Doctor Who aficionados who feel the series was pants in the 1980s may have to think again. It seems that the Time Lord was at war with an enemy far more fearsome than the Daleks: Margaret Thatcher. According to Sylvester McCoy, who played The Doctor at the time: “Doctor Who used satire to put political messages out there in the way they used to do in places like Czechoslovakia. Our feeling was that Margaret Thatcher was far more terrifying than any monster the Doctor had encountered. Andrew Cartmel, script editor of the time says: “My exact words were: ‘I’d like to overthrow the Government’. I was very angry about the social injustice in Britain under Thatcher and I’m delighted that came into the show.” The outcome of this titanic struggle? The BBC cancelled Doctor Who, while the Iron Lady – the Davros of British politics – was finally zapped by her own side.
