Envoy warned Thatcher of Haughey’s ‘ruthless ambition’

BRITAIN’S ambassador to Dublin warned that former Taoiseach Charles Haughey was a man of “calculating and ruthless ambition,” declassified files reveal.

A candid diplomatic despatch for 10 Downing Street ahead of Mr Haughey’s first face-to-face meeting with Margaret Thatcher in May 1980 described the Taoiseach as having a “taste for the good things in life” but few real friends.

Britain’s then ambassador to Ireland, Robin Haydon, painted a picture of a former heavy drinker who had become a “puritan” in recent years and all but given up alcohol and tobacco.