Overview

• Tina Gaudoin’s book The Incidental Feminist asserts Margaret Thatcher had two extramarital relationships during her political career.
• One alleged relationship names Sir Humphrey Atkins during her premiership, while another is said to date to the start of her parliamentary career in 1959.
• The biography also describes a flirtatious rapport with PR chief Tim (Lord) Bell, framed as an “extracurricular friendship.”
• Thatcher’s official biographer, Charles (Lord) Moore, says he found no conclusive proof and deems the Bell allegation very unlikely.
• Gaudoin says her accounts draw on interviews and longstanding rumors, including conversations with former minister Jonathan Aitken, after an initial presentation at the Cheltenham Literature Festival reported by The Times.