One of the worst faux pas I’ve ever made in a life unfortunately pitted with them came at a dinner at Margaret Thatcher’s house soon after she had appointed Charles Moore, the former editor of The Daily Telegraph, as her official biographer. “What kind of biography is it going to be?” I asked her, starting the next sentence before working out how it should end. “Will it be a cradle-to-the- . . . er, er . . . ” and then I stopped, horrified at myself for bringing up the concept of her mortality to the lady herself. “I think the word you’re looking for is ‘grave,’ ” she kindly interjected, “and the answer is yes.”

Margaret Thatcher died—in the Ritz Hotel, rather magnificently—on April 8, 2013, and her life was marked nine days later at a powerfully moving funeral at St. Paul’s Cathedral, at which more than just Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne felt their eyes moisten as her coffin was carried past us shrouded in a Union Jack and laden with her orders and decorations such as the Order of Merit and the Order of the Garter. Outside were more than fifty thousand mourners lining the streets, though of course Leftists with their customary vileness also held parties to celebrate and sing “Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead.”

The official biography could now be published, and Charles Moore’s first volume, Not For Turning (published in the United States as From Grantham