Margaret Thatcher would have handled Brexit negotiations better than Theresa May, House of Cards author Lord Dobbs has claimed.
The novelist said the late Baroness Thatcher would not have brought the UK “anywhere near this mess,” referring to the handling of exit talks.
Lord Dobbs, who is a Conservative peer, worked closely with the former Prime Minister during her time as leader in the 1980s.
He said she would have “sliced through (European Commission) President (Jean-Claude) Juncker with a smile".
The author, whose House of Cards novels inspired TV adaptations in Britain and the US, said Baroness Thatcher would have “put her neck on the line”.
Speaking to the Radio Times, he said: "What would she [Thatcher] have done today as we stagger around in this endless game of blind man's Brexit?
"She would have turned from her famous 'No! No! No!' to 'Now! Now! Now!'," he said.
"She would have sliced through President Juncker with a smile.
"She would have put her neck on the line and risked reputation and career, just as she did with the miners' strike, the Falklands War and the rest.
"Anyway, I can't imagine she would have got us anywhere near this mess in the first place."
Lord Dobbs worked closely with the late Baroness Thatcher during her time in government, although never as an MP.
He held a series of backroom jobs in the Conservative Party and was regarded as a skilled adviser to Baroness Thatcher and former PM John Major.
His trilogy follows the career of an ambitious government whip, Francis Urquhart.
