What is it we are hating? It goes beyond politics. I suppose that my fascination with [Margaret Thatcher] is not just with her political record but with her as a phenomenon.

[Margaret Thatcher] said there was no thing such as society. This is what I find so interesting psychologically. Where did she come from? She had no mother. Her father came from a very identifiable background: religious, highly conformist.

[Margaret] Thatcher could fake her class background, but she couldn't fake the quality of her mind.

She is very plain. What does Henry see in her?'" "He thinks she's stupid. He finds it restful.

Cravats grow higher, as if they mean to protect the throat. The highest cravats in public life will be worn by Citizen Antoine Saint-Just, of the National Convention and the Committee of Public Safety. In the dark and harrowing days of '94, an obscene feminine inversion will appear: a thin crimson ribbon, worn round a bare white neck.

The worship of Thomas More goes beyond Catholics.

I think psychologically [Margaret Thatcher] is really worth studying. I am reading Charles Moore's biography of her, and he has gotten us right there with a woman who lived the unexamined life, and lived it deliberately, and who has contempt for history, even her own.