Queen Elizabeth IIYour Majesty, Your Royal Highness, My Lords, Ladies, Gentlemen, Friends — thank you all for doing me the great honour of coming here tonight.
And thank you Bill DeedesBill for those [kind and unjustly flattering observations]. I can quite see why Denis ThatcherDenis keeps on writing those letters to you. You say the nicest things.
It has, of course, been a year of far more important anniversaries than my seventieth — or even Denis's eightieth — birthday. Those who (like Denis) took part in the last War, those (like myself) who remember it, and those who now just read about it in books — all of us this summer were very conscious of the contribution which our country has made to the cause of liberty. Not just on one but on countless occasions. And not only by force of arms, but also by force of argument — fighting the cause of liberty in the battle of ideas.
This passion for liberty, indeed, is characteristic of the English-speaking peoples as a whole. A much greater statesman than I , Sir Winston Churchill, was not I think far wrong when he talked in his famous Iron Curtain speech in Fulton, Missouri of what he called (I quote):
“the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world.”
Almost thirty years on, the mighty Evil Empire of whose growth and menace Churchill warned in his speech has broken. The liberal creed of the English-speaking world — our belief in law, justice, fairness, sound administration and respect for human rights — has prevailed. For this we can largely thank the efforts of our trans-atlantic cousins — though in my time they often needed (and received) a little help from their friends.
I sometimes tell American audiences, Ma'am, that a wiser monarch than your predecessor, and a better Prime Minister than mine — two women ideally — would have managed to avoid that fateful tea party in Boston Harbour. Women are rather good at handling tea parties. But my American friends are not easily convinced. And I have to admit that over the last two centuries they have done quite well for themselves — as well as for the rest of us.
A seventieth Birthday is a time to relax. But it is also a time to reflect. To reflect, of course, on all the personal blessings — above all, the blessing of such a husband, friend and comrade as Denis, and of Mark ThatcherMark and Carol ThatcherCarol. And let us not forget the later generations — for, to coin a phrase, we are, after all, a grandmother.
But this also is a time to reflect — particularly in this company and on this occasion — on the blessing (no other word will do) of having been able to contribute something to this great country's life and history.
To be Prime Minister for a day — let along eleven and a half years — was not in my time generally within the sights of a girl from Grantham. To have been Prime Minister over one of the most important and, I believe, beneficial decades of the century is an extraordinary privilege. And now to be able to look back — and indeed look forward — in the presence of my sovereign and of so many distinguished guests and faithful friends is a unique and unforgettable joy.
Thank you for this — and for everything.