I have previously shared the video of the Carlton Club’s first club lecture, delivered by Harold Macmillan in 1982.
It took a further two years for the Carlton to convene their second lecture, which was delivered by the sitting Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. It was again delivered in what is now the Churchill Room, at the back of the Club. Courtesy of the ITV News Archive, the video of the whole lecture can be watched here:
Whereas Macmillan’s slightly fatalistic theme was ‘Civilisation Under Threat’, which he used to take a few pot-shots at contemporary politics, Thatcher’s theme was a more upbeat one: ‘Why Democracy Will Last.’
Thatcher noted the Carlton Club’s distinctive political role, and that it resulted in members sharing a common bond:
“We meet here as practitioners in the craft of democracy. Indeed, this great Club is a workshop of that craft. The families of some of those in this room have been practising this skill for several generations. Others have become master-craftsmen in one generation. Still more are serving their apprenticeships for the future.”
After opening with some reflections on democracy, Thatcher moved her argument onto economics, advancing a conservative argument linking economic freedom with democratic freedom:
“If some powerful group of producers says to us: “You’ve got to buy our product, whether or not you want it, we’ll force you to do so by use of monopoly power or political muscle,” then those producers are taking away from their fellow citizens an economic freedom—and that is true, even if we were feeble enough to vote to allow it, because we thought: “Anything for a quiet life” . Oh, I’ve heard that phrase in my political lifetime. [light laughter] “Anything for a quiet life” . And if we voted for that we would be taking away our economic freedoms, and our economic freedoms underpin our political freedoms, and our people freedoms, our democracy.
“And if they are prepared to rob us of our economic freedoms, what is to stop them taking away other freedoms as well?
“Let us never forget: democracies can, and in the past have, voted for measures which lead to their own destruction. The job of democratic leaders is to warn that measures which may seem easy or even popular, which may end some immediate conflict, must be resisted if in the end they risk destroying democracy itself.”
Thatcher went on to discuss “Democracy and Technology”, and how appealing it had been in an earlier age to nurse the illusion of isolationism:
“In the last century the Swiss Cantons, secure in their mountains; Britain, secure behind her Navy; the New England cities, far from European dynastic wars; all could live in confident independence because, with reasonable vigilance, there was not much danger of destruction from outside.”
But she then argued that “Technology too has profound implications for political life,” and that the massive power of advancing technologies made it no longer feasible to be an isolationist:
“Powerful modern weapons and nuclear technology will never again allow us to live in so secure a world. Even if every nuclear weapon were destroyed, the knowledge of how to make them cannot be disinvented. Now only a ceaseless vigilance can keep us safe.”
She went on to argue, “the case for democracy rests ultimately on morality,” and to advance this in Christian terms. (“It is about the right of every individual to freedom and justice: a right founded upon the Old and New Testaments, which remind us of the dignity of each individual, his right to choose and his duty to serve. These rights are God-given, and not State-given.”)
And she praised the preeminence of the rule of law:
“They are rights which have been evolved and upheld across the centuries by our rule of law: a rule of law which safeguards individuals and minorities; a rule of law which is the cement of a free society…
“Now our Courts have long been distinguished for their impartiality. Our judges are famous for their fairmindedness, their objectivity and their learning. But it is precisely because the Courts uphold the principles of reasoned justice and equality before the law that the Fascist Left is contemptuous of them.”
Thatcher summarised her message in the conclusion:
“Individuals do count. Truth will prevail. Democracy does work and will endure. And we will defend it with out political lives. Let that be the message of this, the Second Carlton Lecture.”
The full text of the lecture can be read here, on the website of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation.
Like the broadcast of the first lecture, ITN followed their broadcast with a recorded interview with Alastair Burnet, in the Club’s then-library.
The series would continue with a third Carlton Lecture in 1986, from former Prime Minister Lord Home, and a fourth in 1987 from the Lord Chancellor Lord Hailsham, before a fifth and (so far) final lecture in 1993 from Prime Minister John Major.
You can view the full and varied backlog of Clubland Substack articles, by clicking on the index below.
Index
Articles are centred around several distinct strands, so the below contains links to the main pieces, sorted by theme.