The Iron Lady

It's a sobering thought that you've got to be knocking 30 to have any real memory of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister. Frankly, she scared the living daylights out of me, and many people round here - including my late wife - would hold her pretty well solely responsible for the destruction of the Midlands as the industrial heartland of the nation. Whatever, the one quote which you hear more often than any other attributed to her is "there is no such thing as society", and this is invariably put forward as indicative of her hard and uncaring attitude. But if ever a quote was taken out of context, then it's this one. What she actually said was - "I think ... too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it ... 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..." And that was simply telling it as it is, and forever will be.