are believed to have had a rocky relationship, despite the Prime Minister being an arch-royalist.
Documentary maker Michael Cockerell previously told how they ‘put each other on the wrong track’.
While Mrs Thatcher always showed up fifteen minutes early for her weekly audience with the Queen, Her Majesty made her wait just that time rather than admitting her earlier.
According to Hello! Mrs Thatcher, the magazine’s former royal editor Judy Wade, once instructed an aide to ring Buckingham Palace on the day she and the Queen were due to attend the same evening.
Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher at Lord Mountbatten’s memorial service in 1983
Mrs Thatcher and Her Majesty are believed to have had a rocky relationship, despite the Prime Minister being an arch-royalist
The prime minister would be concerned about wearing a dress similar to the monarch. But the ‘scathing’ response from the royal aides was that Mrs Thatcher should not worry, because ‘the Queen never notices what other women are wearing’.
In 1986, The Sunday Times reported that Mrs Thatcher’s social policies caused “dismay” in the Queen, adding that the Prime Minister’s perceived negative attitude towards the Commonwealth had also caused unease.
Michael Shea, the Queen’s press secretary, was blamed for the story, which Her Majesty was reportedly shocked by.
He was later forced to sit next to Mrs Thatcher at a dinner at Holyrood House, where he apologised.
While she told him not to worry, Shea left his role soon after.
Mr Cockerell said his departure was ‘the way these things are done by the palace’, although the aide denied his departure had anything to do with the controversy.