Friday 13 March 1981
Ronnie Millar in at about 11.30 and we chatted about the Budget. Lunch with Margaret and Denis and Ian Gow in the flat. Afterwards Ronnie said he thought MT was pinched, thinner in the face and had obviously been under a lot of strain. She needed a boost to her morale (though she had seemed, outwardly, to be roaring like a lion, eg on her ad lib speech to businessmen at Mansion House). So we complimented her on that speech and said we felt the Budget was turning out well and the press were beginning to realise it. Also apparently Geoffrey H had been superb in Robin Day's programme, demolishing poor Stan Orme who'd been saying that we should let the PSBR rise as high as it wanted to go and at the same time cut interest rates.