Margaret Thatcher Quotes

[Baker, John M.]

With respect to #2, there are many pre-1990 examples of politicians and others leaving jobs, purportedly to spend more time with their families.  From the New York Times, 4/10/1975, concerning a prominent 47-year-old politician who had just succeeded in getting perjury and bribery charges against him dropped:
 
ALBANY, June 9 Albert H. Blumenthal, the Assembly majority leader, said today that, to spend more time with his family, he would retire from the Assembly this fall at the end of his seventh term.
 
 
According to a 12/23/2006 article, also in the Times, "In 1956, when Allan Sproul resigned as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, his principal reason was to find a less demanding career that would permit him to spend more time with his family."
 
 
John Baker

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From: American Dialect Society on behalf of Shapiro, Fred
Sent: Fri 6/11/2010 9:24 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Margaret Thatcher Quotes



I have three questions concerning Margaret Thatcher quotes.  Perhaps Garson or Victor or others on this list might enjoy the challenge of answering some of them:

1.  The Yale Book of Quotations sources Margaret Thatcher saying "In politics if you want anything said, ask a man.  If you want anything done, ask a woman," as "Quoted in People Weekly, 15 Sept. 1975," with the note "Thatcher is said to have used this in a 1965 speech."  Can anyone provide any precise pre-15 Sept. 1975 citations quoting Thatcher saying this?

2.  British politician Norman Fowler wrote in his resignation letter to Thatcher, Jan. 4, 1990, that "I have a young family and for the next few years I should like to devote more time to them."  Thatcher responded, "I am naturally very sorry to see you go, but understand ... your wish to be able to spend more time with your family."  Was this really the first instance of a resigning politician referring to spending more time with his or her family as an excuse for resigning?

3.  The Cat's Pyjamas: The Penguin Book of Cliches states, "The key quote of the 1980s must be There is no alternative.  It was used by Margaret Thatcher on several occasions in the 1980s about her economic policies."  Can anyone identify the earliest or best-known example of Thatcher using this?

Fred Shapiro

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