Denis Thatcher Quotes

I had to choose my words carefully in explaining how the American-inspired monetarist policies of the Thatcher government – which had been in power for the whole of Tim’s lifetime – were destroying our already overloaded, free NHS. The truth was that in encouraging a new self-seeking materialism, those policies were destroying not just the health service and our educational system, but the very fabric of society. Indeed Mrs Thatcher had denied the existence of society: for her it consisted of nothing more than a set of individuals with no sense of common purpose. It was an unfortunate time to be ill, unemployed, very young, elderly or otherwise socially disadvantaged.

Back to Jill’s diary and her comments on Michael’s sartorial difficulties: “Jennie Lee used to say, ‘Don’t let the Tories dress Michael.’” He got a big kick out of that. She also mentions meeting Denis Thatcher and finding him “deadly and quite cheerless.” “He was, too,” Michael agreed. Jill used to imitate him, Michael told me: We went to Downing Street twice when she [Thatcher] was there. In Private Eye they have him [Denis] calling for a “tincture” when he called for his drink. When he came up [for a drink], I said, “Just a tincture, please.

Being Prime Minister is a lonely job. In a sense, it ought to be: you cannot lead from the crowd. But with Denis there I was never alone. What a man. What a husband. What a friend.

Irrespective of the result of the General Election, I believe it will be possible to argue that Scotland has voted for more democratically accountable control over Scottish affairs. Scotland's inalienable right to self-determination includes the right to decide how to exercise that right. In the General Elections of October 1974, May 1979 and I believe in the forthcoming contest, and in the referendum on the Scotland Act, the Scottish people will have expressed the wish to remain in the United Kingdom, but with a substantial measure of Home Rule. Mrs. Thatcher would have no right to ignore that expression. Repeatedly stated, it would be the clear wish of the majority of the Scottish people. To deny it would be to say that of all the nations of the world today we had no national right to self-determination.

The Prime Minister says that she has given the French President a piece of her mind – this is not a gift I would receive with alacrity.