Margaret Thatcher was prime minister and Nigel Lawson her chancellor of the exchequer. Neil Kinnock was leader of the Labour party. The iron curtain separated Europe.
Across the Atlantic, Ronald Reagan’s second term in the White House was drawing to a close. Donald Trump floated the idea that George Bush might want him as his running mate in the looming US presidential election, an overture Bush described as “strange and unbelievable”.
