Weird T Shirts Biography
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Former PM was a human, at times vulnerable, figure who nonetheless understood how to use her sex to succeed, says Charles Moore
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Charlotte Higgins
The Guardian, Tuesday 20 August 2013 19.09 BST
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Charles Moore's authorised biography of Margaret Thatcher
Charles Moore's authorised biography of Margaret Thatcher. The former Telegraph editor was given access to her papers and hitherto unseen early correspondence. Photograph: Steve Parsons/PA
Those who described Lady Thatcher after her death as "not really a woman" or "inhuman" were "really wide of the mark", according to the late prime minister's biographer, Charles Moore.
The former editor of the Daily Telegraph, who was given access to Thatcher's papers and hitherto unseen early correspondence with her "much more formidable" sister, Muriel, said that far from being a "weird machine" Thatcher was a human, at times vulnerable, figure for whom her sex was central.
"She was having it both ways," he told the Edinburgh international book festival. "And why not? That is part of the way you succeed. Part of her understanding of her own sex was that you must break the rules.
"You mustn't get stuck in what men expect you to do. If you want to conquer men, do it in the cleverest way. And the cleverest way is not to say: 'I am a woman, I am a woman, I am a woman, I am a feminist.'"
On the 2011 Hollywood film about Thatcher, The Iron Lady, Moore said: "I thought it was bad, unkind to make a film about a living person who is senile, depicting her as senile. And its political aspect was probably fundamentally quite hostile to her.
"But when I went to see it I realised that … this was good propaganda about Margaret Thatcher because it comes to the human point. It gave you a sense of the cost of everything to her … which was rather touching."
On Thatcher's performance in the male-run Westminster of the 1970s and 80s, he said: "Everything with Margaret Thatcher was to do with working hard.
"It was partly to do with her sex. She noticed that men could wing it and bluff and that's how they often got on in politics. Whereas she had to know more than anyone else in any given situation, or she would otherwise be vulnerable."
He added: "In order to understand why she enjoyed being prime minister so much – imagine you were prime minister and all your cabinet were [members of the opposite sex]. It would be unbelievably exciting to go in every day and be in command.
"This meant a tremendous sexual encounter, but it all worked very well because she was a completely proper person. It meant there was a fantastic electricity all the time."
Moore's first volume of Margaret Thatcher: the Authorised Biography was published in April, shortly after the former prime minister's death at age 87.
Reviewing the book for the Guardian, Andy Beckett wrote: "Moore has exploited [his] unique access with thoroughness and skill; but a sense of the British establishment granting favours to one of its own hangs over this book, and is never quite dispelled."
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