Margaret Thatcher Quotations
Margaret Hilda Thatcher (born 13 October 1925) was the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1979–1990).
Sourced
Backbench MP
- In considering our traditional ties with the Commonwealth we should remember that it now differs greatly from the entity which existed 20 or 30 years ago. Many of us do not feel quite the same allegiance to Archbishop Makarios or Doctor Nkrumah or to people like Jomo Kenyatta as we do towards Mr. Menzies of Australia.
Education Secretary
- I don't think there will be a woman Prime Minister in my lifetime.
- On Val meets the V.I.P.s, BBC Television (5 March, 1973)
Shadow Secretary for Environment
- I wish I could say that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had done himself less than justice. Unfortunately, I can only say that I believe he has done himself justice. Some Chancellors are macro-economic. Other Chancellors are fiscal. This one is just plain cheap.
- If a Tory does not believe that private property is one of the main bulwarks of individual freedom, then he had better become a socialist and have done with it.
- And I will go on criticising Socialism, and opposing Socialism because it is bad for Britain — and Britain and Socialism are not the same thing. (...) It’s the Labour Government that have brought us record peace-time taxation. They’ve got the usual Socialist disease — they’ve run out of other people’s money.
- In a speech to the Conservative Party Conference (10 October, 1975) [1]
Leader of the Opposition
- She's ruled by a dictatorship of patient, far-sighted determined men who are rapidly making their country the foremost naval and military power in the world. They are not doing this solely for the sake of self-defence. A huge, largely land-locked country like Russia does not need to build the most powerful navy in the world just to guard its own frontiers. No. The Russians are bent on world dominance, and they are rapidly acquiring the means to become the most powerful imperial nation the world has seen. The men in the Soviet politburo don't have to worry about the ebb and flow of public opinion. They put guns before butter, while we put just about everything before guns. They know that they are a super power in only one sense—the military sense. They are a failure in human and economic terms.
- Speech at Kensington Town Hall ("Britain Awake") (19 January, 1976)
- In response to this speech, the Soviet Army newspaper Red Star labelled Thatcher "the Iron Lady," a moniker that would stick for the remainder of her political career.
- Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them.
- People from my sort of background needed Grammar schools to compete with children from privileged homes like Shirley Williams and Anthony Wedgwood Benn.
- My job is to stop Britain going red.
- Statement (3 November 1977)
- People are really rather afraid that this country might be rather swamped by people with a different culture ... We are not in politics to ignore peoples' worries: we are in politics to deal with them.
- I hate extremes of any kind. Communism and the National Front both seek the domination of the state over the individual. They both, I believe crush the right of the individual. To me, therefore, they are parties of a similar kind. All my life I have stood against banning Communism or other extremist organisations because, if you do that, they go underground and it gives them an excitement that they don't get if they are allowed to pursue their policies openly. We'll beat them into the ground on argument... The National Front is a Socialist Front.
- I can't bear Britain in decline. I just can't.
- Interviewed by Michael Cockerell for BBC TV's Campaign '79 (27 April, 1979).
- This is what we believe.
- Quoted by John Ranelagh in Thatcher's People according to hayekcenter.org
- Thatcher banged a copy of F.A. Hayek's The Constitution of Liberty on the table as she spoke these words.
First term as Prime Minister
- Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope.
- Statement on the doorstep of 10 Downing Street, after her election as Prime Minister, as quoted at On this day (BBC). (This is a paraphrasing of a quote attributed to St. Francis of Assisi).
- I have thought long and deeply about the post of Foreign Secretary and have decided to offer it to Peter Carrington who – as I am sure you will agree – will do the job superbly.
- Edward Heath, "The Course of My Life" (Hodder and Stoughton, 1998), p. 574.
- Letter written on 4 May 1979 to Edward Heath, who had been hoping for the job of Foreign Secretary in Thatcher's government.
- Pennies don't fall from heaven, they have to be earned here on earth.
- We are not asking for a penny piece of Community money for Britain. What we are asking is for a very large amount of our own money back, over and above what we contribute to the Community, which is covered by our receipts from the Community.
- Statement at a press conference when she was trying to renegotiate Britain's EEC budget contribution at the EEC Summit in Dublin (30 November 1979). Often quoted as "I want my money back".
- No-one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions; he had money as well.
- Gentlemen, there is nothing sweeter than success, and you boys have got it!
- Her comment to the SAS group, at 9.45 p.m. soon after Operation Nimrod (5 May, 1980)]
- To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the U-turn, I have only one thing to say: You turn if you want to. [laughter] The lady's not for turning.
- Reacting to doubt over her economic policies at a Conservative Party Conference (10 October, 1980)
- A play on The Lady's Not for Burning, a 1948 play by Christopher Fry about a witchcraft trial.
- Economics are the method; the object is to change the heart and soul.
- There really is no alternative.
- My policies are based not on some economics theory, but on things I and millions like me were brought up with: an honest day's work for an honest day's pay; live within your means; put by a nest egg for a rainy day; pay your bills on time; support the police.
- The News of the World (20 September, 1981)
- Just rejoice at that news and congratulate our forces and the marines. .. Rejoice.
- Remarks to the press in Downing Street on announcing the liberation of South Georgia, 25 April 1982.
- Our necks have been protected by a military personnel who were more rugged than slave-man boots.
- Remarks to the press in Downing Street on announcing the liberation of South Georgia, 25 April 1982.
- Defeat—I do not recognise the meaning of the word!
- The Battle for the Falklands by Max Hastings and Simon Jenkins
- This was Thatcher's response when, prior to the Falklands War, she was told that engaging Britain in such a seemingly irrelevant conflict thousands of miles from Europe could result in defeat.
- The right hon. Gentleman is afraid of an election is he? Oh, if I were going to cut and run I'd have gone after the Falklands. Afraid? Frightened? Frit? Couldn't take it? Couldn't stand it? Right now inflation is lower than it has been for thirteen years, a record the right hon. Gentleman couldn't begin to touch!
- Prime Minister's Question Time, House of Commons (19 April, 1983). The use of 'frit', an unusual Lincolnshire dialect abbreviation of 'frightened' which Mrs Thatcher evidently recalled from childhood, was missed by MPs in a noisy chamber but heard very distinctly on the audio feed from the chamber.
- The choice facing the nation is between two totally different ways of life. And what a prize we have to fight for: no less than the chance to banish from our land the dark, divisive clouds of Marxist socialism and bring together men and women from all walks of life who share a belief in freedom.
- Speech in Perth, Scotland (13 May 1983), quoted in New York Times (14 May 1983) "British Vote Campaign Gets Off to Angry Start"
In an interview with George Negus for the Australian TV program 60 minutes, the following exchange occurred [2]:
- Negus: Why do people stop us in the street almost and tell us that Margaret Thatcher isn't just inflexible, she's not just single-minded, on occasions she't plain pig-headed and won't be told by anybody?
- Thatcher: Would you tell me who has stopped you in the street and said that?
- Negus: Ordinary Britons...
- Thatcher: Where?
- Negus: In conversation, in pubs...
- Thatcher (interrupting): I thought you'd just come from Belize
- Negus: Oh this is not the first time we've been here.
- Thatcher: Will you tell me who, and where and when?
- Negus: Ordinary Britons in restaurants and cabs
- Thatcher: How many?
- Negus: ...in cabs
- Thatcher: How many?
- Negus: I would say at least one in two
- Thatcher: Why won't you tell me their names and who they are?
Second term as Prime Minister
Socialists cry "Power to the people", and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean—power over people, power to the State.- I came to office with one deliberate intent: to change Britain from a dependent to a self-reliant society — from a give-it-to-me, to a do-it-yourself nation. A get-up-and-go, instead of a sit-back-and-wait-for-it Britain.
- It was a lovely morning. We have not had many lovely days. And the sun was just coming through the stained glass windows and falling on some flowers right across the church and it just occurred to me that this was the day I was meant not to see.
- TV Interview for Channel 4 A plus 4 (15 October, 1984), referring to the Brighton bombing in which the IRA attempted to assassinate her.
- I personally have always voted for the death penalty because I believe that people who go out prepared to take the lives of other people forfeit their own right to live. I believe that that death penalty should be used only very rarely, but I believe that no-one should go out certain that no matter how cruel, how vicious, how hideous their murder, they themselves will not suffer the death penalty.
- I have made it quite clear — and so did Mr Prior when he was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland — that a unified Ireland was one solution. That is out. A second solution was confederation of two states. That is out. A third solution was joint authority. That is out. That is a derogation from sovereignty.
- At one end of the spectrum are the terrorist gangs within our borders, and the terrorist states which finance and arm them. At the other are the hard left operating inside our system, conspiring to use union power and the apparatus of local government to break, defy and subvert the law.
- Oh, but you know, you do not achieve anything without trouble, ever.
- I like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business together.
- We must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.
- Speech to the American Bar Association (15 July, 1985).
- See Linda Smith for an amusing variant.
- Don't you think that's the way to persuade more companies to come to this region and get more jobs—because I want them—for the people who are unemployed. Not always standing there as moaning minnies. Now stop it!
- Remarks to Tyne Tees TV (11 September, 1985)
- Socialists cry "Power to the people", and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean—power over people, power to the State.
- From France to the Philippines, from Jamaica to Japan, from Malaysia to Mexico, from Sri Lanka to Singapore, privatisation is on the move...The policies we have pioneered are catching on in country after country. We Conservatives believe in popular capitalism—believe in a property-owning democracy. And it works! ... The great political reform of the last century was to enable more and more people to have a vote. Now the great Tory reform of this century is to enable more and more people to own property. Popular capitalism is nothing less than a crusade to enfranchise the many in the economic life of the nation. We Conservatives are returning power to the people. That is the way to one nation, one people.
- In a decision of the utmost gravity, Labour voted to give up Britain's independent nuclear deterrent unilaterally. Labour's defence policy—though "defence" is scarcely the word—is an absolute break with the defence policy of every British Government since the Second World War. Let there be no doubt about the gravity of that decision. You cannot be a loyal member of NATO while disavowing its fundamental strategy. A Labour Britain would be a neutralist Britain. It would be the greatest gain for the Soviet Union in forty years. And they would have got it without firing a shot.
- A world without nuclear weapons may be a dream but you cannot base a sure defence on dreams. Without far greater trust and confidence between East and West than exists at present, a world without nuclear weapons would be less stable and more dangerous for all of us.
- Speech at a Soviet Official banquet, St George's Halls, the Kremlin (30 March 1987).
- I, along with something like 5 million other people, insure to enable me to go into hospital on the day I want; at the time I want, and with a doctor I want.
- Answering questions at a general election news conference (4 June, 1987). Mrs Thatcher had been asked if she trusted the Health Service enough to put herself in its hands, a reference to her use of private health insurance.
Third term as Prime Minister
- (The Community Charge is) the flagship of the Thatcher fleet.
- David Butler, Andrew Adonis and Tony Travers, "Failure in British government: the politics of the poll tax" (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1994)
- Remarks to Conservative backbench MPs, July 1987
- Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay.
- They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations.
- Interview 23 September 1987, as quoted in by Douglas Keay, Woman's Own, 31 October 1987, pp. 8–10. A transcript of the interview at the Margaret Thatcher Foundation website differs in several particulars, but not in substance. The magazine transposed the statement in bold, often quoted out of context, from a later portion of Thatcher's remarks:
- There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate.
- Interview 23 September 1987, as quoted in by Douglas Keay, Woman's Own, 31 October 1987, pp. 8–10. A transcript of the interview at the Margaret Thatcher Foundation website differs in several particulars, but not in substance. The magazine transposed the statement in bold, often quoted out of context, from a later portion of Thatcher's remarks:
- The freedom of peoples depends fundamentally on the rule of law, a fair legal system. The place to have trials or accusations is a court of law, the Common Law that has come right up from Magna Carta, which has come right up through the British courts—a court of law is the place where you deal with these matters. If you ever get trial by television or guilt by accusation, that day freedom dies because you have not had it done with all of the careful rules that have developed in a court of law. Press and television rely on freedom. Those who rely on freedom must uphold the rule of law and have a duty and a responsibility to do so and not try to substitute their own system for it.
- Criticising the Thames Television programme "Death on the Rock", in an interview with Hatsuhisa Takashima of NHK Japanese television (29 April, 1988)
- Mr. Chairman, you have invited me to speak on the subject of Britain and Europe. Perhaps I should congratulate you on your courage. If you believe some of the things said and written about my views on Europe, it must seem rather like inviting Genghis Khan to speak on the virtues of peaceful coexistence! ...The European Community is one manifestation of that European identity, but it is not the only one. We must never forget that east of the Iron Curtain, peoples who once enjoyed a full share of European culture, freedom and identity have been cut off from their roots. We shall always look on Warsaw, Prague and Budapest as great European cities...To try to suppress nationhood and concentrate power at the centre of a European conglomerate would be highly damaging and would jeopardise the objectives we seek to achieve. Europe will be stronger precisely because it has France as France, Spain as Spain, Britain as Britain, each with its own customs, traditions and identity. It would be folly to try to fit them into some sort of identikit European personality...it is ironic that just when those countries such as the Soviet Union, which have tried to run everything from the centre, are learning that success depends on dispersing power and decisions away from the centre, there are some in the Community who seem to want to move in the opposite direction. We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-imposed at a European level with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels.
- A man may climb Everest for himself, but at the summit he plants his country's flag.
- We have become a grandmother.
- Human rights did not begin with the French Revolution...[they] really stem from a mixture of Judaism and Christianity...[we English] had 1688, our quiet revolution, where Parliament exerted its will over the King...it was not the sort of Revolution that France's was...'Liberty, equality, fraternity' — they forgot obligations and duties I think. And then of course the fraternity went missing for a long time.
- On the French Revolution; quoted in '"Les droits de l'homme n'ont pas commencé en France," nous déclare Mme Thatcher', Le Monde (11 July, 1989)
- Imagine a Labour canvasser talking on the doorstep to those East German families when they settle in, on freedom's side of the wall. "You want to keep more of the money you earn? I'm afraid that's very selfish. We shall want to tax that away. You want to own shares in your firm? We can't have that. The state has to own your firm. You want to choose where to send your children to school? That's very divisive. You'll send your child where we tell you."
- We've beaten the Germans twice and now they're back!
- She reportedly said on Germany's reunification, during EC-summit in December 1989, according to Chancellor Helmut Kohl in his memoris "Erinnerungen 1982-1990" published in 2005; as reported in "Thatcher's foot stamping fury, by Kohl" The Telegraph (3 November 2005)
- I believe that the royal family are a focus of patriotism, of loyalty, of affection and of esteem. That is a rare combination, and we should value it highly.
- It seems like cloud cuckoo land... If anyone is suggesting that I would go to Parliament and suggest the abolition of the pound sterling — no! ... We have made it quite clear that we will not have a single currency imposed on us.
- To the media immediately after the EEC Rome summit meeting (28 October, 1990); as reported in A Conservative Coup: The Fall of Margaret Thatcher (1992) by Alan Watkins.
- The President of the Commission, M. Delors, said at a press conference the other day that he wanted the European Parliament to be the democratic body of the Community, he wanted the Commission to be the Executive and he wanted the Council of Ministers to be the Senate. No. No. No.
- I am still at the crease, though the bowling has been pretty hostile of late. And in case anyone doubted it, can I assure you there will be no ducking the bouncers, no stonewalling, no playing for time. The bowling's going to get hit all round the ground. That is my style.
- I fight on, I fight to win.
- Remarks to journalists in Downing Street (21 November 1990), following the inconclusive first ballot in the Conservative leadership election.
- Paddy Ashdown: ...this is an agreement which the right hon. Lady will be entitled to regard with a certain pride and satisfaction as she looks back on the twilight days of her premiership...
- Margaret Thatcher: ...The first eleven and a half years have not been so bad—and with regard to a twilight, please remember that there are 24 hours in a day.
Post-Prime Ministerial
- It is a great night. It is the end of Socialism.
- On hearing the results of the 1992 general election (9 April, 1992), as reported in The Journals of Woodrow Wyatt: Volume Two (2000) by Woodrow Wyatt.
- The trouble with you John, is that your spine does not reach your brain.
- On Conservative backbencher John Whittingdale after being summoned to her room to urge MPs to vote against the Maastricht Treaty. Whittingdale was reported to have emerged from the room in tears. (The Times 26 November, 1992.)
- We could have stopped this, we could still do so... But for the most part, we in the west have actually given comfort to the aggressor.
- On Western non-intervention in Bosnia, as reported in 'Thatcher warns of "Holocaust" risk in Bosnia appeal' by Anthony Bevins and Stephen Goodwin in The Independent (17 December, 1992)
- [It is a] killing field of the like of which I thought we would never see in Europe again [and is] not worthy of Europe, not worthy of the west and not worthy of the United States... This is happening in the heart of Europe and we have not done more to stop it. It is in Europe's sphere of influence. It should be in Europe's sphere of conscience... We are little more than an accomplice to massacre.
- After UK Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd claimed lifting the arms embargo to Bosnians would create a "level killing field", as reported in 'Thatcher says massacre brings shame on west' by Philip Webster and Robert Morgan in The Times (14 April, 1993)
- Douglas, Douglas, you would make Neville Chamberlain look like a warmonger.
- On Douglas Hurd, as quoted in "Atticus", The Sunday Times (2 May, 1993)
- I could never have signed this treaty. I hope that that is clear to all who have heard me.
- Speech to the House of Lords rejecting the Maastricht Treaty (7 June, 1993)
- I am not sure what is meant by those who say that the Party should return to something called "One Nation Conservatism". As far as I can tell by their views on European federalism, such people's creed would be better described as "No Nation Conservatism".
- The fightback begins now!
- In a telephone call to Michael Portillo the morning after the 1997 General Election
- In my lifetime all our problems have come from mainland Europe and all the solutions have come from the English-speaking nations across the world.
- On my way here I passed a local cinema and it turns out you were expecting me after all, for the billboards read: The Mummy Returns.
- I might have preferred iron, but bronze will do. It won't rust. And, this time I hope, the head will stay on.
- "Statue of Margaret Thatcher Unveiled", Associated Press, 22 February 2007.
- On the unveiling of a statue of her in the Members' Lobby of the House of Commons. Baroness Thatcher referred to a previous marble statue which was decapitated in 2002.
- I never hugged him, I bombed him.
- Referring to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, specifically to pictures of Tony Blair embracing him
- Related by Connor Burns MP at Young Britons' Foundation Reception, via The Telegraph, 13th March 2011, Richard Eden
- Referring to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, specifically to pictures of Tony Blair embracing him
The Downing Street Years (1993)
- No theory of government was ever given a fairer test or a more prolonged experiment in a democratic country than democratic socialism received in Britain. Yet it was a miserable failure in every respect. Far from reversing the slow relative decline of Britain vis-à-vis its main industrial competitors, it accelerated it. We fell further behind them, until by 1979 we were widely dismissed as 'the sick man of Europe'...To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukaemia with leeches.
- The significance of the Falklands War was enormous, both for Britain's self-confidence and for our standing in the world...We had come to be seen by both friends and enemies as a nation which lacked the will and the capability to defend its interests in peace, let alone in war. Victory in the Falklands changed that. Everywhere I went after the war, Britain's name meant something more than it had. The war also had real importance in relations between East and West: years later I was told by a Russian general that the Soviets had been firmly convinced that we would not fight for the Falklands, and that if we did fight we would lose. We proved them wrong on both counts, and they did not forget the fact.
- To me, consensus seems to be: the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that need to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner ‘I stand for consensus’?
- The star of that year's conference was undoubtedly the Swedish conservative leader—since Prime Minister—who delivered a speech of such startling Thatcherite soundness that in applauding I felt as if I was giving myself a standing ovation.
- On Carl Bildt's speech to the International Democratic Union.
Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World
Thatcher, Margaret (2002). Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-095912-6.
- For my part, I favour an approach to statecraft that embraces principles, as long as it is not stifled by them; and I prefer such principles to be accompanied by steel along with good intentions.
- pg. xxii
- We now know that bin Laden's terrorists had been planning their outrages for years. The propagation of their mad, bad ideology -- decency forbids calling it a religion -- had been taking place before our eyes. We were just too blind to see it. In short, the world had never ceased to be dangerous. But the West had ceased to be vigilant. Surely that is the most important lesson of this tragedy, and we must learn it if our civilisation is to survive.
- pg. xxv
- The habit of ubiquitous interventionism, combining pinprick strikes by precision weapons with pious invocations of high principle, would lead us into endless difficulties. Interventions must be limited in number and overwhelming in their impact.
- pg. 37
- I should therefore prefer to restrict my guidelines to the following:
- Don't believe that military interventions, no matter how morally justified, can succeed without clear military goals
- Don't fall into the trap of imagining that the West can remake societies
- Don't take public opinion for granted -- but don't either underrate the degree to which good people will endure sacrifices for a worthwhile cause
- Don't allow tyrants and aggressors to get away with it
- And when you fight -- fight to win.
- pg. 39
- The West as a whole in the early 1990s became obsessed with a 'peace dividend' that would be spent over and over again on any number of soft-hearted and sometimes soft-headed causes. Politicians forgot that the only real peace dividend is peace.
- pg. 40
- Never believe that technology alone will allow America to prevail as a superpower.
- pg. 47
- But if Saddam had been in a position credibly to threaten America or any of its allies - or the coalition's forces - with attack by missiles with nuclear warheads, would we have gone to the Gulf at all?
- pg. 49
- For every idealistic peacemaker willing to renounce his self-defence in favour of a weapons-free world, there is at least one warmaker anxious to exploit the other's good intentions.
- pg. 50
- Successful entrepreneurship is ultimately a matter of flair. But there is also a fund of practical knowledge to be acquired and, of course, the right legal and financial framework has to be provided for productive enterprise to develop.
- pg. 65
- It is always important in matters of high politics to know what you do not know. Those who think they know, but are mistaken, and act upon their mistakes, are the most dangerous people to have in charge.
- pg. 104
- Singapore's success shows us that:
- A country's wealth need not depend on natural resources, it may even ultimately benefit from their absence
- The greatest resource of all is Man
- What government has to do is to set the framework for human talent to flourish.
- pg. 118
- All corporatism - even when practised in societies where hard work, enterprise and cooperation are as highly valued as in Korea - encourages inflexibility, discourages individual accountability, and risks magnifying errors by concealing them.
- pg. 121
- My father, more perceptive than many, wryly commented that by the time I was an adult there might not be an Indian Civil Service to enter. He turned out to be right. I had to settle for British politics instead.
- pg. 195
- Patched-up diplomatic solutions designed to answer the needs of the moment rarely last, and as they unravel they can actually make things worse.
- pg. 203
- North Korea desperately needed the foreign currency which this lethal trade could bring; its role as chief 'rogue' reinforced its prestige among anti-Western states, near and far; and it could also hope at the right moment to extort new instalments of Danegeld from America and her allies.
- pg. 212
- Constitutions have to be written on hearts, not just paper.
- pg. 256
- You only have to wade through a metric measure or two of European prose, culled from its directives, circulars, reports, communiqués or what pass as debates in its 'parliament', and you will quickly understand that Europe is, in truth, synonymous with bureaucracy - to which one might add 'to', 'from' and 'with' bureaucracy if one were so minded.
- pg. 324
- What we should grasp, however, from the lessons of European history is that, first, there is nothing necessarily benevolent about programmes of European integration; second, the desire to achieve grand utopian plans often poses a grave threat to freedom; and third, European unity has been tried before, and the outcome was far from happy.
- pg. 327
- 'Europe' in anything other than the geographical sense is a wholly artificial construct. It makes no sense at all to lump together Beethoven and Debussy, Voltaire and Burke, Vermeer and Picasso, Notre Dame and St Paul's, boiled beef and bouillabaisse, and portray them as elements of a 'European' musical, philosophical, artistic, architectural or gastronomic reality. If Europe charms us, as it has so often charmed me, it is precisely because of its contrasts and contradictions, not its coherence and continuity.
- pg. 328
- Not that this appears to affect the intentions of the political-bureaucratic elite, which in Britain as elsewhere in Europe believes that it has an overriding mission to achieve European integration by hook or by crook and which is convinced that History (with an extra-large 'H') is on its side.
- pg. 388
Attributed
Quotes about Thatcher
- Margaret Thatcher is the greatest living Englishwoman.
- Charles Moore, Mrs. Thatcher's authorised biographer, in 'The mellowing of Margaret Thatcher', The Daily Telegraph (12 October, 2005)
- She was a tigress surrounded by hamsters.
- John Biffen, 'The revenge of the unburied dead', The Observer (9 December, 1990)
- She's the biggest bastard we have ever known.
- Sinn Féin politician Danny Morrison's description of her at the 1982 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis (party conference). Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA, pp. 207–208.
- The Prime Ministers who are remembered are those who think and teach, and not many do. Mrs. Thatcher... influenced the thinking of a generation.
- Tony Benn, as quoted in The Prime Minister: The Office and its Holders since 1945 (2001) by Peter Hennessy
- Her strong points were her iron will. I've never known a will like it in politics and I've known a few politicians in my time in various countries. I've never known a man or woman faintly like her, she was as tough as they come, and anything that required guts and will she could do for you. Anything that required sensitivity, she couldn't, she had none.
- Is the right hon. Lady aware that the report has now been received from the public analyst on a certain substance recently subjected to analysis and that I have obtained a copy of the report? It shows that the substance under test consisted of ferrous matter of the highest quality, that it is of exceptional tensile strength, is highly resistant to wear and tear and to stress, and may be used with advantage for all national purposes?
- Of all the elements combined in the complex of signs labelled Margaret Thatcher, it is her voice that sums up the ambiguity of the entire construct. She coos like a dove, hisses like a serpent, bays like a hound [in a contrived upper-class accent] reminiscent not of real toffs but of Wodehouse aunts.
- The novelist Angela Carter (New Statesman, 3 June, 1983).
- Loathsome, repulsive in almost every way.
- Jonathan Miller.
- Shirley Letwin, The Anatomy of Thatcherism, p. 319.
- [She has a] patronising elocution voice [and] neat well-groomed clothes and hair, packaged together in a way that's not exactly vulgar, just low. [It fills me with] a kind of rage.
- Baroness Warnock.
- Shirley Letwin, The Anatomy of Thatcherism, pp. 319-20.
- Margaret Thatcher always gave me headaches.
- Helmut Kohl, from his memoirs 1982-1990, cited in "Kohl lambasts 'ice-cold' Thatcher", BBC News (3 November 2005).
- What does she want, this housewife? My balls on a tray?
- Jacques Chirac, then Prime minister of France, during the February 1988 Brussels summit; appeared in headlines of the British press and created a minor diplomatic incident.
- She behaves with all the sensitivity of a sex-starved boa constrictor.
- Tony Banks (The Independent, October 1997 [4])
- For us she is not the iron lady. She is the kind, dear Mrs. Thatcher.
- Alexander Dubcek (Independent on Sunday Dec. 30, 1990)
- Brezhnev took Afghanistan. / Begin took Beirut. / Galtieri took the Union Jack. / And Maggie, over lunch one day, / Took a cruiser with all hands. / Apparently, to make him give it back.
- Get Your Filthy Hands Off My Desert by Pink Floyd, about the sinking of cruiser ARA General Belgrano
Misattributed
- A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure.
- Attributed to her in Commons debates, 2003-07-02, column 407 and Commons debates, 2004-06-15 column 697. According to a letter to the Daily Telegraph by Alistair Cooke on 2 November 2006, this sentiment originated with Loelia Ponsonby, one of the wives of 2nd Duke of Westminster who said "Anybody seen in a bus over the age of 30 has been a failure in life". In a letter published the next day, also in the Daily Telegraph, Hugo Vickers claims Loelia Ponsonby admitted to him that she had borrowed it from Brian Howard. There is no solid evidence that Margaret Thatcher ever quoted this statement with approval, or indeed shared the sentiment.
- Victorian values.
- This phrase, often associated with Thatcher, derives from an interview with Brian Walden on Weekend World (16 January, 1983). However, it is Brian Walden who says, in summarising Margaret Thatcher, "you've really outlined an approval of what I would call Victorian values".
See also
- Diana Gould, who had a televised confrontation with Mrs Thatcher in 1983
External links
Wikipedia has an article about: Margaret Thatcher Wikisource has original works written by or about: Margaret Thatcher- Margaret Thatcher Foundation
- Margaret Thatcher in Procapitalism Op-Eds 2006.
- "The Thatcher Era" in The Guardian (22 November 2000)
- Margaret Thatcher Chronology World History Database
- Margaret Thatcher: Reggae, Royalty and Riots
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