On November 22, 1990, Margaret Thatcher resigned as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Six days later, she was replaced by her Chancellor of the Exchequer, John Major. Thirty years on, I still remember hearing of Thatcher’s resignation on the radio. Like many people in what was then Eastern Europe, I could not make any sense of it (though, in my defense, I was only 14 years old). In my native Czechoslovakia, which only a year earlier saw the end of communism, Thatcher enjoyed the status of a demi-God. Stylish and staunchly anti-communist, she was credited – along with the Pope John Paul II and the U.S. President Ronald Reagan – with defeating socialism (a temporary victory, as it turned out). How on Earth, could the British people be so ungrateful? I am sure lots of people throughout the world felt the same way about Winston Churchill’s defeat in the 1945 election. Of course, the British people in general and the Conservative Party politicians who forced Thatcher’s resignation in particular, had their reasons for dumping the Prime Minister. Still, the memory lives on – fresh as ever.

Ten years later, I found myself at a London dinner with the great Lady — now ennobled as Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven in the County of Lincolnshire – in attendance. I was on my way to Washington, D.C. to start my professional life as a Cato scholar. The dinner was organized by my friend Roger Bate from the American Enterprise Institute. Lots of other friends were present, including Richard Tren (now at the Searle Freedom Trust) and Veronique de Rugy from the Mercatus Center. At some point during the dinner, I plucked up the courage to say “hello” to the former Prime Minister. My Eastern European accent quickly betrayed my exotic origins. Upon hearing that I was from Czechoslovakia, the Baroness visibly perked up (no doubt, she knew how popular she remained in ex-communist countries). I told her “The communists really hated you and, therefore, we loved you.” She laughed, gave me one of those “eyes of Caligula” looks and said “GOOD!” I am sorry I never saw her again, though Conor Burns, one of my Scottish friends who is a Conservative Member of Parliament for Bournemouth West, has done a good job telling me about her last years – they grew very close toward the end of her life.

I was reminded of Margaret Thatcher again, while watching the fourth season of the Crown (I love and hate it at the same time, but that’s another story). The American audience might find it unbelievable that Thatcher kept making dinner for her husband Denis and ironed his clothes (she loved ironing), while putting in 14 hours a day toward liberalizing the British economy, defeating communism and winning the Falklands War. That, at least, is completely true. Years after I met Thatcher in London, I had a drink with the deliciously named Barry Potter, who was the Prime Minister’s Private Secretary in 1990. During the night before her resignation, while Potter and his colleagues were busy drafting the Prime Minister’s speech for the confidence vote called by the opposition Labour Party for the next day, Thatcher apologized to her staff for keeping them late. She then said, “You must be starving.” With those words, she went to the upstairs flat at No. 10 Downing Street, and cooked everyone dinner. They don’t make them like that anymore…