Thirdly, and this was where her essential simplicity again came to the fore, Thatcher never had a long programme. Her prime objectives always sprang from her core beliefs, and these were three or four quite elementary things, such as upholding the rule of law. She fought the 1979 election on this issue, and won her two key union battles, against the miners and the printers, on enforcing the law. Once these were won, the essence of her government had taken shape. "Don't have too many aims," said Thatcher. "Just two or three really big obvious ones, which people know to be true, and just, and worth fighting for. Ronald Reagan held exactly the same view, I was delighted to discover. That's why we got on so well together. And achieved such a lot, come to think of it. After all, ending the Cold War and breaking up the Soviet empire was simple, really, wasn't it? We knew all along it was all wrong, didn't we?"

Thatcher often used the expressions "right" and "wrong". They came naturally to her, and she relished the terms. I never heard her use the word "evil" but I think she enjoyed other people using it, when appropriate, as in Reagan's phrase "the evil empire". She knew that one should never see politics in religious terms, especially in Britain. But she liked to feel that there was an unspoken religious underpinning to basic political principles. "It all ultimately came from Christianity and the Ten Commandments," she said. "Not that one should drag Christianity in all the time — God forbid! In political life you can easily have too much humility, can't you? And don't be too ready to turn the other cheek. There are always plenty of Argies around to take advantage." 

Thatcher believed that there were certain things you could do, and often ought to do, but shouldn't say you were doing them. A good example was "putting the clock back". In a way, that is precisely what she did. She ran a government which in specific respects was reactionary, albeit with a difference. She once used to me a mysterious phrase: "I did Winston's unfinished business." What she meant by this was that, in 1951, when Churchill returned to power, he observed a self-denying ordinance to leave the record of the Attlee government intact, especially on the nationalised industries, the welfare state and trade unions. The decision was due partly to Churchill's tiny majority, partly due to his own inhibitions as a former Liberal pioneer of the welfare state, but chiefly due to his conviction that Parliament had spoken and we must abide by its word.

But by the end of the 1970s, Thatcher argued, Churchill's unspoken agreement could no longer be kept. The unions were above the law and were smashing the country to bits. They had effectively destroyed three governments — Wilson's, Heath's and Callaghan's — and the public sector was grotesquely inefficient, wasteful and out of financial control. The 1979 election could be seen as a national verdict on the Attlee-Churchill consensus, and as its repudiation. Thatcher, therefore, had a real mandate for change.