Papers released to the National Archives at Kew, west London, under the 30-year rule cast fresh light on the former Prime Minister’s attitude towards race and immigration.

They record a meeting in July 1979 between the premier, Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington and Home Secretary William Whitelaw to discuss the plight of hundreds of thousands of “boat people” fleeing communist persecution in Vietnam.

According to the minutes, Lord Carrington, who had visited refugee camps in Hong Kong where some refugees were being held, gave a “vivid account” of the conditions he found and suggested Britain should accept 10,000 over a two-year period.

He expressed concern that if the UK did not come forward with a significant offer, there would be a “damaging reaction” both at home and abroad. Anything less than 10,000, he said, would be “difficult to sustain internationally”.

The suggestion drew an angry response from Mrs Thatcher who said that there were already too many people coming into the country.

She said that “with some exceptions there had been no humanitarian case for accepting 1.5 million immigrants from south Asia and elsewhere. It was essential to draw a line somewhere”.

Mr Whitelaw weighed in, saying it was a mistake to mix up immigrants and refugees. He further antagonised Mrs Thatcher by adding that his postbag was showing a shift in opinion in favour of accepting more boat people.

“The Prime Minister said that in her view all those who wrote letters in this sense should be invited to accept one into their homes,” the minutes noted.

“She thought it quite wrong that immigrants should be given council housing whereas white citizens were not.”

Mrs Thatcher then raised the question of the implications of such a move in the light of the expected exodus of the white settler population from Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) once majority rule was established.

She added however that she had “less objection to refugees such as Rhodesians, Poles and Hungarians, since they could more easily be assimilated into British society”.

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I am not sure about the meaning of shrill scaremongering!

I seem to remember being told that the LIberal Party was a minor party and will always remain so in the 1960s! Then, from a standing start, I very nearly was elected in Newbury in 1974 on a platform of greater equality of opportunity in education, health and the inheritance of wealth and the privatisation of all activities other than those which either cannot or ought not to be rationed by price – a platform which clearly straddled the two other parties – in the days when there was less Liberal Party discipline.

If the LIberal Party – of which I am currently not a member – became a clear LIberal alternative to UKIP it would do very well. So, like you, I hope that EU-enthusiastic members of the Liberal Party will consider leaving it and joining the Liberal Democrats, as did Michael Meadowcroft, the original re-founder of the LIberal Party, because the Liberal Party became too EU-sceptic for him.

Bill – I agree with you completely that Cameron’s “lovebombing” is actually about scaring off soft Labour tactical voters.

The sooner we leave the EU the better. I hope that any EU-sceptic Liberal Democrats will consider joining the Liberal Party, so that at some stage we will have a clearly EU-withdrawalist Liberal Party – as well as an EU-fanatic Liberal Democratic Party .

We badly need a clearly EU-withdrawalist Liberal internationalist alternative to the beyond the pale EU-withdrawalist BNP and the right wing grammar-school-in-every-town and abolish-Inheritance-Tax EU-withdrawalist UKIP.

Also, the closer we appear to get to the Tories the less likely it is that previously loyal Labour voters who are close to deserting will come to us.

Tory policies? All their policy papers are on their website. Their economic policy might be neo-con, but the rest is relatively liberal. Have a look at the freedom they plan to give to LAs to use social enterprises for service delivery. This policy on stimulating social enterprise was in the originally 10 point election manifesto for Cameron’s leadership campaign. He was and has never been policy-lite.

It is pretty obvious that in 1997 there was a covert deal between Labour and the then Lib Dem leadership. I suggest that the ‘offer’ was only withdrawn by Blair on the Wednesday before polling day. The Labour guy I was working with at the time had his appointment for Friday in Downing Street moved forward by four hours on that Wednesday – exactly the length of time believed by senior Lib Dems to be the length of time for the ultimatum Blair would give the Lib Dems to make their decision.

I just hope that this time there isn’t anything going on with the Conservatives.

I’m glad that he’s deided to come on board with so much of what we support, as that shows our arguments are sticking, but I wonder what it means for those at the other end of the tory party – does Cameron now feel secure about the electoral risk posed by Ukip. It would seem the European elections are now a sufficiently distant memory that the tory grassroots are now more muted.

However, it does make me wonder about how reliable or secure Cameron can possibly be if he is so quick to undermine his shadow cabinet colleagues in his anxiety to succeed in his electoral bid – I can’t say the prospect of a future Conservative regime fills me with any confidence for the country.

Certainy Cameron’s message is aimed at wavering Lib Dem voters in Con/Lab marginals. This may affect our overall vote but probably not the number of seats.

While I have my reservations about the new grouping, at least when it was formed, it’s now quite the good group, forming a real opposition to the European parliament.

No PR, shoo you jumper hugging hippies.

What I suspect there may be change on is cutting taxes