There's nothing ghoulish about my Maggie film, insists the director

The director of The Iron Lady today defended her movie. Phyllida Lloyd spoke out after claims by friends of Lady Thatcher that her take on the former leader's life was "ghoulish".

Former foreign secretary Lord Hurd told the Evening Standard that the film was "ghoulish" for focusing on her failing mental abilities while Charles Moore, her biographer, said it was "unkind".

But as stars gathered for the premiere on the South Bank tonight, Ms Lloyd retaliated: "We all felt that a portrait of somebody who is experiencing a failure of strength and health and forgetfulness is not a shameful thing to put on the screen.

"It's something that Meryl [Streep, who plays Lady Thatcher], and Abi Morgan [the writer] and I felt was a really worthwhile exploration."

She said the portrayal was partly based on descriptions of Lady Thatcher's health in a book by Carol Thatcher, her daughter.

About 600 VIP guests will attend tonight's premiere at the British Film Institute, including Streep and Jim Broadbent, who plays Denis Thatcher. Lord Healey, the former Labour chancellor who was one of Lady Thatcher's chief foes, said he would wait to see the movie on TV.

"As prime minister she was bad, without any question, but when I got to know her as a human being I found she had quite attractive qualities. One felt rather sorry for her because she was quite fragile."

Some of Lady Thatcher's closest former colleagues have attacked the film as inaccurate, including former Conservative chairman Lord Tebbit, who said: "She was never, in my experience, the half-hysterical, over-emotional, over-acting woman portrayed by Meryl Streep."

Her former public relations adviser Lord Bell declared today he would not bother watching it: "I have not seen it and will not."