Skip to main content

Margaret Thatcher quotes: Now there really is no such thing as society, says RICHARD LITTLEJOHN

220 shares 143

View comments

Back in 1987, Mrs Thatcher was monstered over an interview in which she said: ‘There is no such thing as society.’ The Left seized on this remark as evidence of her heartless indifference to the plight of ordinary people.

What she was actually doing was condemning the use of ‘society’ as a convenient shorthand excuse for individual deficiencies, disappointments and delinquency. A quarter of a century ago, as in some quarters today, there was a knee-jerk readiness to blame ‘society’ for everything from drug addiction to violent crime.

Mrs Thatcher was also criticising the automatic tendency of people to look to the State as a cure for all ills.

In 1987, Mrs Thatcher was monstered over an interview in which she said: 'There is no such thing as society'

She was of the firm conviction that society is the sum of its parts — individuals, families, churches, voluntary organisations, businesses. It was her belief that people expected too much from government, concentrated too much on their ‘rights’ and ‘entitlements’ and not enough on their obligations.

We all have a duty to help ourselves and our neighbours. Hers was a vision of a liberated, bottom-up society, not the bureaucratic top-down version favoured by Socialists.

It is especially relevant to today’s ferocious debate over welfare — safety net versus cradle-to-grave lifestyle option. Labour naturally favours a system in which the State Will Provide, even if it traps people in dependency.

If you make idleness a worthwhile career choice, why should anyone look for a job? It’s not their fault, is it?

  More... Former prime minister Baroness Thatcher dies peacefully in her suite at the Ritz after suffering a massive stroke at 87 Baroness Thatcher passed away in suite at the Ritz where she had been living for months after hospital operation From grocer's daughter to Iron Lady: How Margaret Thatcher made history to become UK's first woman Prime Minister - and then kept on making it... by SIMON HEFFER Baroness Thatcher to be honoured with ceremonial NOT state funeral at St Paul's Cathedral in biggest farewell to former PM since Winston Churchill's death

After the Left lost the economic argument, following Thatcher’s third general election victory, they realised there was no future in brute force collective industrial action. So they embraced the notion of individual ‘rights’ as a way of furthering their agenda.

Labour decided it could no longer rely on white, working-class trades unionists to secure power. So it set about building what by then had become known as a ‘rainbow coalition’ based on the notion of victimhood. 

Rather than ‘society’ the Left fastened on to ‘community’ as their buzzword. This didn’t mean community in its traditional sense, it meant ‘minority’.

It involved carving up society into myriad client groups and stoking their grievances, real or perceived, which could only be assuaged by new laws and lashings of taxpayers’ money.

'Rainbow coalition': After the Left lost the economic argument, they realised there was no future in brute force collective industrial action. So they embraced the notion of individual 'rights' as a way of furthering their agenda

Mass immigration was also part of the game plan, along with the creation of a vast class of highly-paid public sector apparatchiks to service the ‘community’, all of whom were expected to return the favour by voting Labour.

First you divide people in terms of race, then sexuality, until eventually every single section of the population is sliced up into ever more microscopic sub-sectors.

It is how we’ve ended up with the impertinent absurdity of people applying for a parking permit being forced to fill in a form declaring whether they are still the same sex they were born.

This is in the name of fighting ‘discrimination’ against people with different ‘gender identities’. Having just about run out of every conceivable permutation of racial, religious and sexual classification, the fragmentation of Britain into a million competing client groups is almost complete. Almost, but not quite.

As I wrote on Friday, the police in Manchester are even identifying goths, punk rockers and heavy metal fans as ‘vulnerable’ minorities.

This week we learn that the Equalities and Human Rights Commission is demanding that everyone from druids to vegans and 'green' activists should be given special treatment at work

This week we learn that the Equalities and Human Rights Commission is demanding that everyone from druids to vegans and ‘green’ activists should be given special treatment at work.

Actually, this is merely codifying what is becoming established as common practice in the public sector. I’ve had fun in the past with the Pagan Police Association and Jedi knights in the prison service.

Now all employers, private and public, will have to make concessions to these poor, persecuted minorities. For instance, druids should be given time off to go on ‘pilgrimages’ to Stonehenge.

Vegetarians will not have to clean fridges which have contained meat. And if Christians are finally to be allowed to wear a small crucifix, then Greens must be allowed to lecture fellow staff about how their cars are killing polar bears.

I’ve been telling you for years that environmentalism will soon be granted official religious status.

Changes: When the Left talks about 'equality' what it actually means is 'preferential treatment'

When the Left talks about ‘equality’ what it actually means is ‘preferential treatment’.

I’ve always considered myself a liberal in the truest sense of the word. As far as I’m concerned people can do what they like provided it doesn’t hurt or interfere with anyone else. But your own lifestyle choices also bring responsibilities. Why would a vegan want to get a job which is likely to bring him contact with meat, for instance?

If people want to dress up as Merlin and howl at the moon, that’s their prerogative. But why should any employer be expected to give them paid time off to pursue it? You may well feel like turning up at work in a loin cloth and a Red Indian head-dress. But surely your boss should have an equal right to insist you wear a suit.

Just as ‘multiculturalism’ means forcing the host society to adapt to immigrants, not the other way round, so ‘equal rights’ mean compelling everyone else to adapt to individual caprice and prejudice.

There’s a difference between ‘liberal’, which means tolerant, and ‘libertine’, which means indulging in dissolute, selfish behaviour.

Sadly, in Britain the pendulum has swung too far in favour of libertine. People think they can do what they like, when they like, where they like. And to hell with everyone else.

Thus the rights of the ‘dogging community’ are allowed to trample over the rights of dog walkers. Parents can’t take their children to the park for fear of stumbling over naked perverts playing daisy-chains in the bushes — with official approval.

Criticise any kind of behaviour, no matter how repellent to most people, and you will not only be howled down as a bigot, increasingly you can be prosecuted for ‘hate crime’ and hounded out of your job.

The idea that anyone ever has to take into account the impact of their actions on their fellow citizens in the wider community has been thrown out with the bathwater in the name of individual ‘rights’.

Mrs Thatcher may have been quoted out of context all those years ago. But now that she has died, her detractors on the Left have finally ensured that there really is no such thing as society.

 Ed Miliband says he will stop the energy companies ripping us off and bring down bills. This would be the same Ed Miliband who imposed on Britain the most insane carbon reduction targets in the world and forced all of us to subsidise useless wind farms.

Stupid boy.

  Goodbye to Paris... and Vaz Keith Vaz couldn't resist wading in and demanding Paris Brown's resignation as youth commissioner

When the Government announced plans to allow teenagers to sit as magistrates, I wrote a skit in this column, headlined Vicky Pollard JP, based on the grotesque Little Britain character.

Last week, I thought about writing a follow up after 17-year-old Paris Brown, from Kent, was appointed Britain’s first youth crime commissioner on £15,000 a year.

In the end, I dropped the idea. Just as well, as it turns out. I couldn’t possibly have improved on her Twitter messages, which were published in the Mail on Sunday, boasting about her sex life, drinking binges and drugs.

In her tweets, she calls homosexuals ‘fags’, describes travellers as ‘pikeys’ and  says she ‘has a thing’ about an older man, believed to be a teacher.

Here we have yet another example of professional suicide by social network. I’m not going to add to  her embarrassment.

It was a mistake ever to appoint her in the first place, a gimmick which has backfired horribly.

Step forward Keith Vaz MP, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, who couldn’t resist wading in and demanding Paris Brown’s resignation.

This oily chancer really is beneath contempt, trying to make political capital out of a silly 17-year-old girl’s very public discomfort.

As Vicky Pollard would say: ‘Yeah, but, no, but, SHUT UP, VAZ!’

  Boycie is real magic, Emma

Amanda Platell attacks Harry Potter actress Emma Watson for disdaining the role which made her famous.

Watson is only following in an ignoble tradition. Plenty of actors are ashamed of their most famous and lucrative roles.

Warren Mitchell was one of the worst, snapping nastily at any fan who called him ‘Alf’ — after Alf Garnett, the brilliant Johnny Speight creation which brought Mitchell fame and fortune.

On the other hand, Only Fools And Horses actor John Challis loves it when people in the street shout out: ‘Oi, Boycie, where’s Marlene?’

The second volume of Challis’s autobiography, Boycie And Beyond, is out in paperback now. Emma Watson should buy a copy.

She might learn something about how to be real star.

  Pope Benedict receiving hi-viz jacket

Veni, vidi, vici - it's the hi-vizi VaticanAfter today, I’m closing the hi-viz files for a while. Thanks for all the wonderful pictures you have sent in.

But I couldn’t resist one last bite at the hi-viz cherry. It would be rude not to. 

To be honest, I didn’t think we’d ever do better than the hi-viz Jesus carrying the cross through Uckfield at Easter.

Then John Aspinall, from Knowsley, forwarded this cutting of the outgoing Pope being given a farewell present after an international transport congress at the Vatican.

You couldn’t make it up.






Popular posts from this blog

Study Abroad USA, College of Charleston, Popular Courses, Alumni

Thinking for Study Abroad USA. School of Charleston, the wonderful grounds is situated in the actual middle of a verifiable city - Charleston. Get snatched up by the wonderful and customary engineering, beautiful pathways, or look at the advanced steel and glass building which houses the School of Business. The grounds additionally gives students simple admittance to a few major tech organizations like Amazon's CreateSpace, Google, TwitPic, and so on. The school offers students nearby as well as off-grounds convenience going from completely outfitted home lobbies to memorable homes. It is prepared to offer different types of assistance and facilities like clubs, associations, sporting exercises, support administrations, etc. To put it plainly, the school grounds is rising with energy and there will never be a dull second for students at the College of Charleston. Concentrate on Abroad USA is improving and remunerating for your future. The energetic grounds likewise houses various

Best MBA Online Colleges in the USA

“Opportunities never open, instead we create them for us”. Beginning with this amazing saying, let’s unbox today’s knowledge. Love Business and marketing? Want to make a high-paid career in business administration? Well, if yes, then mate, we have got you something amazing to do!   We all imagine an effortless future with a cozy house and a laptop. Well, well! You can make this happen. Today, with this guide, we will be exploring some of the top-notch online MBA universities and institutes in the USA. Let’s get started! Why learn Online MBA from the USA? Access to More Options This online era has given a second chance to children who want to reflect on their careers while managing their hectic schedules. In this, the internet has played a very crucial in rejuvenating schools, institutes, and colleges to give the best education to students across the globe. Graduating with Less Debt Regular classes from high reputed institutes often charge heavy tuition fees. However onl

Sickening moment maskless 'Karen' COUGHS in the face of grocery store customer, then claims she doesn't have to wear a mask because she 'isn't sick'

A woman was captured on camera following a customer through a supermarket as she coughs on her after claiming she does not need a mask because she is not sick.  Video of the incident, which has garnered hundreds of thousands of views on Twitter alone, allegedly took place in a Su per Saver in Lincoln, Nebraska according to Twitter user @davenewworld_2. In it, an unidentified woman was captured dramatically coughing as she smiles saying 'Excuse me! I'm coming through' in the direction of the customer recording her. Scroll down for video An unidentified woman was captured dramatically coughing as she smiles saying 'Excuse me! I'm coming through' in the direction of a woman recording her A woman was captured on camera following a customer as she coughs on her in a supermarket without a mask on claiming she does not need one because she is not sick @chaiteabugz #karen #covid #karens #karensgonewild #karensalert #masks we were just wearing a mask at the store. ¿ o