She was mistaken for her in Moscow; she was mistaken by her for an admirer in Brisbane; they hid together during a riot in Armenia; they were in a plane nearly shot down in Malawi. Our political correspondent reflects on the woman she was inseparable from for 15 years

It was not, on the face of it, an enviable commission: a biography of Margaret Thatcher in 5,000 words, to be published in a collection of 55 essays by 55 different writers on the 55 occupants of the office of prime minister since Walpole wore the trousers and they started counting. I mean: where does one start? All that time in office, all that policymaking, all those years astride the globe until she was forced to hang up the “Dungovnin” sign in Dulwich – what gets left out? And, for heaven’s sake, after so much has been said, written, recorded and filmed about her, what on earth remains for the publishing market here, today, at Christmas 2020?

It is 45 years since Margaret Thatcher became leader of the Conservative Party – when Boris, may I remind you, was still burnishing his ambition at prep school – and 30 years since she was unceremoniously ousted. During those years, forests have been felled across Scandinavia to provide the paper for the veritable acres of print that have been devoted to the subject of her biography and to the object of her policies. She has been analysed and assessed, evaluated and examined, studied and scrutinised. I have at least two feet in length of books about the woman on my own shelves, with titles enshrining all of her defining lines: The Iron Lady, There Is No Alternative, Not for Turning, One of Us. Then there is, of course, the magisterial Moore. The three-volume official biography by Charles Moore, published since Margaret Thatcher’s death, always attracts the same adjective and rightly so. It is the definitive work.