IF SIR Mark Thatcher was the son of an African ruler his conduct would confirm the worst prejudices of the west. Instead, as the son of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, he is mostly regarded as a wayward, mildly dim embarrassment.
All his life, Thatcher has exploited his mother’s power, often evidently with her collusion.
When Lady Thatcher travelled the world as prime minister, son Mark was never far behind, parasitically trading on her name.
Most of his deals, which amassed him a fortune, are shrouded in secrecy.
The most public was his part in the failed 2004 coup against Equatorial Guinea, and he is in the news again because coup leader Simon Mann, after release from jail last week, called for Thatcher to face justice for his pivotal role.
Thatcher, who helped finance the attempted coup, escaped serious consequences in typical fashion: when arrested in SA, he squealed.
He was fined R3m, given a four-year suspended sentence and allowed to leave the country in a hurry.
His first big break, after many failures, came in 1984 from a deal by British firm Cementation to build a university in Oman. His mother had recommended Cementation. Thatcher received a reported £1m “facilitation” fee.
In 1985, his mother negotiated the notorious £40bn Al Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia.
Her son is alleged to have been paid £12m as a middle man.
This became a familiar pattern. So much so that when Margaret Thatcher went on an official visit to Turkey, I was tasked by my newspaper to discover if Mark was cashing in again.
Sure enough, I tracked him down in Turkey signing another lucrative deal.
Not long after, I was tipped off that the Turkish prime minister, on a reciprocal visit to Britain, was having talks with Mrs Thatcher — not in Downing Street, but at Mark Thatcher’s London home.
Imagine the same scenario with the son of a South African minister. It would be regarded as shameless nepotism.
The Thatchers also have a long involvement with apartheid-era SA.
Margaret Thatcher’s late husband, Denis, was for many years nonexecutive director of a Johannesburg- based company, which paid its black workers well below the European recommended minimum wage.
In the early 1970s, in classic colonial tradition, young Mark was sent here after a string of failures in London.
He returned again in 1996, this time to live in Cape Town. No one could pin down his business interests. A sign of his greed, however, was that despite his estimated £60m wealth, he could not resist running a loan-shark operation. He used off-duty policemen guarding his home to make loans to lowly paid Cape Town policemen — at 20% interest.
His rudeness and insensitivity are legendary. But it is no secret that for his mother, the Iron Lady, he could do no wrong. It was a mutual admiration.
Ten years ago I was taken by a builder to see a substantial house in Constantia. He wouldn’t tell me who it belonged to, though once I saw the guards and met a former Scotland Yard detective I began to suspect it belonged to Princess Diana’s brother, Earl Spencer.
Only when we got to the huge living room did the ownership became apparent.
There were dozens of picture of Margaret Thatcher: with Ronald Reagan, with Mikhail Gorbachev, etc. And with Mark Thatcher. There was only one picture of his then wife, Diane Thatcher. That’s because she was standing next to … Margaret.
It was a fitting tribute. Because his fortune is due to only one factor: that he is the son of a formidable, long-serving British prime minister. The double standard, however, is that if he were the son of an African politician, no one would hesitate to cry corruption.
So will Sir Mark, as Mann demands, now face justice? Oh, please!
Rostron is a freelance writer.