THE National Archives have revealed details this week of “candid” correspondence between Thatcher and Princess Margaret during the 1980s in which they exchanged views on “crippling industrial action and turbulent world events” among other things.

Well, there’s a meeting of minds for you — a psychotic megalomaniac and a gin-soaked parasite who may have burned down Windsor Castle with a stray fag end.

The correspondence was apparently initiated by the then prime minister after Princess Margaret visited a hospital — because the royals don’t “go” they “visit” hospital — to have “some things dug out” of her face.

What things? Diamante studs? Frozen peasants’ tears? Foxes’ teeth? Sadly, we are not informed.

What we do discover is that the exchange includes Princess Margaret’s views on the 1980 Moscow Olympics (not enough horses, presumably) and a “lighthearted complaint” that a debate she had attended in Cambridge was full of “rabid conservatives” with “not a Trotskyite to argue with!”

For a woman who probably thought Hegel was a runner in the 3.30 at Kempton, that’s quite a bold pronouncement.

The pair also discussed the first national steel strike in 50 years, which took place in January 1980.

“It is difficult to get across the message that more money has to be earned and not just demanded,” Thatcher wrote.

Princess Margaret described the strike as “depressing,” but said: “I suppose if one is an ordinary working man and one’s union tells one not to vote for new machinery or technology, because otherwise you will lose your job … you just don’t dare.”

Or maybe, when you are being shafted by those born with a silver spoon in their mouth, you’ve just had enough, though that’s not a concept the royals or Thatcher ever understood.