Thatcher would have been better at Brexit, says House of Cards author

Margaret Thatcher wouldn't have put us "anywhere near" this "Brexit mess", says House of Cards author Lord Dobbs. Picture: PA Wire / PA images - Credit: PA Wire/PA Images

Margaret Thatcher would not have ‘got us anywhere near’ the Brexit ‘mess’, and would have been far better than Theresa May at negotiating, said the author of the House of Cards novels.

Lord Dobbs, the Conservative peer who wrote the novels that inspired the hit Netflix series, worked closely with Thatcher during her time in government in the 1980s.

He told the Radio Times that the former prime minister “would have sliced through President Juncker with a smile,” were she handling Brexit today.

He said: “What would [Thatcher] have done today as we stagger around in this endless game of blind man’s Brexit?

“She would have turned from her famous ‘No! No! No!’ to ‘Now! Now! Now!’,” he said.

“She would have sliced through president Juncker with a smile.

“She would have put her neck on the line and risked reputation and career, just as she did with the miners’ strike, the Falklands War and the rest.

“Anyway, I can’t imagine she would have got us anywhere near this mess in the first place.”

Lord Dobbs was regarded as a skilled adviser to Thatcher and former prime minister John Major.

His novels, first published in 1989, was adapted for UK television in 1990 but became an international hit when Netflix produced a series starring Kevin Spacey.