Mr. Speaker, it has been said that, if you set out just to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time and you would achieve nothing. In embodying this tenet, Margaret Thatcher emboldened her nation to abandon its tether to the yoke of managerial socialism.
Her leadership redefined the concept of equality from one of standardized mediocrity to one rooted in the promise of opportunity. She rejected the notions that the state is superior to the capability of the individual, that tokenism trumps merit, that cotton-candy rhetoric can successfully grow an economy and that the pursuit of power is purely a sport of popularity to be sought for the sake of itself alone.
She said that being powerful is like being a lady: if one has to tell someone, one is not. She carried this principle through to the concept of vision, in that she taught us that ideas do matter, in fact, and that one must stand for something or one stands for nothing at all.
It has been said that Lady Thatcher saved her country, but I like to believe she empowered it to save itself.