Regrets emerge over results in Europe: Margaret Thatcher's recollections of a turbulent decade at the helm of the Conservative Party and Britain are published today

FOR ALL her regrets over Britain's entry into the exchange rate mechanism and the signing of the Maastricht treaty, Baroness Thatcher remains defensive of the role she herself played - by agreeing to the Single European Act - in extending the power of Brussels to regulate British affairs, writes Patricia Wynn Davies.

Questioned over the most critical thing she wrote about herself, she said she never really believed in the ERM, and regretted not being more successful with Europe. Britain's EC partners had 'sat there sullen' and refused to consider the Gatt free-trade talks. In December 1985, when the treaty that would become the Single European Act was being considered, the creation of a single market was for Margaret Thatcher an 'overriding positive goal'. She admits: 'The trouble was . . . that the new powers the Commission received only seemed to whet its appetite.'