ANC, Mandela No Longer "Terrorists"

David Cameron dramatically denounced one of Margaret Thatcher's flagship foreign policies last night, saying that she was wrong to have branded Nelson Mandela's African National Congress as 'terrorists' and to have opposed sanctions against the apartheid regime in South Africa...

But his intervention drew sharp criticism from some of the ex-Prime Minister's closest allies. Her former spokesman, Sir Bernard Ingham, said: 'I wonder whether David Cameron is a Conservative.'

Describing Mandela as 'one of the greatest men alive', Cameron writes: 'The mistakes my party made in the past with respect to relations with the ANC and sanctions on South Africa make it all the more important to listen now.

'The fact that there is so much to celebrate in the new South Africa is not in spite of Mandela and the ANC, it is because of them - and we Conservatives should say so clearly today.'