Now we know why there were no Margaret Thatcher tea cups in 1979. The Iron Lady wouldn't have it. When her media adviser, Gordon Reece, said he had been inundated with requests to lend her image to such souvenirs, she swiftly knocked it down: "No ...

High standards, a short temper and a taste for whisky -- Margaret Thatcher's personality is laid bare in secret files released in Britain Wednesday which cover the first few months of her premiership. They reveal that Thatcher refused a guard of 20 "karate ladies" when she visited Japan soon after becoming prime minister in 1979 and personally handled pistols to ...

Britain was desperate for the shah of Iran not to move near London after the 1979 revolution despite previously supporting him, even planning a cloak-and-dagger mission to the Bahamas to put him off. Prime minister Margaret Thatcher was "deeply unhappy" that Britain could not offer sanctuary to a "firm and helpful friend". But her predecessor James Callaghan and officials had ...