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Article: Kill the Messenger.
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- May 25, 1991
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1991 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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WHEN Margaret Thatcher travelled the world as prime minister, she took a bulldog with her. This jowl-shaking, glowering personification of Britishness was her press secretary, Bernard Ingham-now Sir Bernard. Prizing anonymity in his dealings with the media, he became public property. By the end of a decade in Downing Street, he was as essential to the Thatcher caricature as her steel-framed handbag.
Looking back, almost everything about Mrs Thatcher's 12 years seems touched with gothic melodrama-the political landscape was illuminated not by daylight but by periodic lightning-flashes. Sir Bernard was no exception. He has been likened to Shakespear'e's Iago, to ...