Brian and Maggie shows Rachel Reeves is taking the wrong lessons from Margaret Thatcher

In Channel 4’s Brian and Maggie, Harriet Walter takes on the role of Margaret Thatcher. The two-part drama – co-starring Steve Coogan as the pre-eminent inquisitor of the day, Brian Walden – centres around one of the most compelling political interviews of the era.

This was not quite the British Frost/Nixon. But an hour of prime-time television with Brian Walden sitting opposite the embattled Conservative prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, with no questions off the table, taking place just days after the resignation of her chancellor Nigel Lawson, is a world away from politics today.

It was a risky move for Thatcher. These days, it’s the stuff of dreams for politicians to open themselves up to this kind scrutiny. Imagine a prime minister – it could be Keir Starmer, Rishi Sunak (remember him?), Liz Truss, Boris Johnson – there’s been a few to choose from in recent times, submitting themselves to such a thorough going over. Testing their ideas in the glare of the television lights?

It would never happen now. Because it happened in 1989.

And although the result was terrific television, it was also the start of a catastrophic comedown for a prime minister who had won a huge majority just 16 months earlier.

But the lessons to be learnt from this TV drama cannot be that politicians should avoid public scrutiny. Sure, there are risks to appearing on television in such an uncontrollable format. But there are also benefits. For years, Thatcher was able to dominate any interviewer by sheer force of personality and belief in her ideas. A politician prepared to front up in public would improve modern political discourse no end. But no one is aping Thatcher’s belief in lively debate.

Walden was a Labour MP who quit politics for television more than a decade earlier. “An MP with a regular spot on television, wouldn’t that be… unethical?” Walden says, when he’s initially offered the job – a none-too-subtle dig from writer James Graham about the revolving door between GB News and the right wing of the Tory party, as well as the leadership of Reform.

Despite being in opposing parties during Walden’s political career, the most powerful politician of the late 20th century found common ground with him. Drinking together at Number 10 in 1982, they discuss meritocracy. “You and I are very good examples of that,” proclaims Thatcher. “We’ve got to the very top of our profession. Against all the odds.”

During these passages, it is easy to find Thatcher sympathetic. She makes a strong argument. She was surrounded by men who’d had it much easier than her. Men who had risen to positions of power with neither the diligence nor the smarts for the job.

“They didn’t earn their place,” Thatcher says. “They just knew someone who knew someone and they bluff and blag their way through. And they have unlimited chances.”

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At least two such men have subsequently been prime minister. And ducking big interviews never did Boris Johnson any harm at the ballot box – witness him avoiding an Andrew Neil inquisition after Jeremy Corbyn had already been subjected to an uncomfortable grilling in 2019, before going on to win a landslide.

Brian and Maggie is serious drama with something to say. It is directed by triple Bafta-winner Stephen Frears, Walter is one of the greatest actors of modern times and brings something new to Thatcher after Meryl Streep, Gillian Anderson, Andrea Riseborough and Lindsay Duncan all played the former PM. And Graham, writer of Sherwood, is the best in the business.

Watching Brian and Maggie is a reminder that, despite how millions feel about the Thatcher years, there is something in her story and leadership style that politicians still seek to mimic. But sadly it is never the willingness to take on tough questions. Instead, it tends to be an unwavering will. A cast-iron stubbornness (which they hope to is read as strength) – even in the face of argument from political allies and supporters.

In an interview at the start of the 1980s, Walden begins: “Margaret Thatcher insists economic prosperity must return to Britain and has made it clear she intends to do whatever is necessary to make her plan work.” This sounds uncannily like the Chancellor’s recent determination that everything has to be about growth.

Walden then puts it to Thatcher that there will be losers in this scenario. “Even if you were to succeed economically, you will still have created a society which is more unequal, riddled with avoidable injustices. Is the price of our economic recovery and prosperity greater inequality in our country?”

The Iron Lady was unbending. “Indeed, yes,” comes the reply.

Rachel Reeves has already suggested she thinks economic growth trumps the environment. Starmer’s government has already targeted winter fuel payments and benefit payments.

If Starmer and Reeves, like Thatcher, also believe greater inequality is a price worth paying for growth we may be in bigger trouble than we thought…

Brian and Maggie is now available to watch on Channel 4 – the final episode airs 30 January at 9pm.

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