Interview: key extracts

"Our affair started in Autumn 1984. I ended it in early 1988 when it became clear that he was a rapidly rising star in the government. We could not continue without risking discovery. During these years our relationship was one of mutual support and affection, which, even now, I look back on with warmth."

'I loved that feeling'

"Part of the fun was the thought that there John was sitting in the Whips' Office, sometimes discussing other people's affairs, and keeping very quiet about his own. I loved that feeling."

'Private relationships'

"There are plenty of people in the House of Commons who are so work-orientated that anything else doesn't cross their minds...But there was a large majority, somewhere in the middle, who valued and cared about their families and their careers, who were ambitious, who were passionate people, for whom a private relationship with someone who understood, who might be a colleague."

Diary extracts:

In one of her diary entries, for 4 November 1990, she tells of the last days of Margaret Thatcher's leadership.

"On Walden on Sunday the PM looked fine, pretty even, but there was a harsh, aggressive edge to her, a kind of desperation never there before; she sounded several times as if she was losing her marbles."

On 26 November, four days after the Tory leader had stood down to contest the leadership, Ms Currie wrote:

"She is still head and shoulders above everyone...But the lioness is ageing and the jackals are snapping at her heels. It gives me a sick feeling to watch it."