You have to spend your political capital on great causes for your country.

So that was Reagan's political problem. As a rancher in California, he was an environmentalist himself. But the President of the United States doesn't control everything that happens in Washington.

Like all of us, there were many facets to Margaret Thatcher's personality. In private she was kind, thoughtful, charming. Very attentive to her interlocutors. She took time to be concerned - she knew all about my children and wife Mila and so on.

I am not denying anything I did not say.

And look, I was a big, brassy guy who won and won big. I did what I wanted.

We decided that the environment was an integral part of our policies and the political thrust of our government. We gave it the priority and we sustained it with the money required to make it happen.

First, President Reagan was not enthusiastic. But I built up a relationship with him in other areas and then persuaded him that this was important to us and to me, and that we had to at least be in the process of looking at this seriously.