Margaret Thatcher had two extramarital affairs, new book claims

Margaret Thatcher had two extramarital affairs, a new book has claimed.

The former prime minister is said to have enjoyed an “extracurricular friendship” with a close aide who would touch her knee during dinners, while also having two affairs throughout her life.

Tina Gaudoin’s new book, The Incidental Feminist, claims that the Iron Lady had an affair early in her career as an MP and a separate affair with another politician.

Ms Gaudoin cited multiple sources who told her that Baroness Thatcher was involved with somebody else “very early on in her parliamentary career”. She was then “quite possibly” involved later with Sir Humphrey Atkins, the MP for Spelthorne, the author claimed.

According to The Times, Ms Gaudoin told the Cheltenham Literature Festival during a discussion about her book that she was told: “The joke about Atkins was that for someone who was not very good, he kept getting promoted. Now why was that?”

Sir Humphrey was chief whip under Edward Heath when the Conservatives were in opposition, and then Northern Ireland secretary from 1979 to 1981. He was married to Margaret Spencer-Nairn and had four children, and died in 1996.

One source cited by Ms Gaudoin was former Conservative minister Jonathan Aitken. Asked about the affair with Sir Humphrey, Mr Aitken said: “There were knowledgeable rumours to that effect at the time. His good looks might have appealed to her, but his political brain was hopeless.”

Sources reportedly told her that Baroness Thatcher’s PR chief Lord Bell had an “extracurricular friendship” with the PM, and “one of her favourite things” was Lord Bell putting his hand on her knee “and other stuff” during dinners.

In her book, she wrote that Lord Bell was “unlikely to have got to what the Americans delicately term ‘third base’ (or even first or second)”.

Lord Moore, who wrote Baroness Thatcher’s autobiography, told The Times he had seen “no evidence to support” the Atkins rumour.

“I have heard the Atkins rumour in the past… My own sense is that it is vanishingly unlikely. I have never before heard the Tim Bell rumour. Again, I think it vanishingly unlikely,” he said.

At the Cheltenham event, Ms Gaudoin said Baroness Thatcher was “normalising female power”.

“There is an element amongst women that really don’t like her just because they don’t like her. I think we owe her a great debt actually,” she said.

She added: “A lot of people I spoke to said that she [Thatcher] was far more sexy in person than she appeared to be.

“A lot of people said that when she entered the room there was a definite frisson.”