Margaret Thatcher was as viscerally hated at home as she was warmly respected abroad.
I need to be in charge, and that comes from when I was growing up and money was always an issue. I didn't want to feel the fear of poverty again, and I suppose, in that way, I qualify as Thatcher Youth.
If you're dealing with a powerful leader, you're inevitably going to have a dialogue with her political past. It was always my intention to interrogate Thatcher's political life.
To be honest, if I was going to have any kind of fantasy, be it left-wing or otherwise, it wouldn't involve Margaret Thatcher.
A conveyor belt of Think Tank pundits and allied operatives poured into the TV studios, and together they built a fortress around Mrs. Thatcher's memory that was rooted in theories about economics. They did this because economics is the only language that wonks understand.
I had to live and breathe Margaret Thatcher for a few months. I totally engulfed myself in her life. I read her autobiography and a biography, 'The Grocer's Daughter.'
I don't think the standard of our politicians is very high. And when you get good ones, world-class ones, like a Blair or a Brown or a Thatcher, then they do stand out - they are head and shoulders above everybody else.
Once upon a time, I thought that politics was the name we gave to our higher instincts. That was before Margaret Thatcher, who came to power when I was 11 years old.
I grew up in a very political household. My mum used to shout at the television. At Mrs. Thatcher.