Several years ago I compiled a document that captured quotations from several speeches made by one of the country’s greatest prime ministers, Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher LG OM DStJ PC FRS HonFRSC. Quite often known as the Grocer’s Daughter. She was also called the “Iron Lady”, originally as a pejorative by a Soviet journalist, but the title stuck for many good reasons. Many of her most loyal supporters and admirers still refer to her affectionately, as Mrs T.
On 9 October 2024, Free Speech Backlash published an excellent article by James Gatehouse, “Why Should The State Not Tell You What To Do?” I responded, “A stimulating article James. You mention 'secular liberalism' but as an engineer, rather than a philosopher, may I offer a more fundamental explanation: socialism, and its more sinister offshoots. I will try to keep the quotations short otherwise my comment could easily be as long as your article. They are all by Mrs T and I'll state the dates.” I kept each quotation to just one paragraph from her relevant speech.
Brian posted the following comment, ”… and thank you Mark Smith for the quotations from our Maggie. Great stuff, I will endeavour to spread it to my family and friends.” That gave me a thought, why not include the fuller quotations in an article? The advantage of this is that it will provide an easy reference for future use by all readers. In this article I include more, (where I readily have the material) from those speeches to provide a fuller context. I have also taken the liberty to add some more quotations from other speeches that remain germane to today’s circumstances even though they were not necessarily relevant to James’s article.
14 March 1977 Speech to Zurich Economic Society ("The New Renaissance").
"There is a growing realisation in Britain the the progressives were wrong. They are being proved wrong by the failure of the very system they advocated. To finance the extension of Socialism on so vast a scale, taxation has risen to penal levels. We have all seen the results—for living standards, for incentive and for enterprise—of the excessive tax burden in Britain.
Over last 20 years share of GDP taken by State has risen from 40–60%. In 20 years, the State took control of almost another fifth of national income. Yet even these unacceptable levels of taxation have not been enough to finance the public sector. The Government has been borrowing vast sums of money, both within Britain and overseas. But even these borrowings were not enough. The Government turned to printing money in order to finance a public sector deficit that neither taxpayers nor lenders would finance in full. With a huge rise in the money supply, hyper-inflation became a real threat: and that threat does not end with economics. When money can no longer be trusted, it is not only the economic basis of society that is undermined, but its moral basis too.”
9 September 1977[1] Speech to the English Speaking Union in Houston ("Heritage under attack")
Our heritage is under attack—our common heritage. The basic values of a free society, a decent society, are threatened. There is nothing new in this. Every generation must meet these challenges afresh. If it faces them boldly, it emerges strengthened, its values reaffirmed in terms of the present.
For between lasting values and changing circumstances there must be constant dialogue.
No generation can hope to live solely off the moral capital laid down by its predecessors, any more than it can live off the physical and financial capital it has inherited. To renew is to conserve. We must turn over our moral capital once in every generation if we are to preserve its value.
The free enterprise economy which underlies our prosperity and underpins our freedoms can survive only in a society devoted to personal liberties under just laws. Yet the material benefits which flow from the free economy are not in themselves sufficient to inspire men and women to fight in its defence.
To fight and to make sacrifices men need an ideal. They will fight for freedom as they will fight for flag or religion, because freedom is based on more than economic and political convenience; it embodies the sanctity and uniqueness of the individual, a keystone of Western society.
When freedom is valued for its own sake, other benefits flow from it. We inherit from preceding generations: we wish to pass on that heritage renewed and strengthened.
Keynes, who had so much influence on the post-War generation, is reputed to have said: “In the long run, we are all dead.” But in the long run, our children and their children will live; let it be in freedom.
13 May 1978 Speech to Scottish Conservative Party Conference ("Onwards to Victory").
Patriotism is the fourth pillar of national greatness. Take it away, and greatness decays; national freedom, even national survival will be placed in jeopardy. Patriotism links the individual with the nation, not only with its present but with its past and with its future, with our forebears and those yet to be—as Burke put it.
Patriotism means that we cherish a nation's history and feel concern for its future long after we ourselves have gone. It means that we will be prepared to make any sacrifices for the sake of our country and the things for which it stands. Such feelings have given us a national character which others recognised and respected.
When people said, “That's not British”, we all knew what they meant. Patriotism underlies the spirit of service, civic courage and the other civic virtues, the extra effort and self-denying ordinances, the voluntary services, the things we don't have to do but choose to do. No less vital, pride in our nation's past is an essential ingredient in the inspiration to overcome present difficulties and dangers.
Without pride in our past, we should have no hope for the future. That is why the sustained effort by socialists to portray our history as dark and discreditable is so damaging. To denigrate our past achievements strikes at the very root of our future advance. It undermines our belief in ourselves. They present our past as misery and injustice at home and oppression abroad.
They never stop to think why people the world over admired and imitated Britain. They never stop to think what we have given to the world. Parliamentary democracy; Liberty under the Law; an Empire and Commonwealth; a wealth of literature; free trade unions.
Scientific discovery and invention owe more to Britain than to any other country; the list of great names is almost endless from Newton to Darwin. Our political thinkers—Burke, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Adam Smith—altered the course of world society, not just British.
Each generation's contribution must be judged by comparing what it inherited from its forebears with what it bequeathed to its children. We shall be judged similarly. We must not be found wanting.
13 May 78 Margaret Thatcher Speech to Scottish Conservative Party Conference ("Onwards to Victory").
The truth is that if government does everything for you, it will take everything from you—first your money, then your dignity, and finally your freedom. The Socialist myth is that it can't happen here. The truth is that it can and will unless we ensure that it doesn't.
26 April 1988 Interview with Brian Walden for Sunday Times
Revolutionary doctrines, like communism, usually came from intellectuals and academics: they have a terrible intellectual snobbery and their socialistic ideas come out of the top drawer. They think that they can destroy what exists and that only they know what those who come from the same human clay want. They think they have the talent and ability that none of the rest of the human race has.
That is the ultimate snobbery, the worst form of snobbery there is. Only put them in charge and the poor will have everything. So the poor put them in power and discover the rulers have everything and the poor have nothing.
28 April 1988 Speech to Centre for Policy Studies
We once again have to re-win that battle of ideas, because even in the universities where you expect liberty to flourish in the first place, it does not always flourish today.
Some people do not want to hear or to allow others to hear views which are unacceptable to them. Freedom of speech is freedom to say what other people disagree with, not merely things which are anodyne. We still have to revive and identify these things.
7 June 1993 House of Lords, European Communities (Amendment) Bill
("I could never have signed this treaty. I hope that that is clear to all who have heard me.")
I shall say a word about the European Court because it has had a great effect upon the powers that we have relinquished. It has by its decisions greatly extended the powers of the centralised institutions against the nation state. Its methods of interpreting the law are totally different from those of our courts and nothing like so exact or so good. The court draws upon the objective of European integration to inform all its rulings by which over a period of time it has therefore furthered decisions towards a unitary European state.
The court has also overruled specific legislation passed in good faith through Parliament recently (the Merchant Shipping Act 1988) which was framed to stop Spanish fishing vessels from quota-hopping; that is, taking part of our fishing quota under the common fisheries policy. That Act went overboard because by same strange device the court said that Community law overrode it. Even though it was recent, we did not prevail. The court has also reinterpreted the derivative rights directive. It is busy reinterpreting so many things to give itself and the Community more powers at our expense.
That court does not have constitutional checks and balances to temper its power.
What was tolerable in a few cases is not bearable on the scale it is happening now, and it will accelerate under the massive opportunities provided by Maastricht to which I have referred, thus undermining the basis upon which we require people to obey the law; namely, that either it is consecrated by time and custom or it has been made with the assent of the people's elected representatives.
That is the whole basis upon which we do not ask people to obey the law; we require them to obey the law. That basis is diminishing gradually. With increased majority voting, many more laws will be made, possibly against the will of elected representatives, and Parliament could not do a thing about it. I t may be all right for a few, but not for the massive extra number.
Moreover, only three out of the 13 judges of the European Court have judicial experience in their own countries. Perhaps that explains a lot! They all have legal qualifications: some have been Ministers; some have been senior civil servants. But we are used to having proper judges. Further, one judgment only is issued. We do not even know whether any judges dissented—we are not allowed to know—let alone upon what grounds. We, with our ancient court traditions and ancient rule of justice have far more to lose in this matter than any other country, many of which we doubt will respect some of the Community laws in any respect.
24 September 1994 Margaret Thatcher The James Bryce Lecture ("Reason and Religion: The Moral Foundations of Freedom").
Also in the name of equality, we are told that there can be no differences between cultures; all are equal. But, as we remember from Orwell, “all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others”.
Then we are instructed by the politically correct that Western civilization is the worst, a collection of ideas that have been foisted upon the world by those who are now dismissed as “dead white males.” Well, I, for one, as a live white female, think that many of those dead white males - and even some who are not so dead - have contributed greatly to civilization and are worthy of our highest regard.
The notion that in the name of a misguided equality the great works of Plato and Locke, Homer and Shakespeare, Burke and Bryce, should be pushed from the centre of education is simply preposterous. The best that has been thought, said, and written must be taken seriously - questioned perhaps, improved upon if possible - but taken seriously as the highest achievements of the human mind. What makes those great works great is that they seek to penetrate the deepest mysteries of the human condition and to elevate mankind from the jungle of untutored nature.
The idea that some things are more politically correct than others is not new, of course. It has been the guiding sentiment of tyrants in every age who believe that if you can control what people read and thereby what they think then you can control them.
The idea that one can become, as Locke said, “the dictator of principles” and establish as the most basic principle “that principles must not be questioned,” is the essence of tyranny.
By such means are tyrants able to “cram their tenets down all men's throats.” As Locke asked: “what improvements can be expected of this kind? What greater light can be hoped for in the moral sciences?” where men are denied the liberty of thinking for themselves.
There is an often unarticulated assumption in these modern times that in human affairs progress is the general rule and decline and corruption the exception. But as many commentators have shown, it is really the other way around. Freedom and civilization are conditions that require great effort, deep thought, and unwavering commitment. As both Tocqueville and Bryce demonstrated, this is especially so in democratic times.
Progress is not simply a material, but a cultural and spiritual thing. It is the movement from primitive to polished times. John Adams put it best when he wrote to his wife Abigail that “I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy . . . in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.” As Adams knew, civilization is a fragile thing, which, once lost, takes generations to regain.
We must constantly reaffirm that our Western civilization is worthy of an unfaltering and unapologetic commitment to its perpetuation.
19 August 1995 Rajiv Gandhi Memorial Lecture
Freedom can also be lost little by little, by what the Fabians call the doctrine of gradualness. A little more taxation here, a little more government spending there, year by year until the people are no longer the masters of the state but its servants.
There are always, it seems, good reasons advanced for the state to have more power, but rarely for the state to divest itself of power. Each new problem becomes an excuse for more government intervention and less individual responsibility.
11 February 2002 Article for the New York Times ("Advice to a Superpower").
"We need a free economy not only for the renewed material prosperity it will bring, but because it is indispensable to individual freedom, human dignity and to a more just, more honest society. We want a society where people are free to make choices, to make mistakes, to be generous and compassionate. This is what we mean by a moral society; not a society where the State is responsible for everything, and no one is responsible for the State."
14 May 2003 Speech to the Atlantic Bridge
For years, many governments played down the threats of Islamic revolution, turned a blind eye to international terrorism, and accepted the development of weaponry of mass destruction by dictators. Indeed, some politicians were happy to go further, collaborating with the self-proclaimed enemies of the West for their own short-term gain - but enough about the French!
So deep had the rot set in, that the UN Security Council itself was paralysed. Had America and Britain not halted the descent into global anarchy, every peaceful nation, every democratic institution, would have been threatened. That is the greatest lesson we can draw from what has occurred. And it must never be forgotten.
In researching this article I found, “This is the website of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation, the largest contemporary history site of its kind. We offer free access to thousands of historical documents relating to the Thatcher period.”
Mark Smith
[1] The same date that I joined the Royal Navy as an artificer apprentice.