People Like Us: Margaret Thatcher and Me

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Thirdly, it’s important to think holistically. Attending to one element without thinking of the others can be counterproductive. For example, strong communities are harder to create without physical places to meet. Good health benefits from recreational facilities and ready access to good food.

This is more than just the story – quite familiar in powerful people – of a character who is much nicer in private than in public. It is part of a bigger narrative…. The book makes the reader think about wider questions. Why is it that the three most striking characters in British public life in the past 50 years – Margaret Thatcher, Diana, Princess of Wales and the Queen – have been women? Is it mere rarity value? Or is it because – though each is so different from the others – there is something about being female that touches reality more closely? Charles Moore, Margaret Thatcher’s official biographer, The Telegraph She speaks on many different platforms on civil society matters, including abroad, and is a regular commentator in the media.Her voice became deeper, and she stopped showing her softer side – because that, at the time, wasn’t going to win you elections.

Last month, the UN Commission on Human Rights said that the Government’s Illegal Migration Bill, now part of UK law, breaks international law. And in June, the Government introduced regulations – which cannot be amended by Parliament and receive limited scrutiny – that overturned a Lords Amendment to primary legislation to change the threshold for restrictions on protests from ‘serious disruption’ to ‘more than minor’. And so it goes on.

We fell in love talking about civil service reform! (Truly)

And the other thing was, this was her life. One of the things that happens to women is they fight to get to the top of their profession. To be taken seriously, they have to be better than the men. The guys there were really nice and used to refer to me as a ‘drop in’, but eventually I decided to move to London. I needed a job and it was a choice between a temporary vacancy in the civil service or selling soft toys. Soft toys might have been a great career but you had to work on Saturdays, so I decided on the civil service job. Our network started in England but, now that our meetings are mostly online, people across the UK and beyond are joining in and all are very welcome. It will be the former chancellor’s first performance at the dispatch box since he quit in a row with Johnson and Dominic Cummings in February 2020. A common factor between Theresa May and Margaret Thatcher – very different women in lots of ways – at this point is that neither is good at listening. Mrs Thatcher boxed herself in behind the poll tax and then she went out on a limb about Europe. Theresa May barely has a team behind her, and she’s not prepared to go outside her own particular box.”

This may seem obvious. We all know what we value in the places we live, or the places we grew up in. Estate agents point to good housing and schools, access to good healthcare and safe and crimefree communities. When we are making decisions about whether to live in a place, we look not just for employment opportunities but also for those green and recreational spaces, those places to meet, to shop and have fun and learn, and warm to a built environment that makes you feel comfortable, safe and relaxed.Argument Honestly held opinions and provocative argument based on current events or our recent reports. Culture History, music, cooking, travel, books, theatre, film – but also with an eye on the ‘culture wars’, nationalism and identity.

There’s a famous saying, ‘It takes a village to raise a child’ and of course strong communities do a lot more, besides. When it comes to prevention – helping people lead happy lives as well as giving support when needed – the places we live in, or what I call social infrastructure, have a vital role. First, we need to value and protect existing social infrastructure. Greater investment is needed, particularly in those communities that have the poorest social infrastructure; and a good starting point is to map what assets exist. 'Recognising the rich resources that may already exist’ Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland secretary, said it is “something we need to get to the bottom of” because a lot of what goes on in government departments is “sensitive and important”. Daniel has led numerous initiatives helping government and the public sector to transform policy and bring their services closer to the public. On equalities, international development, democracy, human rights, the arts, the role of civil society, family policy – and in many other areas – Daniel has helped organisations create strategies and communications that deliver real change – winning new resources, improving legislation and shaping the public discourse. But this is being eroded. Over the last decade, there has been a quiet reduction in social infrastructure assets either from closure, sales or poor maintenance – playing fields and play areas, children centres and youth services, libraries and arts facilities have all been affected to name but a few. As well as a loss of assets, our collective sense of the value of commonly owned social infrastructure has reduced and public support for the welfare state has declined.She has been been Chair, Chief Executive, Trustee and Non-Executive Director of many public and third sector bodies and an advisor to enterprises, the corporate sector and community businesses. I have been named by Cranfield University as one of the ‘100 Women to Watch’ in relation to the Boards of the FTSE100