Sir, – Donald Clarke ("It shouldn't be about the bacon sandwich", Opinion & Analysis, April 11th) writes about British politicians and their attempts to connect with voters against a background of ingrained reserve and class consciousness. He gives many interesting and entertaining examples over the last 50 years. Not surprisingly, the more ideologically driven and three-term prime minister Margaret Thatcher did not seem to have been afflicted with this desire to appear "blokish".
I remember a Punch cartoon from the 1970s, where a Marie Antoinette figure, bearing a strong facial resemblance to Mrs Thatcher, is sitting on her throne exclaiming to a courtier on bended knee, "What, no jobs? Let them have careers." – Yours, etc,
BRENDAN BRACKEN,
Dalkey,
Co Dublin.