Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

Speech celebrating the memory of Sir James Goldsmith

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: St John’s, Smith Square
Source: Thatcher Archive: speaking text
Editorial comments:
Importance ranking: Major
Word count: 968
Themes: Autobiographical comments, Conservatism, European Union (general)

Jimmy Goldsmith, whose memory we celebrate today, was a giant among men. He was great in his qualities, and great in his impact. No-one whose life he touched remained unchanged. No walk of life he trod failed to bear his imprint.

I knew of Jimmy long before I actually got to know him. His name in those days was virtually synonymous with a buccaneering capitalism that elicited no end of tut-tutting at the time. I never felt tempted to join the chorus, (because) for capitalism, remember, depends on the challenge of competition, not the complacency of corporatism. [end p1]

And without the Goldsmiths, who make capital work to maximise profit, millions of shareholders and pension-fund investors would be the poorer. But in any case Jimmy 's business activities received a mixed press. Indeed, a mixed press—or perhaps more accurately, mixing it with the press—became Jimmy 's stock-in-trade.

That was all an excellent preparation for his eruption into political life. Jimmy brought to bear on politics the same intellectual clarity that had stood him so well in business. He immediately distinguished [end p2] between ends and means. He saw through at once the clouds of obfuscation that easily befuddle so many of the not so bright professionals. For, as the poet puts it:

… All the world would
keep a matter hid,
Since Truth is seldom
friend to any crowd.

But Jimmy was never part of the crowd. He understood the issues that were truly at stake. He learned fast. He could puncture sloppy interviewers and demolish opponents with a special blend of ferocity and polish. [end p3]

The measure of his success was the fear he inspired in the political-bureaucratic class that opposed him. It had much of the desired effect. Before ever a vote was cast at the last election, Jimmy 's initiative had dragged both main parties to concede the referendum they'd earlier refused.

Jimmy was certainly one of the bravest men I ever met. Bravery comes in many shapes and forms. Aristotle, I think, observed that a woman's bravery is different from a man's. And I would supplement the philosopher by saying that physical and moral courage are [end p4] also quite different from each other, and don't always go together. But in Jimmy they did.

It takes guts to start up a political party, no matter how rich you are. It takes courage of a high order to lay yourself open to the taunts and sneers of lesser men who try to diminish your character because they can't defeat your arguments. And it takes a well-nigh super-human brand of bravery to do all these, as Jimmy did this spring, knowing you're mortally ill, feeling your strength ebbing, fighting back the pain, without a shred of self-pity or complaint. [end p5]

Jimmy was a fighter, and he fought to win—but he fought like the legendary crusader whose chivalry is as great as his cause is true. You never met a more generous man. The generosity could be epic—as with the Referendum Party and his support for Environmental issues—or it could be quiet and personal as it was to those in need.

There was not an ounce of side or gramme of snobbery in him. He took people as he found them. It didn't matter whether you were a mogul of British industry or a solid French peasant—in whose good sense [end p6] he expressed considerable confidence—it didn't even matter if you were a former Prime Minister—he valued a man (or woman) for their qualities, ideas and deeds, not for their reputation or connections.

Although our paths had crossed before, it was only recently that we became friends. It was a friendship based, of course, on (largely) shared convictions, but it was cemented by conversation.

It's sometimes been said that I can be loquacious. As a now defunct television quiz programme has it, “I've started, [end p7] so I'll finish” . But Jimmy Goldsmith was a no less unstoppable talker.

I still seem to see those piercing bright blue eyes, hands jabbing the air to make a myriad points; to hear that flow of sparkling, persuasive exposition, punctuated by anecdote, lightened by repartee, that never seemed to dry up. And nearly always he was right: he had looked at the facts, heard the argument, weighed the evidence and deduced in the pellucid way that really clever men do a truth so obvious that you wondered why you hadn't thought of it first. [end p8]

Above all, he was right about “Europe” —the word upon which hang so many questions fundamental to our national identity and future. Being the man he was, Jimmy couldn't settle for just one patriotism—he had to have two, one for each of his beloved France and (I like to think) his still-more-beloved Britain. His family roots, the range of his business interests, the circles in which he moved, his facility for languages, his breadth of taste—all made him a true European. I think this explains in part why the Eurocrats so resented him. His whole persona was a kind of living demonstration that you don't [end p9] need to lose your own identity to appreciate someone else's. He was a Great European on a continent which the Little Europeans claimed as their own. You had only to visit that extraordinary chateau in Burgundy, with its magnificent library, to understand that the discerning owner's mind was attuned to that glorious European cultural achievement which some are keen to reduce to a mere political slogan.

In life, Jimmy Goldsmith was a man to whom only superlatives do justice. But in the face of death even the superlatives fall silent. I am not sure what Jimmy [end p10] ultimately believed in. But one of his strongest penultimate beliefs was in the loyalties of friendship. To be a friend of Jimmy 's was to know that someone, somewhere would always stick by you, whatever the cost. He would have been pleased to know that so many of his friends, who knew him better and longer than I did, had met here to remember him. I for one, shall never forget this magnificent warrior for truth, this great-hearted patriot, whom, for all too short a season, I was privileged to call a friend.