Thatcher's declaration in 1987 that "There is no such thing as society" was among the most inflammatory things she ever said. Unusually, her office even issued a clarification afterwards. Since I'm lecturing on Thatcher this week, let's look at what she actually said. [THREAD]
2. The expression "there is no such thing as society" came in an interview with Woman's Own in September 1987, in which Thatcher used the phrase twice. Here's the first time. 
3. She returned to the theme a bit later in the interview, as follows.
4. Thatcher was *not* suggesting that we have no responsibilities to other people; nor was she denying the power of social bonds. On the contrary, the "living tapestry of men & women" required "each of us ... to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate".
5. Throughout the interview, Thatcher stressed people's obligations to their families, neighbours and communities. This was not the arid individualism of Ayn Rand, a thinker with whom Thatcher had very little in common. But the article did make three more contentious claims.
6. First, Thatcher accused "socialism" and big government of *weakening* the social bond, by encouraging people to hand over their caring obligations to the state. The effect, she argued in 1978, was to "dry up the milk of human kindness".
7. Second, she insisted that "people look to themselves first": that the instinct to help others comes from the desire to look after our own families. People would never work hard for "society", but they would for their parents and children.
8. Third, she argued that "society" had become an excuse: a way of sloughing off our social obligations onto someone else. In Thatcher's view, too many people said "society must do something" when they meant "someone else shd do something", while they passed by on the other side.
9. It followed, in Thatcher's view, that the best way to help others was to encourage individuals to earn more so that they could give more. "Even the Good Samaritan", she noted tartly, "had to have the money to help, otherwise he too would have had to pass on the other side".
10. All those claims are contestable. Thatcher had little sense of the implications for human dignity of receiving charity on someone else's conditions.She had little awareness of social disadvantage. But she was making an argument about the social bond, not denying its reality.
11. Whether Johnson is aware of all this seems doubtful. Unlike Thatcher, he has never shown much interest in big debates about society & the individual. But repudiating the phrase is a useful way of distancing himself from the Iron Lady, without rejecting any specific policies.
12. There is some evidence that Thatcher regretted the phrase. In a highly unusual step, her office issued a clarification to the press after the interview appeared (see below). The full interview can be read at: margaretthatcher.org/document/106689. [ENDS]
PS: in one of Thatcher's first speeches as Tory leader, in 1975, she said that "Our aim is to build a flourishing society—not an economic system". Like most of us, Thatcher did not always use words with precision, and her views evolved. We should be wary of quotes out of context.
