How shaky geography nearly lost Mrs T the Falklands

Charles Moore’s Margaret Thatcher biography of reveals her shaky grasp of geography when she had to ask Michael Havers, the attorney-general, who had served in the RNVR, to help her find the Falklands on naval maps.

“He and she would spread them on the floor and she would firmly point out the Falklands in quite the wrong place,” writes Moore. “He would then find them for her.”

Moore also refers to Jonathan Aitken’s gaffe in 1975 when he said the then new Tory leader probably thought Sinai was the plural of Sinus. As Aitken works on his own Thatcher memoir he will no doubt recall how she forgave him for this howler, saying it could happen to anyone.