Thatcher praised Blair for response to 9/11 terror attacks

The ex-PM sent a handwritten note backing the Labour prime minister’s staunch support for the US after the attacks.

Margaret Thatcher privately wrote to Labour prime minister Tony Blair to praise his staunch support for the United States in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, according to newly released government files (PA) (PA Archive)

Margaret Thatcher privately wrote to Labour prime minister Tony Blair to praise his staunch support for the United States in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, according to newly released government files.

For years, Baroness Thatcher was a thorn in the side of her Tory successor, John Major, but she could hardly have been more effusive in her admiration for Mr Blair – who she once described as her “greatest achievement” for steering Labour away from the left-wing policies of the 1980s.

“You will have found, as I did, that just as one international crisis subsides, another soon threatens,” she wrote in a handwritten note dated April 4 2002, seven months after al Qaida passenger jet hijackers carried out four co-ordinated suicide attacks, including on the Twin Towers in New York City.

The vulnerability of British people, particularly those living in urban areas, to terrorist attack is, I suspect, all too great

Sir John Stanley

“I greatly admire the resolve you are showing. You have ensured that Britain is known as a staunch defender of liberty, and as a loyal ally of America. That is the very best reputation our country can have.”

She signed off: “With all good wishes, Margaret T.”

Another admirer of Mr Blair’s response to the crisis was former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown, who emailed to say: “Heavens – what a wonderful speech. Just what the country needed. It will have daunted your enemies, thrilled your friends and comforted those who doubt.”

The files, released to the National Archives at Kew, west London, also include a letter to Mr Blair from Tory former defence minister Sir John Stanley, written just days after 9/11, warning of the need to prepare for an imminent terror attack in the UK using weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

You will have found, as I did, that just as one international crisis subsides, another soon threatens

Baroness Thatcher to Tony Blair

He wrote: “I wish to urge most strongly that your Government bases its security, civil defence and intelligences resourcing and deployment policies on the assumption that a terrorist WMD attack on one or more of the centres of population in the UK will be attempted and attempted in the near and foreseeable future.

“The vulnerability of British people, particularly those living in urban areas, to terrorist attack is, I suspect, all too great.”

In response, Mr Blair said that while he shared his concerns and had ordered a security review, the greatest threat remained a conventional attack.