MT's official files as Prime Minister, 1979-90

MT's official files as PM can be read on this site as they are released, in full and free to all - the confidential files originally stored at No.10, the core record of her premiership.

The files have been copied at the British National Archives (TNA) at Kew in London and can be downloaded precisely as they appear in the reading room.

We are doing something more to help people make sense of this mass of information. The files are subject-based, logically enough, but that system makes it difficult to reconstruct the flow of paper across the Prime Minister’s desk at any point in time, depriving us of a sense of context, of the political cross-winds, some of them overwhelming.

To combat this effect we are uploading a large selection of the most important documents from these files – thousands in total – to our powerful site database. You can search and sort by date, subject and other parameters, getting as close as anyone can now get to reconstructing the Prime Minister’s daily "Red Boxes", the rich diet of foreign and domestic policy papers submitted to her by the No.10 Private Office.

List and links to the PM’s files

Below are links to the downloadable files in numerical order. The subject terms are those used in the original filing system.

An average file has around 200 pages.

You can read here an account of how filing worked at No.10, and the system for archiving MT’s Prime Ministerial papers, both of which had their quirks.

Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Private Office files, 1979-1989

1979-89: Chancellor’s Private Office files [links to hundreds of digitised files from the Chancellorships of Sir Geoffrey Howe and Nigel Lawson]

Engagement Diaries

An alternative way through the material is to read MT’s engagement diaries, jumping day to day.

The engagement diaries link directly to relevant documents in the site database, so this is a good way to recover the perspective from the Red Box.

Showing items 3351 - 3375 of 3726

Per page:

File name	File title	Begins	Ends	Release date	Any docs withheld?	Classification	Pages
PREM19/3626	China (Visits to the UK by Vice Premiers of China: meetings with Chinese Foreign Ministers)	Begins: 1980 May 8	Ends: 1992 Nov 17	Date of release: 2017 Dec 29		Classification: Confidential	Pages: 185
PREM19/3628	Civil Service (Civil Service manpower: early retirement) (Part 5)	Begins: 1990 Aug 1	Ends: 1992 Nov 10	Date of release: 2017 Dec 29		Classification: Secret	Pages: 95
PREM19/3629	Civil Service (Long-term management and manpower policy: financial management; market testing in the Civil Service; Individual Merit Promotion (IMP) Scheme; recruitment) (Part 22)	Begins: 1989 Jan 5	Ends: 1992 Jun 2	Date of release: 2017 Dec 29	Any docs withheld? 4	Classification: Confidential	Pages: 256
PREM19/3630	Civil Service (Prime Minister's meetings with Permanent Secretaries)	Begins: 1988 Feb 1	Ends: 1992 Sep 15	Date of release: 2017 Dec 29		Classification: Confidential	Pages: 28
PREM19/3631	Civil Service (Rules on the acceptance of business appointments by civil servants following resignation or retirement) (Part 2)	Begins: 1987 Jul 8	Ends: 1991 Oct 17	Date of release: 2017 Dec 29		Classification: Confidential	Pages: 109
PREM19/3634	Colombia (Internal situation: UK/Colombia relations) (Part 1)	Begins: 1982 Mar 1	Ends: 1992 Sep 30	Date of release: Temporarily Retained by Department
PREM19/3635	Commonwealth (Reports by Commonwealth Secretary-General: activities of the Commonwealth Secretariat) (Part 2)	Begins: 1987 May 5	Ends: 1992 Jun 30	Date of release: 2017 Dec 29		Classification: Confidential	Pages: 119
PREM19/3637	Cyprus (Visits to the UK by President Vassiliou of Cyprus)	Begins: 1989 Jan 4	Ends: 1992 Jul 13	Date of release: Temporarily Retained by Department
PREM19/3638	Czechoslovakia (Visit to the UK by President Vaclav Havel, March 1990; visits of the Czech Foreign Minister, April 1990, and Prime Minister Klaus, Jul 1992)	Begins: 1990 Feb 7	Ends: 1992 Jul 3	Date of release: 2017 Dec 29		Classification: Confidential	Pages: 114
PREM19/3639	Deaths (Deaths of members of the Royal Family and former Prime Ministers)	Begins: 1979 Jun 22	Ends: 1992 Jun 16	Date of release: Temporarily Retained by Department
PREM19/3641	Defence (Basing of United States Ground Launched Cruise Missiles (GLCM) in the UK) (Part 1)	Begins: 1980 Apr 18	Ends: 1992 May 20	Date of release: 2017 Dec 29	Any docs withheld? 3	Classification: Top Secret	Pages: 114
PREM19/3644	Defence (Defence sales) (Part 13)	Begins: 1990 Jul 1	Ends: 1992 Dec 31	Date of release: Reconsideration 2028		Classification: Retained Sec 3.4
PREM19/3645	Defence (Enlargement of the Western European Union (WEU))	Begins: 1988 Apr 1	Ends: 1992 Jan 2	Date of release: 2017 Dec 29		Classification: Confidential	Pages: 46
PREM19/3647	Defence (Future of HMS Endurance and her replacement HMS Polar Circle)	Begins: 1981 Jul 21	Ends: 1992 May 7	Date of release: 2017 Dec 29		Classification: Confidential	Pages: 285
PREM19/3648	Defence (UK strategic nuclear deterrent: nuclear test programme) (Part 10)	Begins: 1990 Nov 6	Ends: 1992 May 12	Date of release: Temporarily Retained by Department
PREM19/3649	Defence (The Mildenhall Agreement) (Part 1)	Begins: 1977 Mar 11	Ends: 1992 Apr 16	Date of release: Temporarily Retained by Department
PREM19/3650	Defence (Military uses of laser technology in space: United States Strategic Defence Initiative; Global Protection Against Limited Strikes (GPALS)) (Part 6)	Begins: 1989 Jun 14	Ends: 1992 Sep 23	Date of release: 2017 Dec 29	Any docs withheld? 4	Classification: Secret	Pages: 212
PREM19/3651	Defence (Prime Minister's meeting with Group Captain Leonard Cheshire, October 1986: memorandum on 'The Defence of Europe in the Nuclear Age')	Begins: 1986 Sep 26	Ends: 1987 Jan 20	Date of release: 2017 Dec 29		Classification: Top Secret	Pages: 45
PREM19/3652	Defence (Procurement of weapon systems) (Part 9)	Begins: 1990 Aug 2	Ends: 1992 Feb 28	Date of release: 2017 Dec 29	Any docs withheld? 1	Classification: Secret	Pages: 321
PREM19/3653	Denmark (Internal situation: UK/Denmark relations) (Part 1)	Begins: 1979 Oct 26	Ends: 1992 Nov 27	Date of release: 2017 Dec 29		Classification: Confidential	Pages: 304
PREM19/3654	Denmark (Visits to the UK by the Prime Minister of Denmark) (Part 1)	Begins: 1982 Jul 1	Ends: 1992 Oct 1	Date of release: 2017 Dec 29	Any docs withheld? 1	Classification: Confidential	Pages: 264
PREM19/3655	Disasters (Attack on Korean Airlines Boeing 747 by a Soviet fighter plane, 1 September 1983)	Begins: 1983 Sep 1	Ends: 1983 Nov 1	Date of release: 2017 Dec 29	Any docs withheld? 3	Classification: Top Secret	Pages: 194
PREM19/3656	Disasters (Chernobyl: Soviet nuclear accident, 26 April 1986) (Part 1)	Begins: 1986 Apr 29	Ends: 1992 Sep 21	Date of release: 2017 Dec 29	Any docs withheld? 9	Classification: Top Secret	Pages: 299
PREM19/3658	Disasters (Thames riverboat disaster: sinking of the Marchioness, 20 August 1989)	Begins: 1989 Aug 20	Ends: 1992 Jul 3	Date of release: 2017 Dec 29		Classification: Confidential	Pages: 81
PREM19/3659	Downing Street (Organisation and function of the Prime Minister's Policy Unit; access to papers by members of the Policy Unit) (Part 2)	Begins: 1987 Apr 27	Ends: 1992 Jun 24	Date of release: 2017 Dec 29		Classification: Confidential	Pages: 70

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