Margaret Thatcher was briefed by civil servants when she was prime minister that punk was “the most extreme form of ‘pop’ rebellion” and had peaked under the previous Labour government, newly released private papers reveal.
Thatcher was also told before a 1987 interview with the teenage pop magazine Smash Hits that punk was “a very basic musical style featuring a strange bunch of anti-establishment acts, the most famous of which were the Sex Pistols, with songs such as God Save the Queen and Anarchy in the UK”.
Her official briefing paper, released by the Margaret Thatcher Foundation, added that punk was popular for a while but died out after the Sex Pistols split up in 1978, to be replaced “by the current technological musical era featuring computers, synthesisers and videos”.
The Downing Street press office briefing for the interview in February 1987 included the ominous warning: “You may not enjoy this interview. Mr Hibbert (Smash Hits’ deputy editor) may ask superficial questions which betray a lack of understanding. The challenge of the interview will be for you to demonstrate that just because you are not part of the pop scene, you are still in touch with youngsters and understand their needs.”
‘She’s keeled over again’
Thatcher was always prone to fainting, according to Chris Collins, the historian of the foundation. In the autumn of 1987, rumours about her health started after she left the annual royal reception for the diplomatic corps 20 minutes early because she felt faint and went to bed a little earlier than usual.
Thatcher is reputed to have fainted at her first meeting with the Queen many years before and, according to Robert Hardman’s 2011 book Our Queen, the monarch was said to have remarked on this occasion in 1987: “Oh look, she’s keeled over again.”
‘Bad enough to cry’
The Downing Street press office was inundated with complaints after an appearance by Thatcher, a chemist by training, on a BBC children’s science programme in January 1987.
The programme, Take Nobody’s Word for It, with Prof Ian Fells of Newcastle University, was designed to demonstrate basic chemistry and the then prime minister was required to provide a recipe that could be tried at home. Unfortunately the bread recipe Thatcher offered did not prove to be foolproof.
Downing Street was inundated with letters of complaint from people who had tried Thatcher’s bread. One complained it was “just like chewing gum” and another wrote that it was “was bad enough to cry”. To their relief Fells agreed to take over the correspondence.
