Quotes about Margaret Thatcher

53 Sourced Quotes

Margaret Thatcher has added the diplomacy of Alf Garnett to the economics of Arthur Daley.

The flat tax I got on my first meeting with Margaret Thatcher, who I admired very much and who was a great admirer of Milton Friedman. I met her first when I had been prime minister I think for some months and so on, and when I told her what I am planning to do, she looked at me with these big eyes and said you are one brave young man. And then a little bit introduced me on the realities of the Western world on which I was not very well informed. But I didn't stop.

On December 22, 1986, finding I was body positive, I set myself a target: I would disclose my secret and survive Margaret Thatcher. I did. Now I have set my sights on the millennium and a world where we are all equal.

Margaret Thatcher is one of your great comedians. She says Pinochet brought democracy to Chile. That's like claiming she brought socialism to Britain.

If Margaret Thatcher wins – I warn you not to be ordinary. I warn you not to be young. I warn you not to fall ill. I warn you not to get old.

Of Margaret thatcher:

She was a tigress surrounded by hamsters.

If you asked her (Margaret Thatcher) about Sinai, she would probably think it was the plural for sinus.

Jonathan Aitken

In excluding me from the shadow cabinet, Margaret Thatcher has chosen what I believe to be the only wholly honest solution and one which I accept and welcome.

Her iron will won international respect. Her unabashed femininity gained women's. Margaret Thatcher was a lady's lady.

Louise Burfitt-Dons

Cut is the Sure Start maternity allowance. Has [the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith] no idea at all that supporting a family and getting the children out of poverty when the babies are born can save money from the public purse for years to come? Instead, he wants to cut support from the babes in their mothers' arms. At least Margaret Thatcher had the grace to wait until the children were weaned before snatching their support.

When Reagan and Thatcher came to power, authoritarian populism was a term academics used to describe their politics. Now it's a phenomenon, growing rapidly, cutting across old definitions of left and right, goes the argument. But it's not so simple and the phenomenon is not new. The term authoritarian populist is a construct that, if we are not careful, could blind us to the real roots of centrism's sudden crisis – and to the answers.

Paul Mason (journalist)

We lost one of one of the great leaders of our lifetime on Monday. She was a true friend of America, and a champion of freedom. We're going to ensure that Margaret Thatcher's legacy is honored by the United States government in a way commensurate with her enormous achievements.

Of Margaret Thatcher:

She cannot see an institution without hitting it with her handbag.

Julian Critchley

Of Margaret Thatcher:

And who is the Mephistopheles behind this shabby Faust [the Foreign Secretary, Geoffrey Howe]?…To quote her own backbenchers, the Great She-elephant, She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed, the Catherine the Great of Finchley, the Prime Minister herself.

Claiming to have explained monetarism to Margaret Thatcher:

It makes one feel like the geography teacher who showed a map of the world to Genghis Khan.

Do you know what Margaret Thatcher did in her first Budget? Introduced VAT on yachts! It somewhat ruined my retirement.

Going to bed with Gertrude Stein, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Susan Sontag, or Margaret Thatcher: There are some things one prefers neither to do nor to have done.

- Report...

Dining with her Cabinet:

Mr.s Thatcher: Steak.
Waiter: And the vegetables?
Mrs. Thatcher: Oh, they'll have steak too.

I played my part in turning the sick country of Europe into one of the most successful and respected in the world. After ten years of Mrs. Thatcher's premiership the talk of the 'English disease' has been replaced by wonder at the 'Thatcher miracle'. Britain the laggard has become Britain the leader and our policies have become the standard against which others are measured.

You're right, Mr. Thatcher. I did lose a million dollars last year. I expect to lose a million dollars this year. I expect to lose a million dollars next year. You know, Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I'll have to close this place in sixty years.

Herman J. Mankiewicz

Hayek's blind spot with regard to politics was clear in the early 1980s when the first Thatcher government, in an attempt to reduce inflation and bring the public finances closer to a balanced budget, was raising interest rates and cutting public spending. As he had done during the 1930s, Hayek attacked these policies as not being severe enough. It would be better, he told me in a conversation we had around this time, if Thatcher imposed a more drastic contraction on the economy so that the wage-setting power of the trade unions could be broken. He appeared unfazed by unemployment, which was already higher (more than three million people) than at any time since the 1930s, and would rise much further if his recommendations were accepted.

I think the SDP really is a very right-wing party. In a funny way it's more right-wing than Mrs. Thatcher because Mrs. Thatcher is an old-fashioned liberal, if you know what I mean, she believes in market forces and small government. But my knowledge and experience of the SDP is that they believe in a centralised system, they believe in a federal Europe in which we would only be a province under Brussels, they believe in retaining the American bases, they want a statutory pay policy so they would govern the wages of everybody without proper negotiation. I think they're a very hard right party and I think the Labour Party which has now got a decent policy as a result of all the work we've done is going to pick up a lot of support this year.

I warn you, if Margaret Thatcher wins on Thursday, I warn you not to be ordinary. I warn you not to be young. I warn you not to fall ill. And I warn you not to get old – if Thatcher wins on Thursday.