When journalist Brian Walden met Margaret Thatcher

Considered by many to be the greatest interviewer of all time, Walden’s legendary 1989 interview with Margaret Thatcher marked the end of an era, as it was the UK Prime Minister’s final appearance on TV before falling from power in 1990.

The infamous moment in political history has been turned into a new Channel 4 drama, Brian and Margaret, starring Steve Coogan and Harriet Walter, who expertly depict the 45-minute showdown that set a nationally significant chain of events in motion.

Launch of Weekend World

Fifty years ago, current affairs programmes were different from today’s shows, where diversity and free speech are the key and the hosts are largely politically neutral.

Weekend World was launched by London Weekend Television in October 1972 by John Birt, who was later director general of the BBC. He recruited personnel who had no background in current affairs, but were renowned for their creative filming, reporting and presenting skills.

Broadcast on Sunday lunchtime, the programme was run by a mainly male team, who tasked themselves with reporting the “mood of the nation” by hiring market researchers to poll the public on how they felt about politics.

According to a critique of the show in The Guardian in 1999, Weekend World was unlike any other current affairs programme, as it had a “particular view of Britain and how it should be altered”. Rather than simply interviewing politicians on current affairs, the show was accused of having had an agenda to actually reshape the nation, being given the nickname “Labour Weekend Television” eleven years after it ceased broadcasting.

Brian Walden interviews

The first series anchor man was Peter Jay, an English broadcaster and economist, who later served as Ambassador to the United States when his father-in-law, James Callaghan, was UK Prime Minister.
For Jay’s successor Brian Walden, Weekend World led to a long career as an iconic broadcaster, after 16 years in politics as a Labour Party representative which began in 1961, at the age of 29. Initially unsuccessful, he was finally elected as Labour MP for Birmingham All Saints in the 1964 general election, converting a Conservative majority of 20 in 1959 into a Labour majority of 470.

In May 1975, he became disillusioned with the Labour Party as the left wing rose. He resigned from the House of Commons in June 1977, through legislation known as the Chiltern Hundreds, to become a full-time broadcaster on Weekend World.

During his stint on the programme, which lasted for nine years, Walden interviewed many leading political lights, becoming known as television’s “most feared” interviewer. He was described as “intellectual, intelligent and eloquent”, a man who was “clear-sighted” in his views of how politics shaped the nation.
When Brian Walden met Margaret Thatcher, UK Prime Minister, in the mid-1970s, it led to bosses at Channel 4 describing them as “two old friends” in an article about the impending TV drama.

When did Margaret Thatcher come to power?

The late Baroness Thatcher, who died in April 2013, aged 87, became UK Prime Minister in 1979 and held the role until 1990. A former research chemist and barrister, she began her career in politics aged 25 as the youngest Conservative candidate in the 1950 general election, in Dartford.

She first met Walden in the House of Commons, when he was impressed after she became Conservative leader in 1975, recognising that she “stood for real change”. It was claimed he had initially sought “social progress” by joining the Labour Party, but came to realise Thatcher offered what he was seeking.
After disillusionment led to his eventual resignation as an MP, Walden became the host of Weekend World and interviewed Thatcher on the show in 1983, when he first coined the term “Victorian values” in relation to Tory policy at the time.

They had a good rapport and Walden later said although he had “never been a Tory”, he liked the PM because she made him laugh and reminded him of his mother due to her “wonderful dogmatism”. He called her a “unique politician” who was the “master spirit” of the age. The fondness appeared to be reciprocated, as Thatcher agreed to be interviewed on Weekend World, while turning other programmes down.

Ultimately, however, the Iron Lady saw her long career in politics crumble – after many people claimed her 1989 TV interview with Walden ultimately led to her downfall.

Famous meeting

The most famous meeting between Thatcher and Walden happened on 29th October 1989. He had left Weekend World in 1986, but returned to LWT in 1988 to host a new current affairs show, The Walden Interview, when he grilled Thatcher one year later. Subsequently, it was claimed he had tried and succeeded to shape the public’s opinion about her. His probing questioning prompted the PM’s confident and resolute responses, but finally, she floundered under pressure.

The Conservatives were in disarray, with Chancellor Nigel Lawson having resigned on 26th October because she was unwilling to sack economics adviser Sir Alan Walters. The interview had been planned for some time, but the resignation changed its content. British political writer John Campbell later claimed that Walden’s “journalistic instinct” and Thatcher’s “lack of candour” led to three million TV viewers watching “a devastating exposé” of the PM which changed public opinion about her forever.

Walden asked what became known as the “killer question”, “Would Lawson have stayed had she sacked Walters?”, to which Thatcher admitted, “I don’t know,” and Walden replied incredulously, “You never even thought to ask him that?” Perhaps the most famous quote by Margaret Thatcher was, “The lady’s not for turning”, marking her resolute and determined nature to proceed as she saw fit, never making U-turns and remaining strong. However, Walden’s direct and probing questions saw her continually falter and stumble, repeating the words, “I don’t know.”

Telling her this was a “terrible admission” to make, Walden later accused the PM of being “authoritarian, domineering and refusing to listen to anybody else”, asking, “Why?” During the interview, Thatcher appeared to have lost her cool, telling him, “I have nothing further to … I don’t know…” and describing him as “coming over as domineering”.

Why did Margaret Thatcher resign?

Despite being described as “old friends”, it was said that Thatcher and Walden never spoke again after this interview. The 45-minute war of words became a national talking point and was said to have been the catalyst of events that led to her resignation on 28th November 1990.

The unpopularity of the Poll Tax and divisions in the Tory party over European policy were cited as contributory factors, but seeing the PM in a new light during the infamous Walden interview had apparently changed public perception of her ability to lead the nation forward.