In 1968, full 11 years before becoming Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher delivered an important lecture at the Conservative Political Centre entitled “What’s Wrong With Politics”.
She listed out several factors, including the newness of universal adult franchise in the UK, but the main problem according to her was:
TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT
What is most noteworthy about this speech is what she has to say about “participation”. We are often assailed by this word in India, with everyone wanting to increase “participation in government”.
Here’s what Margaret Thatcher had to say on the subject:
"But the way to get personal involvement and participation is not for people to take part in more and more government decisions but to make the government reduce the area of decision over which it presides and consequently leave the private citizen to ‘participate’, if that be the fashionable word, by making more of his own decisions. What we need now is a far greater degree of personal responsibility and decision, far more independence from the government, and a comparative reduction in the role of government."
(Italics in the original.)
Read the full speech here.
She listed out several factors, including the newness of universal adult franchise in the UK, but the main problem according to her was:
TOO MUCH GOVERNMENT
What is most noteworthy about this speech is what she has to say about “participation”. We are often assailed by this word in India, with everyone wanting to increase “participation in government”.
Here’s what Margaret Thatcher had to say on the subject:
"But the way to get personal involvement and participation is not for people to take part in more and more government decisions but to make the government reduce the area of decision over which it presides and consequently leave the private citizen to ‘participate’, if that be the fashionable word, by making more of his own decisions. What we need now is a far greater degree of personal responsibility and decision, far more independence from the government, and a comparative reduction in the role of government."
(Italics in the original.)
Read the full speech here.
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