Serving Margaret Thatcher at the zenith of her power was so demanding that Robin Butler, one of her closest civil servants, said that he felt at risk when he had to sit next to her. Even for the mandarin of mandarins, it was “like feeding a fierce animal”. Yet that force that let her dominate had a cautious undercurrent. The greatest achievement of the second volume of Charles Moore’s majestic biography is that he reveals how powerful it sometimes became. For those of us who watched her – heard about the arguments, the wailing of those who had fallen out with her – Moore’s insights from her papers and the galère of all her colleagues are precious, because they remind us of the other side.At home and abroad, the story has too often been written in