Margaret Thatcher 'had two affairs' while married to husband Denis, new book claims

Former prime minister Margaret Thatcher had two extramarital affairs while married to her husband Denis, according to a new book.

The Iron Lady, who died in 2013 aged 87, previously described her partner of half a century as “the golden thread running through my life”.

But a searing biography of Mrs Thatcher by veteran journalist Tina Gaudoin makes bombshell claims about her private life.

The Incidental Feminist was released last month to coincide with Mrs Thatcher’s 100th birthday and claims she was unfaithful to Dennis on two separate occasions.

Margaret Thatcher with husband Denis outside Downing Street before offering her resignation as prime minister to the Queen (PA)

According to The Times, Mrs Thatcher’s first alleged affair occurred shortly after she was elected as the Member of Parliament for Finchley in 1959.

She was then reportedly unfaithful to Dennis, whom she married in 1951, with former chief whip and Northern Ireland secretary Sir Humphrey Atkins.

Jonathan Aitken, the former chief secretary to the Treasury, told the Cheltenham Literature Festival last Saturday: “His good looks might have appealed to her, but his political brain was hopeless.”

Mrs Gaudoin also claims that Denis struck up a close friendship with model Mandy Rice-Davies, one of the main figures in the Profumo scandal, after the Thatchers left Downing Street.

Sources claim that Margaret Thatcher had an ‘extracurricular friendship’ with her public relations guru Lord Bell (Getty Images)

The author claims that Denis struck up a close friendship with model Mandy Rice-Davies, a figure in the Profumo scandal (Ben Jones/Rex Features)

“A lot of people I spoke to said that she (Mrs Thatcher) was far more sexy in person than she appeared to be,” Mrs Gaudoin said. “A lot of people said that when she entered the room there was a definite frisson.”

Further sources told Mrs Gaudoin that Mrs Thatcher had an “extracurricular friendship” with her public relations guru Lord Bell.

This included Lord Bell placing his hand on her knee “and other stuff” during dinner receptions, which had reportedly been “one of her favourite things”,

“He was unlikely to have got to what the Americans delicately term ‘third base’ (or even first or second),” Mrs Gaudoin writes.

Lord Moore, who wrote an authorised biography of Mrs Thatcher, said: “I have heard the Atkins rumour in the past, but there is no evidence that I have ever seen to support it.”

Elsewhere during her Cheltenham talk, Mrs Gaudoin argued that Mrs Thatcher was not anti-feminist and she helped women by “normalising female power”.