100 Years Since the Birth of Lady Thatcher

100 Years Since the Birth of Lady Thatcher

October 13^th, 2025, marked the 100^th anniversary of the birth of Lady Thatcher. In his fascinating analysis titled The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister: Three Who Changed the World, John O’Sullivan, a renowned journalist and special advisor to Prime Minister Thatcher, remarked:

As the 1970s began, three talented middle managers worried about their respective institutions, which seemed to be crumbling…. All three had strong personalities, great abilities, and loyal followings…. All three were handicapped by being too sharp, clear, and definite in an age of increasingly fluid identities and sophisticated doubts. Put simply, Wojtyla was too Catholic, Thatcher too conservative, and Reagan too American.

These qualities might not have been disadvantages in times of greater confidence in Western civilization … when people prefer their leaders to be lions rather than foxes. But 1970 was two years after the revolutionary annus mirabilis of 1968…. Wojtyla, Thatcher, and Reagan all embodied such fading virtues as faith, self-reliance, and patriotism — which the modern world seemed to be leaving behind.

The problems of the 1960s and 1970s described above are equally, if not more, indicative of today’s lack of confidence in Western values and the “general sensibility of despair,” which O’Sullivan characterizes by recalling Yeats’s famous verses:

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Fortunately, the three heroes who contributed to the fall of communist tyranny in Eastern Europe — Ronald Reagan, Pope John-Paul II, and Margaret Thatcher — influenced a momentous course-correction away from socialism and civilizational despair, not unlike the revival of conservatism and patriotism that the United States is presently experiencing.

Margaret Thatcher was a staunch advocate for economic freedom, traditional Western values, and love of country. Below is a selection of several of her less frequently quoted observations, which showcase enduring truths that could just as well apply to our turbulent times:

• “I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding, because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.”

• “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. It’s our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There’s no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation.”

• “I am not a consensus politician. I’m a conviction politician.”

• “I came to office with one deliberate intent: to change Britain from a dependent to a self-reliant society — from a give-it-to-me to a do-it-yourself nation. A get-up-and-go, instead of a sit-back-and-wait-for-it Britain.”

• “The choice facing the nation is between two totally different ways of life. And what a prize we have to fight for: no less than the chance to banish from our land the dark, divisive clouds of Marxist socialism and bring together men and women from all walks of life who share a belief in freedom.”

• “There are significant differences between the American and European version of capitalism. The American traditionally emphasizes the need for limited government, light regulations, low taxes and maximum labour-market flexibility. Its success has been shown above all in the ability to create new jobs, in which it is consistently more successful than Europe.”

• “The economic success of the Western world is a product of its moral philosophy and practice. The economic results are better because the moral philosophy is superior. It is superior because it starts with the individual, with his uniqueness, his responsibility, and his capacity to choose. Surely this is infinitely preferable to the socialist-statist philosophy, which sets up a centralized economic system to which the individual must conform, which subjugates him, directs him and denies him the right to free choice. Choice is the essence of ethics: if there were no choice, there would be no ethics, no good, no evil; good and evil have meaning only insofar as man is free to choose.”

To me, one of Thatcher’s most memorable moments was her visit to Poland in November 1988. The Iron Lady, visibly moved to tears, brought hope and courage to freedom-fighters and dissidents across Eastern Europe, a region where she is highly respected and fondly remembered to this day. Eastern Europe today is not only free but has remained a sane antidote to the suicidal madness of Western European elites.

To honor the 100^th anniversary of Thatcher’s birth, a statue was unveiled in Budapest this October. The sculpture was made of iron as a fitting tribute to the Iron Lady. She is certainly missed by those who truly value political and economic liberty and Western tradition.

Nora D. Clinton is a Research Scholar at the Legal Insurrection Foundation. She was born and raised in Sofia, Bulgaria. She holds a PhD in Classics and has published extensively on ancient documents on stone. In 2020, she authored the popular memoir Quarantine Reflections Across Two Worlds. Nora is a co-founder of two partner charities dedicated to academic cooperation and American values. She lives in Northern Virginia with her husband and son.

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