Dracula

The files record that Margaret Thatcher was told in 1986 that the role of Vlad Dracula – Vlad the Impaler – had been reassessed “positively” by a panel of Marxist historians in Ceaușescu’s Romania.

“He was, apparently, a very good administrator, if somewhat excessive in his use of impaling to punish wrongdoers. He was also a very patriotic warrior against the Turks. His tendency in old age to drink the blood of virgins as a restorative is, of course, deplored. But as our guide lamented, he would find it difficult nowadays to find an adequate supply!” reported Tory MP Julian Amery to her after a visit to Bucharest.

Vlad the Impaler, or Vlad III prince of Wallachia as he was properly known, was a 15th-century Romanian warrior nobleman who provided the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula.

More recently the Romanian national tourist office has exploited a link between Prince Charles and Vlad the Impaler to promote British tourism to Transylvania. “Transylvania is in my blood,” Charles jokes in a 2012 television interview. “The genealogy shows I am descended from Vlad the Impaler, so I do have a bit of a stake in the country.”

The Romanian tourist board says it is now possible to visit the house where Vlad was born, which includes a restaurant and a small museum of medieval weapons.

Leaks

“Journalists fail to understand that the leak is only rivalled as a Whitehall weapon by the accusation of leaking,” wrote David Willetts, then a member of the Downing Street policy unit, in a paper on its history.

“If one can successfully create the impression that another organisation or person is leaky then its sources of information may dry up and it can be easier to cut out of decision-taking. Most members of the policy unit have experienced this. To get into the virtuous circle it is important to have good relations with knowledgeable, conscientious and intellectually honest Whitehall officials,” advised the future minister in David Cameron’s government.

Rural riots

Home secretary Douglas Hurd tried to reassure his colleagues about media reports on drunken trouble in the shires. “There is nothing new about market town disorders,” he said in a cabinet memorandum in June 1988.

“Drunken mob violence goes back centuries; teddy boys in the 50s, mods and rockers in the 60s, punks and skinheads in the 70s inherited a long tradition. But I am concerned that the problem is getting worse. The violence over new year 1987 and spring bank holiday 1987 was an indication of a trend of disorder spreading to the suburbs and shires.”

Hurd said the rural rioter was typically 16-25, for whom drink “pushed them over the edge” while their parents were home in front of the TV. He suggested toughening the licensing laws and a more fundamental approach to tackle their lack of self-control and social responsibility.

Hurd rejected the introduction of a “rural riot squad” saying it would spend all its time “chasing from one end of the county to another” and arriving too late to be effective.