Thatcher Quotes

“This is what you get when you found a political system on the family values of Henry VIII. At a point in the not-too-remote future, the stout heart of Queen Elizabeth II will cease to beat. At that precise moment, her firstborn son will become head of state, head of the armed forces, and head of the Church of England. In strict constitutional terms, this ought not to matter much. The English monarchy, as has been said, reigns but does not rule. From the aesthetic point of view it will matter a bit, because the prospect of a morose bat-eared and chinless man, prematurely aged, and with the most abysmal taste in royal consorts, is a distinctly lowering one.”
― Christopher Hitchens

“By far the most significant consequence of "selfish capitalism" (Thatch/Blatcherism) has been a startling increase in the incidence of mental illness in both children and adults since the 1970s.”
― Oliver James

“One simple answer is that there has been a massive rise in the incidence of sanctimony and smugness among the successful that has nothing to do with any change in the underlying reality. Rather, it has been stimulated by politicians who have realized that it is possible to win power by recruiting the most economically successful forty per cent or so of the population in a crusade to roll back the gains made by their fellow citizens in the previous forty years. And how better to rationalize this than to tell people that they deserve the incomes that the market generates?”
― Brian Barry, Political Argument

“Interestingly, one mate of mine, a proper leftie, in his heyday all Red Wedge and right-on punch-ups, was melancholy. "I thought I'd be overjoyed, but really it's just … another one bites the dust …" This demonstrates, I suppose, that if you opposed Thatcher's ideas it was likely because of their lack of compassion, which is really just a word for love. If love is something you cherish, it is hard to glean much joy from death, even in one's enemies.”
― Russell Brand

“Not long after we started working for him I asked Bernard if he thought Thatcher was evil,'I said. 'He said it was like asking what jazz is.”
― Jack Womack, Heathern

“Thatcher set ordinary people free, but into a landscape that her other policies had already shaped to suit other, more powerful interests, such as large corporations or Britons with inherited wealth.”
― Andy Beckett

“On the other hand, the militant left, and many socialist intellectuals such as my old friend Ralph Miliband (whose sons were to become important figures in the offices of Prime Minister Tony Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown), also wrote off the Labour Party until the moment when it had been captured and was ready to become ‘a real socialist party’, whatever that meant. I outraged some of my friends by pointing out that they were not seriously trying to defeat Mrs Thatcher. Whatever they thought, ‘they acted as though another Labour government like the ones we have had before from time to time since 1945 were not just unsatisfactory, but worse than no Labour government … (i.e.) worse than the only alternative government on offer, namely Mrs Thatcher’s”
― Eric Hobsbawm, Interesting Times: A Twentieth-Century Life

“Beneath Albright’s office, the colliery sprawled across the hillside, red brick buildings scattered as though hurled from a great height, a hotchpotch of mismatched structures spattered on the valley floor. At the bottom stood the winding house, wheels motionless, above it, the engineering sheds and workshops, canteen and bath house. All lay empty. No buzz and hum of machinery. No voices raised in laughter or dispute. Gwyn found it unsettling: his lads had been out a month and a half and already the power had drained from the place. In the stillness, he caught the echo of footsteps. The crunch of boots on gravel. Generations of long-gone Pritchards clocking in and out. He was bound to Blackthorn by the coal that clogged his veins and by a bond of duty. The strike left him as diminished as his pit, day dragging after idle day.”
― Kit Habianic, Until Our Blood is Dry

“Unstructured chat with such friends has helped me understand Mrs Thatcher, the woman. (page xxvi)”
― Charles Moore

“Life was not something we did not know about. We were right in it. (page 4)”
― Charles Moore

“But, like the man in the song, Alfred Roberts did well by doing good. The shop prospered.”
― Charles Moore

“Home (...) was dominated by work. (page 5)”
― Charles Moore

“It seems to have been meeting Methodist missionaries from India that inspired Margaret with her ambition, curious in someone little more than a child, to join the Indian Civil Service After listening to them, she remembered, 'I wanted to be an Indian civil servant, because I thought that India was a remarkable place and I would love to be a part, a cog in the wheel, of this great empire. (page 6)”
― Charles Moore, Margaret Thatcher (Volume 2): The Authorized Biography, Volume Two: Everything She Wants

“And she also enjoyed a conversation on public questions which tended to take place in the parlour of the shop”
― Charles Moore, Margaret Thatcher (Volume 2): The Authorized Biography, Volume Two: Everything She Wants

“Father taught me to like wht he called 'discussion', she recalled. Margaret Thatcher never repudiated the Methodism of her childhood, with its reverence for truth-telling, hard work and puting into practice the teachings of Scripture. page 6”
― Charles Moore, Margaret Thatcher (Volume 2): The Authorized Biography, Volume Two: Everything She Wants

“There is something about having a charismatic blonde at the front that seems to lift any random collection of axe wielding blokes out of the ordinary. Just look at the Thatcher government.”
― Andre the BFG, Andre's Adventures in MySpace