THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: After decades of decline, Margaret Thatcher's leadership brought courage and conviction to a nation that had grown used to second best, says Charles Moore
On the day in 1982 that the British task force set sail to recover the Falkland Islands from the Argentine invaders, Margaret Thatcher was asked on television: "If you fail, would you feel obliged to resign?" "Failure?" she answered, "Do you remember what Queen Victoria once said? 'Failure - the possibilities do not exist'."
The remark goes to the heart of Mrs Thatcher's essential political message, and of her character. It shows her romantic patriotism, her confidence in her own sex, and her dauntlessness.
Failure had been the dominant experience of the British political class since 1945. After the exhaustion of war had come the painful business of extricating ourselves from empire. From the early Sixties was added relative economic decline.
Many people decided that failure was something Britain was rather good at, and took a perverse pride in it. Mandarins spoke of "the orderly management of decline". Satirists spoke of Britain "sinking giggling into the sea".
Such attitudes were always anathema to Mrs Thatcher's temperament and beliefs. Her father, Alfred Roberts - Methodist lay preacher, grocer, Grantham alderman - taught her that work was a duty owed to God.
"Earn all you can; save all you can; give all you can", said John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, a quotation of which Mrs Thatcher was fond. In such a world view, failure was not something to be indulged, let alone celebrated. If you failed, you let down yourself, your neighbours, and your God. Margaret Thatcher: The Patriot Who Vanquished Failure >>> By Charles Moore | April 11, 2008
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback - UK)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardback - UK)
