How Mrs Thatcher personally paid... the £1,800 cost of (son's) rescue operation...

Daily Mail (UK) ^ | 28th December 2012 | David Wilkes and Claire Ellicott

[naturalman1975]

After her son Mark got lost in the desert competing in the Paris-Dakar rally, Margaret Thatcher shed a rare tear in public.

When it came to paying for his rescue, however, the 'Iron Lady' was firmly back in the driving seat and at pains to ensure she personally, not taxpayers, footed the bill for her hapless off-spring's misadventure.

.....

With that matter resolved, the Foreign Office calculated their costs for other accommodation, travel, telegrams and telephone calls to be £1,191.

No charges were made to official funds 'other than those which would be so charged in case of assistance for any UK citizens in distress', the papers made public for the first time under the 30 year rule say.

In a handwritten note dated February 12, 1982, a month after Mark's rescue, to John Coles, the Prime Minister's Private Secretary for Overseas Affairs, Mrs Thatcher wrote: 'I must pay the £1,191. We can therefore say that no extra cost has fallen on the British taxpayer. To who do I make out the cheque?' The Foreign Office later revised the total to £1,748.80. Mrs Thatcher duly sent them a cheque for that amount on March 10. Ever a keen advocate of financial discipline, she requested a 'receipt please'.

But it did not end there. Six months later the Foreign Office apologetically asked her for a further £15.16 for 'landing charges incurred by the aircraft bringing Denis Thatcher from the UK', explaining there had been a delay because of 'the Embassy accountant charging them to a suspense account which has only now been audited.' Another cheque from the Prime Minister was swiftly despatched.

[naturalman1975]

Full headline: How Mrs Thatcher personally paid son Mark's bar tab and the £1,800 cost of his rescue operation after he went missing he during Paris-Dakar rally

[GeronL]

ridiculous to pay someone else’s bar tab, especially a grown mans.

[GeronL]

ridiculous to pay someone else’s bar tab, especially a grown mans.

[wastedyears]

Too bad there aren’t more like her in office, no matter the country.

[naturalman1975]

I think you need to look at what the bar tab in this case was - it comprised drinks purchased after Mark was found at a thank you celebration to which the rescue teams who had found him were invited, arranged by British diplomats who had been liaising with the Algerians. It wasn’t just Mark’s personal drinks.