Not even Diana’s thigh-high skirt made up for her being such an airhead: Withering verdict of LORD BELL, Lady Thatcher’s favourite ad man 

In yesterday's Daily Mail, advertising guru Tim Bell gave a vivid description of the fateful moment when Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet lieutenants turned on her.

Today, in our serialisation of his deliciously gossipy political memoirs, he delivers some suitably waspish pen-portraits of the many colourful international figures he met.

President Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan immediately struck you with his conspicuous physical presence. He was huge. He dominated the space around him. Yet the thing that singled out both him and Margaret Thatcher was their sense of a single-minded vision.

Neither was motivated by the rewards nor the power from the title. They just had this absolute determination to make their respective nations the greatest in the world.

Firm friends: President Ronald Reagan and Lady Thatcher during the annual G7 Summit in Toronto

Firm friends: President Ronald Reagan and Lady Thatcher during the annual G7 Summit in Toronto

They got on astonishingly well together — he’d send her informal messages when he knew she was feeling the strain, such as during the miners’ strike and after IRA atrocities — although the idea that they were in each other’s pocket is ridiculous.

One occasion in particular demonstrated that. In 1983, there’d been a violent Marxist coup on the Caribbean island of Grenada — which is a member of the Commonwealth — and Reagan decided enough was enough.

So, ignoring international law, he agreed to a major U.S. armed deployment to restore order. I think he never fully understood the significance of the Commonwealth and the fact that the Queen was Grenada’s head of state — which meant he was effectively invading one of her sovereign territories.

President Reagan and Margaret Thatcher dance during the final state dinner of Reagan's presidency at the White House in Washington,  1988

President Reagan and Margaret Thatcher dance during the final state dinner of Reagan's presidency at the White House in Washington, 1988

That night — ironically — Margaret had been at a dinner in honour of the U.S. Ambassador in London. And when she heard what Reagan had done, she blew up. She came over and said: ‘Tim. Go to the study. Immediately.’ I wondered what the hell had happened. When I met her there, she said: ‘Can you believe what he’s done? Ron has invaded Grenada. Well, what are we going to do about it?’

I said: ‘I haven’t the faintest idea. I think you think I’m Geoffrey Howe.’ (He was Foreign Secretary at the time). They then found Howe and the Defence Secretary, Michael Heseltine, neither of whom had the foggiest notion of what was happening.

I think at about one in the morning she called Reagan and had a right old rant and rave at him. Indeed, for quite a while after that, she really sulked with him. She started going around saying the Americans were getting as bad as the Soviet Union. ‘After all I’ve done for that man (Reagan)’, she’d say.

It became so bad that the Americans began to hit back at us, claiming that we were being unsupportive and that she was being ‘prissy’.

So after a while, she had to cool down and try to rebuild bridges — which she did as chairman of the G7, when the French and Canadian leaders were whinging about U.S. economic policy, and she came to Reagan’s defence.

She later whispered to Reagan that they would never hurt her because ‘women know when men are being childish’.

It signalled that the two of them were strong again.

Diana, Princess of Wales

By the time I met Diana, Princess of Wales in 1993, she’d already built herself a career as a tragic figure, working at it with public relations people and sharp lawyers.

My friend Gordon Reece, one of Margaret Thatcher’s closest advisers, was completely infatuated with her — she turned him into a puppy dog — and wanted to become her publicist. But I never had much time for Diana myself.

The problem was that she fancied the privileges of being the Princess of Wales, but not the sacrifices and responsibilities.

Gordon Reece, one of Margaret Thatcher’s closest advisers, was completely infatuated with Diana, Princess of Wales. Tim Bell thought that she was a complete bimbo. Here Mrs Thatcher pays obeisance watched by James Billington, the Librarian of Congress in Washington DC

Gordon Reece, one of Margaret Thatcher’s closest advisers, was completely infatuated with Diana, Princess of Wales. Tim Bell thought that she was a complete bimbo. Here Mrs Thatcher pays obeisance watched by James Billington, the Librarian of Congress in Washington DC

And when it became apparent that she couldn’t be a Disney princess all the time, she behaved like a sulking brat, doing that weepy Panorama interview with Martin Bashir and destabilising various foolish married men who should have had the sense to keep their distance.

In the late Nineties, I had dinner with her, courtesy of Gordon Reece at his flat.

Also there were John Wakeham, then chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, and his wife Alison, who had got herself into such a muddle that she’d put on one black shoe and one dark blue shoe, so she spent the whole evening trying to sit with her feet hidden.

Diana made her entrance in big heels and a short skirt. She was very tall with very long legs and very vain. I thought she looked like a horse. As she was sitting down, she took a cushion from the sofa and held it on her lap, feigning coyness, pretending that she didn’t want a Sharon Stone moment. But then, why had she dressed like that in the first place?

Diana made her entrance in big heels and a short skirt. She was very tall with very long legs and very vain. I thought she looked like a horse. As she was sitting down, she took a cushion from the sofa and held it on her lap, feigning coyness, pretending that she didn’t want a Sharon Stone moment. But then, why had she dressed like that in the first place?

The four of us waited downstairs for Diana’s car to arrive. Then she made her entrance from above, in big heels and a short skirt. The gentlemen tried to be polite and not look upwards as she tottered down the stairs.

She was very tall — with very long legs — and very vain. I thought she looked like a horse.

As Diana was sitting down, she took one of the cushions from the sofa and held it on her lap, feigning coyness, pretending that she didn’t want a Sharon Stone moment. But then, why oh why had she dressed like that in the first place?

That was her way: a kind of provocative false modesty, which I found rather unattractive because it was so choreographed — like the way she tilted her head and looked up through her eyelashes.

I barely spoke all night, which I think she found disagreeable, in the way that women who are almost invariably fawned over react badly when they find it’s not happening.

Frankly, I couldn’t make myself interested in her banal air-headedness. Most of the evening she just talked about herself and her clothes and things that had little relevance to any of us there.

Except, of course, to Gordon, who remained in a dream-like state.

George Carey

George Carey would have had a better time if he had stopped going on about gay and women priests

George Carey would have had a better time if he had stopped going on about gay and women priests

One day, a friend rang me up and told me the Archbishop of Canterbury — then George Carey — was having a bit of trouble. Apparently, a Sunday newspaper had claimed that he was ‘tired and emotional’ and that his marriage was falling apart.

So I was asked to go over to Lambeth Palace to advise him. I have to say that I found the offer quite interesting, mainly because I’d never met an archbishop before, let alone a tired and emotional one.

As soon as I entered Carey’s study, he pointed to himself and said: ‘Right! Do I look tired and emotional?’

I said: ‘Well, let me give you one immediate piece of advice, Your Grace. Don’t ever say that again. Because the moment you say it, you put the thought into somebody’s mind and they start imagining that you do indeed look tired and emotional.’

After that, he kept going on about how happily married he was. Then he asked if I could give him my advice as a PR man.

So I said, ‘Yes, Your Grace. But forgive me; I’ve never met an archbishop before, so would you mind us saying a prayer to make our consultation successful.’

This completely nonplussed him. He said: ‘Er, do you have any particular prayer in mind?’

‘No, you’re the Archbishop,’ I answered. ‘You know all the prayers. You decide what’s best.’

He said: ‘Do you want us to kneel?’ and I replied: ‘That’s not a bad idea.’ So we knelt at his desk.

At the precise moment Carey started his prayer, the door of his study opened and a lady with a tea tray walked in and looked at us very strangely.

‘Where do you want me to put the tea?’ she asked. She was shaking her head as she left the room.

In the end, Carey and I had a perfectly good and constructive session. I told him to stop going on and on about homosexual priests and same-sex marriage and women priests, and instead start talking about belief in God.

Carey looked at me as though I was very naïve. Then he took me over to a horizontal framed picture on the wall that contained all his bishops in a series of long rows.

‘It’s not easy, you know,’ he said. ‘This job. I mean, I have to control this lot.’ He started to point at individual bishops in the photograph, saying things like: ‘This one’s gay, this one has no belief in God, this one believes in black magic, this one is a suspected paedophile . . .’

It was extraordinary. I said: ‘I feel very sorry for you. But surely there’s one thing that you’ve got in common. You have faith.’

He looked as though he was anything but sure.

LORD TEBBIT, THE MAN WHO BEHEADED CHICKENS 

Norman Tebbit (below) was the Left’s bogeyman — they reviled him. You’d go to meetings in his Chingford constituency and they’d hold up banners that said, ‘We know where you live’ and the like.

Even before he was injured in the Brighton bombing, he’d faced some truly terrifying threats. But he was hysterically funny, with a manic, almost violent, sense of humour.

When Norman heard that a rumour had been circulating about him tearing the heads off chickens, he decided to turn the myth into reality. So he used to hang plastic chickens on the back of his office door.

Then he’d tell people who came to see him: ‘Excuse me now, I just want to tear a chicken apart.’ And he’d take a plastic chicken off the door, pull off its detachable head and sit down again.

Gore Vidal and Harold Pinter

I once met the American writer Gore Vidal at a dinner in Belgravia, where the other guests included Lady Antonia Fraser, Harold Pinter and the Old Etonian antiques dealer Robin Hurlstone (who at the time was Joan Collins’s boyfriend).

Vidal started going on and on about Chile and General Pinochet. Eventually, I joined in by saying, fairly innocuously: ‘Well, he’s at least a bit more democratic than Allende.’

I’d forgotten that Vidal and Pinter were deeply involved in the anti-Pinochet movement and had organised demonstrations all over Chile.

Gore Vidal
Lady Antonia and Harold Pinter

Gore Vidal (left) and Harold Pinter (right, with his wife Lady Antonia Fraser, the historian and daughter of Lord Longford) were not impressed by Tim Bell and nor him them

But I carried on about how Pinochet’s predecessor, President Allende, had burned the electoral roll, making the point that there can’t be anything much more undemocratic than setting light to the basis on which everyone gets a vote.

Vidal was furious at this unexpected challenge, and he turned on me. With a seriously nasty snarl, he said: ‘What on earth do you know about Chile?’

So I said: ‘Well, actually, I know Jack Henderson, who was CIA director of operations in Santiago. I know him very well.’

This stopped Vidal in his tracks, and he started to bluster: ‘Oh, you knew Jack Henderson, did you? What do you know about him?’ To which I replied: ‘Well, I know that I just made him up, so you can’t have known him that well, can you?’

This was, as you’d expect, the last straw for Vidal. His buddy, Pinter, started swearing and shouting at me and calling me the c-word. Vidal said: ‘You must stand up at the table and apologise immediately.’

So I stood up and said: ‘I am very sorry, Mr Pinter, but will you take your hand off my wife’s leg?’

At which point Antonia Fraser couldn’t take any more and ran to the bathroom. But she came back a few minutes later, rather sheepishly, and said to our hostess, ‘I’m terribly sorry, Maria, but I’ve just broken your loo seat.’

And at that point, we all got up and went home.

Jacques Chirac

Chirac was a tall, elegant Frenchman, and Margaret was completely overwhelmed by his voice and French charm. He had a begrudging admiration for her, too.

The first time that the French President visited Downing Street, however, everything seemed to go wrong. First, he presented Margaret with a beautiful vintage book on the history of Paris — and she suddenly realised that no one had thought to get a gift for him.

In panic, she turned to Stephen Sherbourne, her political secretary. Remembering that Stephen had bought himself an espresso machine — because the coffee in Downing Street was absolute c*** — she told him to go and make Chirac a cup of his fancy Continental brew.

Chirac was a tall, elegant Frenchman, and Margaret was completely overwhelmed by his voice and French charm. He had a begrudging admiration for her, too

Chirac was a tall, elegant Frenchman, and Margaret was completely overwhelmed by his voice and French charm. He had a begrudging admiration for her, too

‘They drink a lot of that, don’t they?’ she said.

Stephen replied: ‘But it’s Italian, not French.’ Margaret said: ‘He won’t know the difference. Just do it.’ So off went Stephen and brought back a cup of espresso which was presented to Chirac as a kind of reciprocal gesture for the beautiful book. It was surreal.

Then it got worse, because Margaret had to go off to attend to some Cabinet crisis. By now quite desperate, Margaret’s staff dragged in Ronnie Grierson, one of her business advisers, whose French was fluent. They just said to him: ‘Do you know Jacques Chirac? We’ve got him here. Get down here and keep him occupied while Margaret is holding this other meeting.’

So Ronnie and Chirac sat there for about half an hour, with Ronnie talking in French — even though Chirac’s English was excellent — while Stephen Sherbourne brought in one Italian espresso after another.

Mohamed Al-Fayed

During the first few months of 1985, the pound was at its lowest-ever price against the dollar. It was one of the worst crises in this country’s economic history.

And, right in the midst of it, the Sultan of Brunei — the richest man in the world — announced that he was transferring around £5billion of his investments in the London currency market to New York.

What to do? Gordon Reece, then a fellow-adviser to Margaret Thatcher, knew that Mohamed Al-Fayed — who was then trying to buy Harrods — had been acting as financial adviser to the sultan.

So we bit the bullet and went to see the Egyptian businessman.

The story he told us was extraordinary. Apparently, the Foreign Office had recently issued the Sultan with a new passport, because his old one had expired — but they’d got his title wrong and called him HRH the Sultan of Brunei. In fact, his title was His Majesty.

Mohamed Al-Fayed — then trying to buy Harrods — had been acting as financial adviser to the Sultan of Brunei

Mohamed Al-Fayed — then trying to buy Harrods — had been acting as financial adviser to the Sultan of Brunei

‘So he’s moving his money because you obviously don’t have proper respect for him,’ said Al-Fayed.

When we asked what we could do, he immediately suggested a solution: ‘It’s very simple. If the Prime Minister would ask the Sultan for tea, he will attend, and she can then deal with the problem and I’m sure something can be done.’

We immediately rang Margaret, and she agreed to invite the sultan to tea at Downing Street.

On January 29, 1985, Al-Fayed, Gordon and I got in the back of a gigantic black Mercedes, part of the Sultan’s entourage, which comprised about 20 black bullet-proof limousines, numbered in sequence (BRU 1, BRU 2, and so on).

Then we all swept into Downing Street, and trooped into No 10 behind the Sultan. The Prime Minister said: ‘Lovely to see you, Your Majesty, and it’s wonderful of you to visit.’ Then she added: ‘I have a gift for you. I have your new passport.’

At which point, she handed over a new passport made out to ‘His Majesty, the Sultan of Brunei’. Followed by tea.

The next day, the Sultan moved about £5 billion’s worth out of the New York Stock Exchange into the London Stock Exchange, and the pound began a slow recovery.

After this triumph, Al-Fayed expected to be rewarded with his own British passport, for which he’d been applying for years. But there was a Depertment of Trade and Industry investigation at the time into his takeover of Harrods, so nobody would oblige.

Al-Fayed was furious for years, possibly with some cause.

The Sultan of Brunei

King, Prime Minister, President and even the Messenger of God: The Sultan is all of these

King, Prime Minister, President and even the Messenger of God: The Sultan is all of these

Later , I was hired as a consultant to look after the image of Brunei — in effect, that meant working for the Sultan.

So a small team of us were flown out to see him at his residence — the Istana Nurul Iman palace — that sits on the Brunei River and has almost 2,000 rooms.

It was worth about £1billion, and had a garage that could hold more than 100 cars (mostly custom-built Bentleys, Rolls-Royces, Bugattis, Ferraris and Lamborghinis), plus stables for 200 polo ponies.

Once in Brunei, we had to wait until all the Sultan’s jewellers had done with their morning pitches to him before we set off for the palace.

Then we were shown up to his audience room on the seventh floor, which contained a number of paintings.

I recognised one that was sitting on an easel: it was Van Gogh’s Irises, which I think had just commanded the highest price ever — around $54million — for a painting.

‘Isn’t that Van Gogh’s Irises?’ I asked the Sultan.

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I’m just trying to see whether it fits in with the room’s colour scheme.’

When I went to see him on another occasion, I found him in the filthiest temper.

‘Good morning, Your Majesty,’ I said: ‘Is something bothering you, sir?’

He replied: ‘It’s just impossible! I run this country and I look after everybody. They get given money from cradle to grave; we’ve got the highest per capita income of any country in the world.

‘And yet I’m supposed to do this and I’m supposed to that, and I’m supposed to do the other. Some days, it gets too much.’

So I said, ‘Yes, sir. It’s must be a burdensome task. So difficult. So many jobs: King, Prime Minister, President and even the Messenger of God.’

He just looked back at me, shook his head, and gave a big sigh.

Tomorrow: Life at Saatchi and Saatchi made TV's Mad Men look tame 

  • Right Or Wrong by Tim Bell will be published by Bloomsbury on October 9 at £25. Order at mailbookshop.co.uk or call 0808 272 0808. P&P is free for a limited time only

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