Diocese of Liverpool

Thought for the Day, 6 May 2004

The Rt Rev. James Jones

Good Morning

Twenty five years ago this week Mrs Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister. The curious thing about her premiership is that I've never met anyone who's ever admitted to voting for her! I'm a reasonably well-travelled person, but I've failed to find anyone ready to confess that they put her into Downing Street. Presumably, somebody did, millions in fact! Not just once but on three separate occasions! So why are they all so coy?

To find part of the answer it's necessary to go not to Hansard or even to the annals of the Today programme but to the pages of Woman's Own Magazine. In an interview there, Margaret Thatcher uttered these now infamous words 'There is no such thing as society'. To be fair to her, she said it in order to restore the importance of obligations over a culture of entitlements. And she qualified it by adding, 'There are individual men and women, and there are families'. She also said explicitly, 'It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour.'

But in a sound-bite world of political punch-ups her critics are only too keen to ditch the qualification and repeat the now immortal phrase 'There is no such thing as society'. The mud has stuck, caked on to her image, and made many of her voters shy of associating with her publicly.

Baroness Thatcher drew heavily on her Christian faith in talking about duty and obligation. And all the faith communities would support her in the value she set upon families. Although, one of the surprises of her Government was the lack of fiscal support they gave to the God-given institution of the family.

Where Mrs Thatcher made herself vulnerable was to deny the reality of ‘society' in a world that is becoming evermore complex. She was right: individuals, families and communities all have a part to play; but how do you referee when their needs clash?

Conflicts of interest press in on us all the time. Recently I went on a visit to Honduras to see the tragic effects of Hurricane Mitch. How did I get there? By plane! Which shaved off yet another layer of ozone. I sailed up the Patuka river through the Rain Forest to see the devastating effect of illegal logging. How did I do it? In a canoe dug out of a tree!

Most of what we do, affect other people, society at large. As John Donne said 'every man is a piece of the continent... any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.'

True, he didn't use the word society. Nor did Francis of Assisi when he prayed to God 'make me an instrument of your peace'. But the idea was clearly there in the prayer for dispelling discord and despair. And these were the very words that graced the steps of Downing Street on May 4th 1979 - and fell from the lips of Mrs Margaret Thatcher.