Thatcher’s way with words (1982)

This piece is taken from The Spectator’s archive 40 years ago this week. At the time, Charles Moore was the magazine’s political columnist, aged 25 (he became editor two years later). Here, he writes about the importance of Margaret Thatcher’s rhetoric, one year before her 1983 election win.

Those who are paid to survey the wicked world of politics make their easiest money from pointing out the disparity between ‘rhetoric’ and ‘reality’. We, whose only reality is rhetoric — if by rhetoric is meant the production of words — note, half-waspishly, half-priggishly, that public figures do not always do what they say. They talk in terms of idealism and altruism when they act out of ambition and vanity. They try to seduce the public with promises they know cannot be fulfilled.

Such observations are sadly true, and would be shocking if they were not so obvious. But it is more interesting to look at the matter the other way round.