What we have witnessed in our own time is the death of universities as centres of critique. Since Margaret Thatcher, the role of academia has been to service the status quo, not challenge it in the name of justice, tradition, imagination, human welfare, the free play of the mind or alternative visions of the future. We will not change this simply by increasing state funding of the humanities as opposed to slashing it to nothing. We will change it by insisting that a critical reflection on human values and principles should be central to everything that goes on in universities, not just to the study of Rembrandt or Rimbaud.
Terry EagletonTag: imagination justice academia tradition arthur-rimbaud radicalism university humanities 2010 tuition-fees-uk 2010-uk-student-protests margaret-thatcher public-university radical-politics reactionary-politics rembrandt
Now, I have always wanted to agree with Lady Bracknell that there is no earthly use for the upper and lower classes unless they set each other a good example. But I shouldn't pretend that the consensus itself was any of my concern. It was absurd and slightly despicable, in the first decade of Thatcher and Reagan, to hear former and actual radicals intone piously against 'the politics of confrontation.' I suppose that, if this collection has a point, it is the desire of one individual to see the idea of confrontation kept alive.
Christopher HitchensTag: politics united-states oscar-wilde england the-importance-of-being-earnest confrontation united-kingdom margaret-thatcher ronald-reagan social-class political-radicalism social-structure-of-the-uk
For 3 million you could give everyone in Scotland a shovel, and we could dig a hole so deep we could hand her over to Satan in person. (on Margaret Thatcher)
Frankie BoyleTag: humor politics devil death humour funny hell scotland dark-humor funeral margaret-thatcher
Then she said, with mock horror, "She's going to bring some of her old wigs, if you can believe it." She rubbed her bare head with her free hand. "I'll look like a zombie Margaret Thatcher.
Patrick NessTag: margaret-thatcher wigs
Thirty years ago [written 2009], over-regulation, over-taxation, mis-regulation, statism, state corporatism, and economic folly, cosiness and regulatory capture, and a crescent ideological enemy without, who were assisted by enemies – both fifth columnists and useful fools – within, had led to a crisis of confidence in the West, and in all lands that – and amongst all peoples, particularly those who were oppressed in their own lands, who – loved and desired liberty. Of course, thirty years ago, Britain had Margaret Thatcher to turn to.
G.M.W. WemyssTag: politics economics margaret-thatcher uk-politics
Some in Westminster have talked about her receiving a state funeral when she dies, which seems a bizarre sort of tribute to someone who believed the state should do as little as possible. It would be far more appropriate to allow competitive bids from private companies to run the funeral arrangements. 'And we now go over live to Westminster, where state leaders are lining up for Lady Thatcher's funeral sponsored by McDonald's. And there we see the coffin respectfully borne on the shoulders of six part-time burger-flippers dressed in the official Ronald McDonald costume, before the private cremation when the body will be flame-grilled with gherkins and a slice of cheese.'
It's what she would have wanted.
Tag: history conservatives margaret-thatcher
Thatcher once said that if she were a visitor from Mars required to create a constitutional system, "I would set up ... a hereditary monarchy, wonderfully trained, in duty and in leadership which understands example, which is always there, which is above politics, for which the whole nation has an affection and which is a symbol of patriotism.
Sally Bedell SmithTag: england monarchy margaret-thatcher the-queen queen-elizabeth-ii
What I said was Britain was ready for another Hitler, which is quite a different thing to saying it needs another Hitler. I stand by that opinion - in fact I was ahead of my time in voicing it. There are in Britain right now parallels with the rise of the Nazi Party in pre-war Germany. A demoralised nation whose empire had disintegrated." Two years later, Margaret Thatcher was elected.
- Quoting David Bowie from 1977
Tag: nazis adolf-hitler nazism david-bowie margaret-thatcher
The Prime Minister says that she has given the French President a piece of her mind – this is not a gift I would receive with alacrity.
Denis HealeyTag: margaret-thatcher
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