Everyone needs a Willie

The phrase ‘every Prime Minister needs a Willie’ was uttered by Margaret Thatcher, apparently without realising the double entendre it contained. It was a reference to her sometime deputy as Conservative Prime Minister, William Whitelaw. Whitelaw’s significance to Thatcher lay in the fact that he provided a point of connection between her and the wider Conservative Party, especially during the early years of her leadership in the late 1970s and early 80s. For it is easy to forget that during t