MARGARET THATCHER, SIGNED SPEECH ON HAYEK, 2003

MARGARET THATCHER

SIGNED TYPESCRIPT SPEECH BY MARGARET THATCHER ON HAYEK, 2003

signed typescript speech by Margaret Thatcher on F.A. Hayek on the receipt of the Internationaler Preis der Friedrich-August-von-Hayek-Stiftung. 2pp., dated October 2003, on headed stationery, signed in blue ink, with a copy of the diploma housed in a blue cloth portfolio;

typed letter signed by Margaret Thatcher to Lawrence Hayek, dated 25 July 2003, on headed stationary;

4 signed photographs of Thatcher with Lawrence and Esca Hayek;

one menu from the “Fisher/Thatcher-Lunch” at the Café Royal, dated 22 June 1992, inscribed by Thatcher;

additional menu from the “Fisher/Thatcher-Lunch” at the Café Royal, dated 22 June 1992, signed by attendees including Thatcher, Hayek and Keith Joseph;

12 pages of copies of correspondence between Thatcher and Hayek;

There is a famous anecdote that during a Conservative Party policy meeting, Thatcher removed her copy of Hayek’s Constitution of Liberty from her handbag, slammed it down on the table and declared, “This is what we believe.”

Whether the story stands up to its own legend, the impact that Hayek’s writing had on Thatcher, her advisors, and her policies is undeniable. Thatcher herself wrote: “the most powerful critique of socialist planning and the socialist state which I read at this time and to which I have returned so often since [is] F.A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom."

Hayek himself returned kind words back to the PM, not only in their private correspondence, but publicly in many letters to newspapers. In a letter to The Times in 1982 he wrote: “It is Mrs Thatcher’s great merit that she has broken the Keynesian immorality of ‘in the long run we are all dead’ and to have concentrated on the long run future of the country irrespective of possible effects on the electors…Mrs Thatcher’s courage makes her put the long run future of the country first.”

Throughout her political career Thatcher was a fierce advocate of free-market libertarianism. In their first meeting at the Institute of Economic Affairs Ralph Harris explained "although she is known as being a rather overpowering lady she sat down like a meek schoolgirl and listened."

This 2003 speech concludes: “Hayek is, therefore, the prophet not of doom and disaster, but of peace and plenty. His is a voice of wisdom for our time, and for all time. We should listen to him.”

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