"Not for her the contempt sometimes heaped on ideas and new thinking in political life."
Mr Speaker, I want to join the Prime Minister in commemorating the extraordinary life and unique contribution of Margaret Thatcher.
And I want to join him in sending my deepest condolences to her children, Carol and Mark, the whole family and her many, many close friends.
Today is an opportunity for us to reflect on Margaret Thatcher’s personal achievements, her style of politics and her political legacy.
As the Prime Minister said, the journey from being the child of a grocer to Downing Street is an unlikely one.
And it is particularly remarkable because she was the daughter, not the son, of a grocer.
At each stage of her life, she broke the mould.
A woman at Oxford when there was not a single woman in the University who held a full professorship.
A woman chemist when most people assumed scientists had to be men.
A woman candidate for Parliament in 1950, against the opposition of some in her local party in Dartford, at the age of only 24.
A woman MP in 1959 when just 4 per cent of MPs in the whole of this House were women.
The only woman in the Cabinet when she was appointed in 1970.
And, of course, the first woman Prime Minister.
Mr Speaker, it is no wonder she remarked as early as 1965 in a speech to the National Union of Town Women’s Guilds’ Conference:
"In politics if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman."
I am sure some people in this House—and no doubt many more in the country - will agree with this sentiment.
Having broken so many conventions as a woman, it can’t be a coincidence that she was someone who in so many other areas of life was willing to take on the established orthodoxies.
Margaret Thatcher’s ability to overcome every obstacle in her path is just one measure of her personal strength.
And that takes me to her style of politics.
You can disagree with Margaret Thatcher.
But it is important to understand the kind of political leader she was.
What was unusual, was that she sought to be rooted in people’s daily lives, but she also believed that ideology mattered.
Not for her the contempt sometimes heaped on ideas and new thinking in political life.
And while she never would have claimed to be, or wanted to be seen as, an intellectual, she believed, and she showed, that ideas matter in politics.
In 1945 Mr Speaker, before the end of the War, she bought a copy of Friedrich Hayek’s Road to Serfdom. There is even a story that she suggested that Conservative Central Office distribute it in the 1945 campaign.
She said, "it left a permanent mark on my political character."
And nobody can grasp Margaret Thatcher’s achievements, and Thatcherism, without also appreciating the ideas that were its foundation.
And the way in which they departed from the prevailing consensus of the time.
In typical home-spun style, on breakfast TV she said this in 1995:
"Consensus doesn’t give you any direction. It is like mixing all the constituent ingredients together and not coming out with a cake...Democracy is about the people being given a choice."
It was that approach that enabled her to define the politics of a whole generation and influence the politics of generations to come.
The Prime Minister, the Deputy
New Statesman
