BBC’s love-in with Thatcher continues

LAST UPDATED AT 08:57 ON Mon 23 Feb 2009

Is the BBC's supposedly hostile attitude to Baroness Thatcher softening? On Thursday the Beeb will broadcast a documentary about the former Tory Prime Minister's last days in power, Thatcher, a drama in which the Iron Lady is said to be portrayed sympathetically, and now the corporation have made public a series of flattering documents about her to coincide with the programme.

One of the never-before-seen memos, which date back to 1957 before Thatcher was an MP, includes one to the head of women's programmes on why the Tory candidate for Finchley should be on television. It said: "Mrs Thatcher is 30-ish though I suspect she could pose for much younger, very pretty, and dresses most attractively. Very feminine. As one would expect of a barrister she is clear, concise, assembles her thoughts well. Her main charm was that she does not look like a career woman."

Two years later, as the new MP for Finchley, she was recommended as a panellist on Any Questions? by Archie Gordon the head of radio current affairs. He had first met her as Margaret Roberts, a candidate in Dartford in the 1951 election. "You should certainly use her for Any Questions? with no reservations."

The collection of documents also include a series of long-forgotten television and radio interviews with Thatcher charting her gradual transformation from suburban housewife to a major player on the world stage as the Iron Lady by the end of the 1970s. It includes an interview in which she talks about her make-up routine, why she would never wear jeans and how she loved Morecambe and Wise on television.

In one programme, she is introduced as: "Margaret Thatcher... the epitome of the Tory Lady; considerate, charming, well groomed, well mannered and with a nice line of hats."

It was on the The World This Weekend in May 1971, when she was praised for her hats, that she said: "I don't think that in my lifetime there will be a woman Prime Minister. I am always a realist." Eight years later she'd moved into Downing Street.

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