Advent 19

The most oft quoted remark of Margaret Hilda Thatcher bears repetition in full. That fullness gives it some context - a context denied by her vituperative critics.

I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it: 'I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' 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. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation.

If you want to understand the true effectiveness of the Attlee government you need only look at at the collectivist funk into which successive Tory governments got themselves until blasted back into political vigour by Thatcher in 1979. Equally if you want to understand the true effectiveness of Thatcher's three terms in office you need only look at the supine free marketeering of the Blair years. Thatcher, unlike Blair, set the societal mood music.