Margaret Thatcher’s infamous rigidity of thinking, social awkwardness, lack of humour and perceived rudeness proved a mighty challenge for three men who would turn her from an electoral liability into an icon: TV producer Gordon Reece, playwright Ronald Millar and adman Tim Bell.
The Iron Lady nicknamed them ‘the laughing boys’, a nod to the trio’s arrival for lunch at her flat in July 1978 – just nine months before the General Election campaign that brought her to power as prime minister – having already downed two bottles of champagne between them at a local pub.
