Mark Thatcher
Sir Mark Thatcher, 2nd Baronet (born
15 August 1953) is the only son of
Sir Denis Thatcher and
Margaret Thatcher, the former
British Prime Minister.
Mark Thatcher attended
Harrow public school. In August
1969 he passed three
O-levels. In November that year, he obtained two more and left school with three
A-levels in the summer of
1971. He became an articled clerk at Touche Ross, a City of London firm of
Chartered Accountants, but did not succeed in becoming an accountant.
In
1987, Mark Thatcher married Diane Burgdorf, the conservative Lutheran daughter of a millionaire Texas car dealer. They reportedly met at a party for
D Magazine, a Dallas lifestyle publication, while Thatcher was living in Texas as a representative of the luxury automotive company
Lotus Cars. They have a son and a daughter, Michael Thatcher and Amanda Margaret Thatcher. The family moved to
South Africa possibly to avoid bad publicity because of allegations of racketeering that resulted in a £4 million civil action in 1994.
In addition to his prominence as the only son of one of the world's best known politicians, Sir Mark has attracted headlines for his alleged arrogance, youthful playboy scrapes, troubled business associations, and his involvement in an attempted coup in
Equatorial Guinea. In 2004, an unnamed South African hostess told
The Telegraph that the baronet, who is reportedly worth in excess of £60,000,000, reminded her of one of the "amiable, entertaining twits" that inhabit the novels of
P.G. Wodehouse.
He inherited the baronetcy (which carries the title "Sir") after the death of his father in
2003.
On
3 April 2005, Sir Mark, then living with his widowed mother in London, announced that his family home will be in Europe after he was refused a residence visa to live in the United States, presumably as a result of his guilty plea in South Africa over his alleged unwitting involvement in an attempted coup d'état in
Equatorial Guinea. His children, he stated, will be educated in the United States. In September 2005, his divorce was announced.
Under the headline "Mark Thatcher — undesirable in
Monaco?" French newspaper
Le Figaro reported on
December 20,
2005::"Margaret Thatcher's son, the former British prime minister's nefarious offspring, will not be installing himself in the principality of Monaco as he hoped." A spokesman for
Prince Albert told
Le Figaro that Sir Mark's residency card would not be renewed. "He has a temporary residency card valid for one year. It will not be renewed when it expires in the second half of 2006 and he will have to leave." The spokesman, Armand Deus, added: "I cannot say why it will not be renewed. But the Prince made things very clear during his investiture in July when he said that ethics will be at the centre of life in Monaco."
Sir Mark Thatcher has a
twin sister,
Carol Thatcher, a journalist.
In
1982, while competing in the
Paris-Dakar rally, Thatcher, his
French co-driver, Charlotte Verney, and their mechanic went missing in the
Sahara Desert for six days. On
January 9,
1982, the trio became separated from a convoy of vehicles after they stopped to make repairs to a faulty steering arm. They were declared missing on
January 12; after a large-scale search, a
C-130 Hercules search plane from the
Algerian military spotted the white
Peugeot 504 some 50km off course. Thatcher, Verney and the mechanic were all unharmed. He was criticised at the time for not thanking his rescuers. He financed his rallying under a company called "Mark Thatcher Racing", but it was dissolved because of financial problems. The Paris-Dakar incident was one of the few times that the public saw a cracking of Prime Minister Thatcher's "Iron Lady" reputation, as she gave way to moments of obvious despair and worry.
Thatcher initially hoped to become an accountant but failed his accountancy exams three times. He was later employed in the jewellery business and was involved in a succession of unsuccessful career attempts in the Far East. It is his business dealings at the time that his mother was Prime Minister, however, that were the subject of much press attention.
Thatcher is alleged by a
Saudi dissident,
Mohammed Khilewi, as well as by former Labour
MP Tam Dalyell, and
The Guardian newspaper, to have received a multimillion-pound commission on the £20,000,000,000
Al Yamamah arms contract with Saudi Arabia, which his mother signed in
1985 as Prime Minister. According to
The Guardian, "Sir Mark has always denied receiving this payment or exploiting his mother's connections in business dealings."
Other widely reported Thatcher embarrassments include allegations of U.S. tax evasion (a criminal case was eventually dropped) and a racketeering case in Texas which was settled out of court. According to "The Telegraph" (
August 26,
2004), "In 1998, he was at the centre of a scandal after he lent huge sums of money at exorbitant interest rates to more than 900 local police officers and civil servants in
Cape Town. He admitted lending the cash but insisted that he had done nothing wrong. He is also thought to have profited from contracts to supply aviation fuel in various African countries."
On
August 25,
2004, Thatcher was arrested at 10 Dawn Avenue, his thatched-roof mansion in
Constantia, a rich district of
Cape Town,
South Africa. He was charged later that day with contravening two sections of South Africa's "Foreign Military Assistance Act", which bans
South African residents from taking part in any foreign
military activity. The charges related to "possible funding and logistical assistance in relation to [an] attempted
coup in
Equatorial Guinea" organised by
Simon Mann. He was released on
bail of 2 million
rand and spent a period of time under
house arrest, but was bailed to London to live with his widowed mother while his wife and children moved to the family's home in
Highland Park, an up-market section of her hometown,
Dallas, Texas.
On
November 24,
2004, the Cape Town
High Court upheld a subpoena from the South African Justice Ministry that required him to answer under oath questions from
Equatorial Guinean authorities regarding the alleged coup attempt. He was due to face questioning on
November 25,
2004, regarding offences under the South African Foreign Military Assistance Act; however, these proceedings were later postponed until
April 8,
2005. Ultimately, following a process of
plea bargaining, Thatcher pleaded guilty to negligence in investing in an aircraft "without taking proper investigations into what it would be used for". He was fined three million
rand (approximately $500,000 USD) and received a four-year
suspended jail sentence.
The coup scandal outraged left-wing Members of Parliament, who demanded that Sir Mark be stripped of his baronetcy, no action was taken, however. The title, which was created in
1992, was the first new Baronetcy since
1965. It was controversial from the moment of its creation by
John Major, in favour of Mark's father
Denis Thatcher, not least because Mark was first in line to inherit it. However, it was not the first honour to be granted to the spouse of a British Prime Minister: John Major's own wife
Norma was created a
Dame, and the wives of both
Benjamin Disraeli and
Winston Churchill were given peerages in their own right, although the former also excited controversy at the time.
Titles from birth
* Mark Thatcher, Esq. (
August 15,
1953–
June 26,
1992)
* The Hon. Mark Thatcher (
June 26,
1992–
June 26,
2003)
* The Hon. Sir Mark Thatcher, Bt (
June 26,
2003—)
*
"Telegraph" news story: "Richest member of a famous family and its most accident-prone"*
Guardian news story: "Mark Thatcher arrested in South Africa"*
Guardian news story: "Out of Arms Way" – additional details on the
Al Yamamah situationProfiles:
*
The Guardian: "Profile: Sir Mark Thatcher. Playboy-turned-businessman dogged by rumours of financial impropriety"*
Guardian profile: "'Scratcher', the millionaire fixer"*
Independent profile: "Sir Mark Thatcher: How 'the charmless Mark' pocketed a fortune trading on his mother's name"*
The Times profile: "The son and heir who made Iron Lady unbend"*
The Scotsman profile: "In trouble again, mummy's boy always in her shadow"*
BBC profile* "A sunny place for shady people but Monaco doesn't want Mark Thatcher" by Kim Willshire,
The Guardian,
December 21,
2005*
Executive Outcomes*
Simon Mann
