Norman Tebbit gives Boris Johnson a handbagging for saying coronavirus proves Margaret Thatcher’s famous ‘no such thing as society’ comment was wrong
- Boris Johnson was accused of suffering a ‘coronavirus memory lapse’ last night
- Tory Norman Tebbit claimed PM did U-turn on support for Margaret Thatcher
- PM said Covid-19 disproves Thatcher’s theory ‘there is no such thing as society’
- Coronavirus symptoms: what are they and should you see a doctor?
Boris Johnson was accused of suffering a ‘coronavirus memory lapse’ last night after saying Covid-19 disproves Margaret Thatcher’s theory that ‘there is no such thing as society’.
Tory peer Norman Tebbit claimed the PM – whose official car was seen undergoing a deep clean yesterday – had performed a U-turn after it emerged Mr Johnson once fiercely defended Baroness Thatcher over the remark, used by critics to claim she was hard-hearted and opposed to state welfare.
In a tribute in 2009, Mr Johnson wrote that the reason she had said there was ‘no such thing as society’, was ‘to shatter the post-war consensus that the solution to every problem was always an expansion of the state’.
Baroness Margaret Thatcher and Boris Johnson in London, 2008
But on Sunday, after praising the 750,000 people who have volunteered for the NHS, he said: ‘The coronavirus has already proved there really is such a thing as society.’
Lord Tebbit, 89 – a member of Baroness Thatcher’s Cabinet – said: ‘Mr Johnson appears to have been robbed of his memory as a result of the coronavirus fever.
‘Aside from changing his mind, he has completely failed to understand what Mrs Thatcher meant. She was saying society doesn’t exist on its own; it is made up of people.
The Prime Minister’s vehicle gets a deep clean outside of No.10 Downing Street Monday afternoon, as he tests positive for coronavirus
The PM’s two custom Jaguar’s were cleaned after Boris Johnson and a number of other key members of Parliament have had to go into self-isolation after contracting the Coronavirus
‘Those people are not a collective, as socialists would have us believe, they are all individuals.’
Lord Tebbit, 89, said Boris Johnson had done a U-turn with latest Thatcher comment
Lord Tebbit said it was ‘absurd’ to argue that the 750,000 NHS volunteers was evidence that her views on society were wrong.
‘The 750,000 have all volunteered as individuals, not as part of the State. If Mrs Thatcher had faced this kind of crisis as PM, she would have asked for volunteers just like Mr Johnson has.’
Writing in 2009, Mr Johnson said: ‘There are huge numbers of people who will never forgive Mrs Thatcher for saying that ‘there is no such thing as society. There are men and women, and there are families’.
‘Margaret Thatcher said thought-provoking things about the relationship between the State and the individual.
‘Some of them were unpalatable, some of them were exaggerated. But much of what she said was necessary, and it took a woman to say it.’