Thousands Of Secret Papers From Margaret Thatcher's Government Were Just Released

Reuters/Kieran DohertyFormer British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher waits before speaking at the Keith Joseph Memorial Lecture in the City of London, 1996.

The National Archives just released a bundle of secret government papers, many of which are from Margaret Thatcher's private office. The documents come out in late December under the 30-year rule, which keeps them under wraps for three decades. 

There are some historical gems in there, ranging from UK economics policy (1985 was around the time that the monetarist policies brought in in 1980 and 1981 started to look unhealthy), to UK-Soviet relations.

There's correspondence between Thatcher and Oleg Gordievsky, one of the most successful double agents ever, and a letter from Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev's wife, informing the British government that there were 500 Soviet recipes for potatoes.

There are also a lot of current Conservative politicians that crop up repeatedly in the files: John Redwood MP, who was a cabinet minister under John Major, and David Willetts, who was a minister until summer 2014, were both close advisers to Thatcher at the time. The Telegraph has a great story on Oliver Letwin's attitude to the enormously controversial poll tax. Letwin is still a cabinet minister today.