Quotes About Thatcher

So all the system was running down and collapsing. Mrs. Thatcher became the leader of the Conservative Party in February 1975, and she clearly wanted to strike out and do something different.

Thatcher was prepared to destroy the world rather than give in on something she believed in.

In London - and forget those extra public pressures on politicians - the lovely old Sloane world of manor houses simply hasn't cut it since Big Bang in 1986, the point at which Mrs. Thatcher really started to achieve her ambition to make this country more like America - its ambition, economy, it's very tangible measures of success.

I certainly wasn't a fan of Thatcher's politics. People liked to label us as children of Thatcher. What nonsense. The real children of Thatcher came in the 1990s, and had no interest in politics. The Oasis, Britpop scene.

Margaret Thatcher had more impact on the world than any woman ruler since Catherine the Great of Russia. Not only did she turn around - decisively - the British economy in the 1980s, she also saw her methods copied in more than 50 countries.

I am not as cross about Thatcher now as I was in the '80s. Begrudgingly, I can see that some of her policies helped modernise Britain.

In the period before the arrival of Mrs. Thatcher, politics had been in such low esteem. Everything was so hedged, so mealy-mouthed. Then along came this woman who seemed to have no manners at all and said exactly what she thought. Everyone's eyes were popping and their jaws were dropping, and I really enjoyed that.

I became an insomniac, really, hardly slept at all, didn't even try to. And it's carried on. I hate to say I only need as much sleep as Mrs. Thatcher, but I can cope really well on five hours.

The moral was, in time of anarchy, tough leadership is the only solution - even though the collateral damage may be heartbreaking. Mrs. Thatcher's strident, take-no prisoners approach was in some ways repugnant, but it was surely necessary.

I was out of the U.K. as a care-free, fun-loving student for much of Mrs. Thatcher's time in Downing Street, and as I didn't own a television in New York, never read the newspapers, and am old enough to have lived before the Internet, she is a shadowy figure in my memory.

One of the reasons that Thatcher promoted home ownership is that it promoted responsible citizens with a stake in society. But another reason was that those people would tend to be Conservative.

When I was a GLC councillor, we won and held London as Labour was imploding nationally - running popular campaigns against the Thatcher Government and fighting on our own agenda.

What we used to have in Britain was professions, and then we had industry. Then at some point, maybe with Margaret Thatcher, we suddenly industrialised our professions. And now we have lawyers with products and banks with products, and lecturers and teachers with products.

Anything I could have done that was legal to get Margaret Thatcher's government out I was prepared to do. I could not believe what she was doing to this country.

Harveys opened against the backdrop of Thatcher's greed culture.

Since the start of the Thatcher economic and fiscal reforms the U.K. economy has expanded five-fold.

I hated what Margaret Thatcher had done. How she'd taken jobs. I hated her divide and rule politics.

One of the most important things that a Thatcher government did was change the mood of the nation to give it back its confidence.

The deal is probably the most corrupt transaction in arms-trading history, with Bandar, Thatcher's son and many others implicated in receiving payments on an epic scale.

Thatcher was the best politician I have ever witnessed.

I want to brush my teeth," she said. Before she knew what was happening, Thatcher leaned over and kissed her. Very quickly, very softly. "You're fine," he said. "I detect a trace of vinaigrette, but it's really very pleasant." He held the flute out to her, and as it gave her something to do other than fall over backward, she accepted it.

Spare me this sanctimony about politeness, please. There are millions of people in this country who hate the very word 'Thatcher' and 'Thatcherism,' which continues until this day.

Any criticism of Thatcher throws a dangerously absurd light on the entire machinery of British politics. Thatcher's name must be protected, not because of all the wrong that she had done, but because the people around her allowed her to do it.

If Margaret Thatcher had been Prime Minister at the time, there would have been no Treaty of Maastricht.