Margaret Thatcher

What absolute nonsense. Don't most people want to work hard to do better by their own families? To have a better house, better holidays, better furniture? Isn't that a worthwhile thing? Wouldn't life be very much better if more people took responsibility for their families and…

A country can't support terrorism and still expect to be treated as a member of the international community. To take hostages is to exclude yourself from the civilised world.

Nowadays, a whole host of measures are promoted in the name of public interest and public benefit. Measures which involve great curtailments of personal freedom. In many cases you will find that those measures really have little to do with the ends to which they are ostensibly…

There is need for far more generosity in our national life, but generosity is born in the hearts of men and women; it cannot be manufactured by politicians, and assuredly it will not flourish if politicians foster the illusion that the exercise of compassion can be left to…

They have not recognised how far the debating ground of British politics has moved to the left over the last thirty years. Where the left stood yesterday, the centre stands today. Yet the British people haven't moved with it. Instinctively they know that we have to pull this…

After I left office, my successor did some things which were flatly against Conservative policy. For example, he cut some of the tax reliefs on people buying a house. They had relief on the money they had to pay in repaying their loans ... That struck at the very heart of my…

Yes, every time I face the opposition in PMQs asking for more expenditure as if it were just confetti money, I do say, "Look, you don't pay it. Nor does government, except its citizens. All of this has to come out of the population of working age."

When politics ceases to be about people, then it is solely about power. In this process political power becomes unresponsive to public needs. The leaders of Government become cocooned in a world of their own. Such isolation leads to arbitrary government, to insensitivity, to an…

Unions can only prosper when the nation prospers, and vice versa. As a song about love and marriage pointed out: “This I tell you, brother, you can't have one without the other.” Once they're convinced of this simple truth, the unions can regain the confidence and trust of the…

The rule of law is what makes freedom work. The rule of law is different, of course, from the rule of lawyers.

"It is hard now to recall the depths to which Britain had sunk by 1979...Yet under Margaret's inspired leadership, we were able to put in place the most radical change in economic policy since the war, and saved the nation both politically and economically." —Nigel Lawson (2017)

There is no doubt that climate has been quite variable in the past, long before there were so many people on Earth as we have now. There were periodic changes in Britain's climate in the centuries before the Industrial Revolution. For instance, in Roman times, it was warm enough…

People feel very resentful that if they work hard too much is taken away in tax. You know, industry won't keep going unless the people who are highly skilled feel that the skill pays in their net take home pay—and it doesn't. [...] One of the purposes of reducing tax on the…

"She was brought down in the end, not by the electorate, but her colleagues. Not only is it quite remarkable that she won three elections running...What was remarkable is that she polled slightly more votes on the occasion of her third victory when she had been in office eight…

It pays to know the enemy—not least because at some time you may have the opportunity to turn him into a friend.

As long as the rules under which wealth is acquired are fair—and as long, of course, as those who genuinely cannot cope are cared for—inequality is not only just, it is necessary to freedom itself. The sight of someone making a success of his life and acquiring wealth and…

We know that conventional weapons are not enough to stop conventional war. We have been through it twice in Europe. But this nuclear deterrent is so terrible that, yes, it would be 'barmy'—to use Enoch’s word—for anyone to start a war. But if you got rid of them all and went to…

I would hope that most people in this House are against a federal Europe. Otherwise, what is the point in standing as candidates at the next election to come back here and propose to handover all your powers to represent your constituents to another parliament? We should not let…

The main contribution one can make as a student to one's country in peace or wartime is to study hard and effectively.

The temptation for governments to extend the scope of their activities and responsibilities grows constantly. The means available to them to constrain the liberty of the citizen become daily more sophisticated. It is a sad but true fact that technology is providing new tools for…