Latest editorial
Newly released cabinet papers put paid yesterday to longstanding Tory boasts that Margret Thatcher used her controversial courting of South Africa's apartheid-era government to help win the release of Nelson Mandela.
Government minutes from 1984, published under the 30-year rule, show that Thatcher made little or no effort to secure Mandela's freedom during her first official meeting with South African prime minister PW Botha.
The documents record a summit between Thatcher and Botha, supposedly to discuss the country's policy towards its black population.
The Tory conference was a pseudo-sacred affair, with devotees paying homage in front of Thatcher’s old shrouds — and your reporter, initially barred, only need mention he’d once met her to gain access. But would she consider what was on offer a worthy legacy, asks ANDREW MURRAY
