The Winning Formula

The sainted Thatcher's faith in her independent nuclear deterrent did not extend to a belief in its ability to ward off a chemical attack by the evil Soviets, according to newly declassified documents. The old bag was all of a tizzy in the early 1980s when the Ministry for War and the Colonies warned her that there was no possible military response to a chemical attack other than nuclear war; the practice of issuing soldiers and useful civilians with gas masks and other protective equipment had apparently not been invented at the time. Thatcher, an industrial chemist by training, employed several varieties of slimy toxic waste in her various cabinets; and it is just possible that she was also inspired by the doings of her government's good chum and business associate, Saddam Hussein, who was deploying chemical weapons against the Great Satan of Iran and who within a few years would use them to deliver a short, sharp shock to his own enemies within. However, despite the imminent threat of Communist biochemical apocalypse, it was decided that the degree of public indoctrination required for an independent chemical deterrent would be excessive, and eventually the British government settled back into default mode and resolved to punch above its weight on the world stage by doing whatever the Americans thought best.