Iron Lady’s dementia revealed

Carol Thatcher has confirmed the rumour that her mother, Lady Thatcher, is suffering from dementia. Of the former Prime Minister's illness, she wrote in the Mail on Sunday: "Whereas previously you would never have had to say anything to her twice, because she'd already filed it away in her formidable memory bank, Mum started asking the same questions over and over again, unaware she was doing so.

"It might be something innocuous - such as 'What time is my car coming?' or 'When am I going to the hairdresser?' - but the fact she needed to repeat them opened a new and frightening chapter in our lives."

However, Lady T does still enjoy moments of lucidity­ even if what she discusses is not quite what people expect. Says her daughter: "It took us all time to realise that she couldn't remember a newspaper headline she had just read, or what she'd had for breakfast that morning. But when a friend asked, off the cuff: 'Oh, Margaret, do you remember rationing?' he got a full 10 minutes of my mother's best grocer's daughter's tips on how to jazz up tinned Spam or powdered egg."