Mrs Thatcher's stumble
Sir: As the only Western spectator to witness the incident in Peking, I can assure Robert Cottrell (`Chinese take-away', 30 April) that Mrs Thatcher never 'fell down the steps of the Great Hall of the People'. She missed her footing, dipped a knee, caught herself immediately and moved briskly on. The accompanying Chinese dignitaries either didn't notice or else thought she had performed some obscurely occidental obeisance upon leaving an offi- cial building.
This tiny moment is on my conscience because later that day I mentioned it to some of the Fleet Street press corps, several of whom played it up a bit the next time they filed copy. They didn't have much else to talk about. The whole trip had been a foregone conclusion, as Mr Cottrell so ably explains. He had no need to burnish the point by suggesting that Mrs Thatcher was 'tired and ill'. On the contrary, she ran everybody into the ground. Deng and Zhao ended up looking their age. Her handicap wasn't lack of energy, it was lack of policy.
Clive James
do A.D. Peters, 10 Buckingham Street, London WC2
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