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Family Values Best Left At Home

Sunday Post - 29.08.04

There can be few things more emasculating for a son than to have Margaret Thatcher for a mother. The woman was often described as having 'more balls' than the rest of the cabinet put together, was intimidating enough from a distance. Imagine trying to compete with that kind of machismo from your own mother. It is not hard to see why Mark Thatcher hit upon his first calamitous African adventure, the ill fated Paris to Dakar rally of 1982, which culminated in him having to be rescued from the Sahara. He was then 28 with few qualifications and a woeful employment record. Racing a motor car across continents must have seemed like a relatively easy way to prove he had some balls of his own. How humiliating then to have the world watch as disaster struck and dad had to be dispatched (mum, of course, was running the country) to bring home the prodigal son.

Whatever the truth of the current allegations surrounding Mark Thatcher he has proved a consistently controversial figure in the twenty years since his escape from the desert. Moving from business to business with constant questions about the suitability of his contacts and the source of his finances Mark Thatcher has found it impossible to replicate the commercial success of his father or earn anything approaching the respect due to his mother. No doubt his business dealings have been more closely scrutinised than most because of his mother's position but it has been her reaction to him which has particularly fascinated us perhaps more than any other aspect of this family soap opera.

In Margaret Thatcher's rather dewy-eyed adoration of Mark we saw susceptibility in the iron lady which seemed to contradict her public image. Even her detractors admired her strength so it was intriguing to glimpse something of her indulgences toward Mark. Perhaps she felt guilty? The paradox for any politician who advocates 'family values' is that in order to find a high profile platform to preach those views its likely that their own family will be neglected along the way. When having to defend her son's various scrapes over the years it would only have been human for Thatcher to have asked herself if there wasn't more she could have done for him as a child?

Unfortunately it was Margaret Thatcher's election as Prime Minister in 1979 that marked a change in our political culture so that now politicians feel more compelled than ever before to make their families part of their selling point. No one exemplifies this modern trend better than Tony Blair (except when it suits him not to) but it was those early pictures of Thatcher at home with Dennis and the twins that proved how potent the imagery can be. Until then Margaret Thatcher had been the "milk snatcher" but photographed with her family around the kitchen table she became 'one of us', a wife and mother whose 'housewifely' approach to economics helped convince a somewhat sceptical public to place their trust in her.

Back then it must have seemed like an original gimmick worth trying, something to differentiate Thatcher from the bachelor who had preceded her as Tory leader and the rather grey opponent she faced in Jim Callaghan. But in the 25 years that have passed politicians have increasingly made a rod for their own backs in courting public popularity by parading us their spouses and children. It is increasingly difficult for them to ask for privacy when they have so often invited cameras and journalists into their homes. Quite rightly we dismiss Tony Blair's suggestion that decisions about the MME injection is a private one when he sends out a family photo as his official Christmas card.

But it is also clear that talented politicians now feel automatically disadvantaged if they don't have a media friendly family on tap. We know that Gordon Brown's career might have been different if he had married earlier and that the last four Conservative leaders have all been under pressure to sell us images of domesticity that their talented, attractive but nevertheless shy wives have resented. Having an accident prone son like Mark Thatcher makes great copy for journalists but more importantly should remind politicians that family values start at home and families are probably best left at home. We would be less interested in your partners and children as long as you mean what you say, say what you mean and get the job done.

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