Image of the Month

One of Baroness Thatcher's iconic handbags, from the mid-1980s. As belonging to a woman in a man's world there was intense curiosity and speculation at the contents of the Thatcher handbag. World leaders, including President Gorbachev and US Secretary of State George Shultz, joked at the (supposed) contents of the bag. Margaret Thatcher aggressively represented Britain's views at international summits in the 1980s. Some suggested that under her Britain had moved from "gunboat diplomacy" to "handbag diplomacy".

In July 1990 in an interview for Channel Four news, Margaret Thatcher revealed that anything she wanted to keep quiet was usually kept in her handbag, the safest place - the only leak-proof place - in Number 10. In 2008, to help prove its provenance, Thatcher prepared a small handwritten card detailing the history of the bag and its purchase. At the same time she presented a series of items - handkerchiefs, lipsticks, makeup - which had once lived in the bag. The many documents and papers from the 1980s which had also lived in the bag were transferred to the Archives in 1997.