Margaret Thatcher might be the last personality to be used to market cruise holidays, yet the release of the biographical film The Iron Lady starring Meryl Streep has urged at least two cruise lines to add one or more of her ex staff members to their line-up of guest speakers.

Lord Hurd was Foreign Secretary in Mrs Thatcher’s cabinet. He will be sailing on board the recently refurbished Minerva on a 16-day cruise in the Adriatic. Since it was during his term in office that the protracted wars in Yugoslavia broke out in the 1990s he will probably have interesting comments to make when the ship visits the Croatian ports of Korcula, Dubrovnik, Split and Pula and the port of Kotor in Montenegro.

The cruise commences in Malta and ends with a two-night stay in Athens. On the way it also docks at Itea in Greece, Venice and Trieste in Italy, and the port of Sarande in Albania. Fares start at £2,170 per passenger sharing.

If you find Mr Hurd too much of a dry stick, you might find Discovery’s 15-day cruise from Harwich to Iceland more interesting. Sir Anthony Brenton will be a guest speaker on this cruise. He used to be the ambassador to Russia, so he would have a lot to tell about the art of diplomacy.

Fares for this cruise, which docks at Flam and Bergen in Norway, Isafjordjur, Akureyri, Grundarfjordur and Reykjavik in Iceland and Torshavn in the Faeroe Islands start from £1,499.