Thatcher's royal tour

Patrick Bishop

Delhi 'This will not go down well back home,

1 you know,' said one of the boys on the bus last week as we watched Mrs Thatcher sweep grandly along yet another receiving line. 'People don't like it when she pretends to be the Queen.' Mrs Thatcher, one imagines, always had a faintly regal aura, even in Grantham. It has got stronger as the years have passed. When she goes abroad the wattage is boosted. Last week you frequently had to remind yourself that you were supposed to be a political reporter, not a court corres- Pondent. In fact many of the stories that emerged from the trip were classics of the royal watchers' trade (Moody Mahathir Snubs Thatcher: Maggie Health Fear Shock). As with our monarch, fantastically Mundane events assume the proportions of a major news story. It is difficult to imagine a coughing fit by Jim Callaghan throwing the Press corps into a frenzy. South Asian governments 'do little to help matters with their extravagant use of honorifics. The illusion is completed by benis, inching respectfully along two paces behind. Somehow the process has affected him too. He has developed the ducal habit of clasping his hands behind his back.

It is more than a mere question of style Or mannerism. Mrs Thatcher acted throughout the trip less as Britain's repre- sentative than as its embodiment. 'Look,' she was saying to her hosts. 'I've turned the Company round. They're all like me now.'

She showed more optimism than sense in supposing that any of them believe her. They have only to look in at the local

Intercontinental to test the truth of her assertion. In all likelihood the lobby will be thronged with purposeful, squash-playing American, Japanese and French sales- men. Our man? He is the middle-aged Chap in the Captain's Cabin bar with the double-breasted blazer and the large gin and tonic. The chippy Dr Mahathir of Malaysia apart, all the heads of the seven states she visited were full of genuine admiration for Mrs Thatcher. But like Watkins and Worsthorne they know that Thatcherism has not changed the British People. Their hunch is that behind the Iron lady stands the same army of lead- swingers as before. Dr Mahathir took some Pleasure in making this point when he listened for three days to Mrs Thatcher's embarraisingly fulsome sales pitch for Brit- ish goods, then flew off to Sweden to sign a trade and technology co-operation deal with Olof Palme.

Not, her officials insisted, that this was a vulgar exercise in state-salesmanship such as the French go in for where hordes of businessmen ride in the presidential slip- stream. It is just as well. It does not seem very likely that much in the way of hard orders was generated by the tour. So why did Mrs Thatcher go? Leaving aside drum- banging, the boys on the bus had two interpretations.

The uncharitable one is that she has exhausted the possibilities for bossing peo- ple

about in Britain and is now hoping to do it on a global scale. The other view (propotinded chiefly by the chivalrous James MacManus of the Daily Telegraph) is that this magnificent woman has simply taken an admirable and entirely alutristic interest in the wellbeing of the world outside her realm. Interpretations of Mrs Thatcher's thinking obviously depend to an extent on what you think of her. The popular idea is that you either love her or hate her. On the evidence of this trip I would say it is possible to do both. The Prime Minister blossoms when abroad. The hectoring martinet of parliamentary question time is forgotten. She makes jokes, although as with most prime minis- ters they tend to be of a feeble and self-regarding nature.

She seems genuinely affectionate to- wards the Commonwealth countries and their leaders (excluding perhaps Dr Mahathir). She shows a touching desire to say the right thing, larding the formula speech with gushing references to the beauty of the landscape, the industry and intelligence of its people and wisdom of its political leaders. Abroad, Maggie wants to be loved. As usual, she takes it all a little too far. It is a bit much to paint Malaysia as a beacon of freedom when the papers are full of reports of policemen breaking up meetings of workers whose factory is threatened with closure and a sign on the way to the airport warns of a mandatory death sentence for drug smugglers.

A British diplomat thought so too. 'She has really gone too far,' he sighed as Mrs Thatcher continued to list Malaysia's vir- tues at a banquet one night. 'Shut up,' said his companion. 'They love it.' He was right. South Asian politicians seem to expect you to go over the top. With Mrs Thatcher it comes naturally, expecially in the case of Lee Kuan Yew. Hattersley's jibe about her chumminess with the Sing- aporean premier produced roars of outrage from a prominent member of Mrs Thatch- er's party, which admittedly outrages easi- ly. How could he say this in the knowledge that for years Lee and Harold Wilson were golf partners?

The Prime Minister really does not like the Labour Party. It would not have done her any harm to let the mood of friendship infect her speech at the opening of the Victoria Dam in Sri Lanka and give a bit of credit to the Callaghan administration for starting the British involvement in the project, credit which was certainly due. She was given ample opportunity to do so at the press conference afterwards but stuck rigidly and illogically to the line that it was a Tory achievement, untainted by association with the socialists. This is where the royal comparisons start to fall apart. Throughout the trip there was a feeling that the spirit of hubris hovered over Mrs Thatcher.

Nemesis appeared to have struck when the cold she had been fighting off for two days looked as if it would cut short her address to the Sri Lankan parliament, which Mrs Thatcher would undoubtedly have regarded as an unacceptable loss of face. Sniffing and croaking, though, she bravely stumbled through.

As for the dangers involved in her unbuttoned remarks about the miners' strike, it was impossible to tell at that range what the damage — if any — had been in Britain. A brief moment of disquiet de- scended on the party in Indonesia but had evaporated long before we arrived in India.

At the time of writing I am ignorant of the outcome of Tuesday afternoon's Prime Minis&r's Questions in the House. I should think she wiped the floor with them.

Patrick Bishop is on the staff of the Sunday Times.