Thatcher on Acid. My part in her downfall.

With the current beatification and media frenzy over the iron lady reaching Thatchuration point (I’ve been waiting for years to use that one) I thought it would be a good time to publish my own tale of direct disrespect of the Milk Snatcher. I’m being purposefully vague about the details to avoid self-incrimination but apart from that this is a factual account.

Thatcher on Acid

In which I devise and execute a plan to administer a powerful hallucinogenic drugs to our un-esteemed ex-prime minister.

Some years ago, strangely enough, my company was responsible for designing and building the website for The Spectator. The Spectator (for the benefit of the non-Brits) is the journal of the UK conservative intelligencia (sic) specializing in literature, comment, satire and gossip. Every year the Spectator held a garden party at their headquarters, a Georgian terraced house in Doughty Street, London. This party is a well-established part of the annual social circuit for a certain strata of the media and political establishment and wouldn’t ever consider allowing the likes of myself access – however I was repeatedly invited to the party by a certain senior staff member whose intentions were far from platonic (let’s call her ‘P’), and smuggled past the security guards.

The experience of growing up as one of Thatcher’s children (are we now Thatcher’s orphans?) in the north of England during the late seventies and early eighties left me with an intense loathing for the woman; unemployment, the miners strike, Falklands war, Poll Tax, privatisation, financial deregulation, class warfare, foreign policy etc, etc, the list of crimes is well documented elsewhere – I developed a loathing mixed with a dream of revenge…

As chance would have it, a random triangulation of events dropped an unmissable opportunity into my hands.

First of all, ‘P’ informed me in a moment of inebriated candidness that for the first time Margaret Thatcher would be attending the Spectator party and that I should keep a low profile and certainly not causes trouble or embarrassment – as if! *

Secondly, after one of our companies legendary parties, we discovered during a half-hearted clean-up, a small bottle of liquid in the fridge. A series of random tastings determined that the bottle contained extremely potent LSD – a small drop was enough to keep you in a Leary-like state for twelve hours.

My mind immediately, automatically, conceived of the plan; what if I was to spike the Brass Baroness with a strong dose of Lysergic Psychadelics during the Spectator party? Would it not be consummate justice to have images of the Grocer’s Daughter gibbering, crawling and screaming, experiencing the Best Bad Trip Ever, transmitted around the world? (not to mention the priceless soundbites I could capture on a concealed recorder…)

And so it was that, with no planning or preparation, I set off to Doughty Street with the little bottle (Drink me!), Knowing full well that if my plan worked I was likely to disappear from society for a very long time – I would have been prime suspect amongst the Tory Party stalwarts, without doubt.

The party was already in full swing when I arrived –Tories are as fond of getting lashed as any council estate ‘chav’ (they just get it free on expenses or deduct it from their tax bill) – tonight was no exception. This blurry bonhomie provided a suitable smokescreen to effectuate my plan. Laid out in the front room was a reception table for the Ironic Lady replete with several Methuselahs of champagne. I swiftly purloined one of these bottles and took it to the bathroom (a small room just at the top of the stairs), uncorked it as quietly as I could and poured the acid into the bottle.

Just as I had finished my preparations I heard the front door open and a chorus of plummy Tory voices hurrahing and applauding. The great Leaderess had arrived too soon!

This is where it all started to go wrong; In my haste to get downstairs and the bottle back on the table I violently opened the bathroom door. To my mixed horror and hilarity Norman Lamont, who had been patiently waiting for me to vacate the toilet was knocked down the stairs, cart-wheeling into the uxorious Cecil Parkinson sending a tray of champagne flying, missing the back of the ex-Premiere’s head by inches.

Thatcher, completely oblivious to the chaos enfolding behind her, rapidly worked the room and was gone in five minutes with a flurry of minders and press photographers  – without even touching any of the champagne she was proffered. I placed the tainted bottle back on the table and left the party.

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*It has to be said that this was a bit rich considering that this was the ‘Sextator’ era, to borrow Boris Johnson’s phrase: David Blunkett’s affair and illegitimate child by the magazine’s publisher, BJ’s similar misdeeds, not to mention a string of affairs, drunkenness and general debauchery were considered standard, if not compulsory within the Spectator family