Martin Wickens

My focus is the Gospel and God’s Word. I have many other interests, but I never want them to overshadow my priority, the Gospel. So, when I do delve into politics it is reluctantly and hopefully focused on areas of principle and not mere party politics that won’t really matter in eternity.

For several years I’ve been aware of a quote by Margaret Thatcher, who I understand is a polarizing figure. That quote has to do with patriotism:

“Patriotism is the fourth pillar of national greatness. Take it away, and greatness decays; national freedom, even national survival will be placed in jeopardy.”

Patriotism has become a dirty word for some because of the abuse of it on the one side and a misunderstanding of it on the other.

I shared it recently and a pastor friend asked me what the other three pillars were. It struck me that I had no idea. So, I looked it up and they too are worth sharing. That said that the four pillars of society are:

• 1. Zeal for Achievement
• 2. Sound Finance
• 3. The Rule of Law
• 4. Patriotism

In her speech she expands on all four. I want to give a brief background to the speech, and then share the bulk of it here.

In the 1970’s the United Kingdom was at a crossroads, facing many of the same struggles we face today in both the UK and USA. Socialism was making great strides and Thatcher saw the dangers it had already brought and would increasingly cause.

In 1978 Thatcher gave a speech to the Scottish Conservative Party Conference on the theme of Onwards to Victory, but I think the heart of the speech is what she referred to as “The Four Pillars of Society”. Without those pillars, society would collapse.

As I read her speech this morning it struck me how so many of the same issues are being faced today. Sadly, I believe we lack leaders with the same dignity and the ability to express these principles.

Below, I am going post an excerpt from near the beginning of the speech, and then jump to quoting a larger portion. The beginning of the speech is very much focused on UK politics of the time. You can find the entire speech here if you want to check it out – https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/103684.

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Its not just our money they are debasing. They are also debasing our standards of citizenship. They are creating a society where the struggle to pay the bills leaves us with no time to think of our responsibilities to our neighbours.

— A society where duties are at a discount, and entitlements at a premium. 

Have our rulers learnt nothing from the lessons of the past?

Can they not see even now that if they go on the way they are going, purchasing votes by mortgaging the future, it will not be long before we have 1976 all over again?

It is time that we stopped having to look to our creditors to save us from the consequences of Socialism.

It is time that we took our destinies in our own hands, and proved to the world, as we can, that the days of living on tick are behind us.

The Socialist Myth

It’s not surprising that the record of Socialism is so abysmal in this country and the world over, because Socialist politicians deal in myths and not in truths.

• The Socialist myth is that we can make Britain strong by nationalisation and government interference. The truth is that government interference and nationalisation are sapping Britain’s strength.
• The Socialist myth is that government spending creates jobs. The truth is that the only permanent job creation scheme is a healthy economy.
• The Socialist myth is that wealth is there to be redistributed. The truth is that wealth has to be created.
• The Socialist myth is that we can preserve our freedoms without defending them. The truth is that in a dangerous world our ability to defend ourselves is essential to preserve peace.

Our first duty to freedom is to defend our own. To do that we must see that freedom’s greatest enemies do not increase their grip. But there is only one enemy of liberty which has built up the power to threaten the very existence of political civilisation on this planet. It’s not China that’s behind every anti-Western move everywhere, whether in Europe, the Middle East, or Africa—it is Russia. Sir Neil Cameron was right. 

• The Socialist myth is that governments can promise more and more, and take more and more, but that we can still keep our freedom. The truth is that if government does everything for you, it will take everything from you—first your money, then your dignity, and finally your freedom. 

• The Socialist myth is that it can’t happen here. The truth is that it can, and will unless we ensure that it doesn’t.

Four Pillars of Greatness

Now, the mood of the times and the Conservative Party have come together again. Perhaps that is not surprising, because the Conservative faith believes in people rather than social planning, and will always reappear and prevail especially in periods of national danger or difficulty.

People feel a great need for something to live up to. They want a country to feel proud of. They would like to know what they are doing is not only useful, but right.

What makes a nation great? What qualities must be rekindled to return Britain to her full glory?

I have chosen four:

First, Zeal for achievement.

I hardly need to enlarge on that in Scotland where for so many people, work and achievement were the way up and the way out into the wider world. The virtues of work were taught to all, the ambition to excel to many.

But these virtues could not have produced the vast expansion in industry and commerce that took place in Britain unless we had had a political system designed to encourage them. 

As one writer put it:

“Do you want to test whether a people is given to industry and commerce? Examine whether this people’s laws give men the courage to seek prosperity, freedom to follow it up, the sense and habits to find it, and the assurance of reaping the benefit.”

Those who chose a professional career provided the services necessary for success—the doctors, lawyers, teachers, administrators. The craftsmen took great pride in their work; indeed all felt a sense of achievement and satisfaction from their endeavours.

But two things were necessary to translate the zeal into practical achievement.

First, a government committed to free enterprise and initiative; a government which kept taxation down so that people could prosper from their own efforts; a government which realised that you can’t stimulate the economy, you can only stimulate the people.

Perhaps if our present government learned that lesson, we should have more people with a zeal for achievement, creating more wealth for themselves and their fellows. As it is:

• If you take from the industrious to give to the indolent, people will cease to be industrious.
• If you devalue the role and status of management, industry will not be properly managed.
• If you denigrate profits, we shall lack investment.
• If we have no investment, we shall lack jobs.
• Without more jobs, the future’s bleak.

I mentioned the second thing necessary to harness the zeal for achievement: namely a society that doesn’t envy the talent and success of others, but welcomes and applauds it. There has been too much of the feeling that if everyone can’t have it, no-one shall have it. Socialists are nothing if not great levellers—down.

But higher standards depend on the new ideas, inventions and ability of the few. Gradually these spread to the many and we all benefit. The success of capitalism is that it benefits the masses, not just the few.

People make their contribution, great or small, not only to gain financial return. They are moved to a greater or lesser degree by the zeal for achievement, the ambition to succeed. Kill these and you kill the greatness and prosperity of our people. 

The second pillar of a great nation is Sound Finance.

When we can’t run our own financial affairs properly—we don’t command much respect in the world. And we can’t be much help to our neighbour if we can’t afford to look after ourselves. In time past, we used to put our own house in order when things went wrong. These days we go to a summit and hope that will do it for us. Great public relations exercises are mounted as the government tries to persuade other nations to help us by running their affairs in the way that got us into our troubles. It’s like a spendthrift rebuking his benefactor for his prudence.

Inflation is not only a monetary phenomenon. It arises because some politicians lead the people to believe that they can consume more—much more—than they produce. Extra money is printed, but the goods aren’t there and the price goes up. In the last few years politicians have created many new rights without corresponding obligations. 

We have had an inflation of rights, but a shortage of duties. It is this inflation which underlies money inflation. Along with it goes deficit financing; balance of payments problems; currency instability and uncertainty.

There is no particular magic about what ought to be done to cure this—just a great reluctance to do it. Politicians mustn’t promise more than the people can produce and the people mustn’t be taken in by those who do.

These are the first two pillars of greatness—zeal for achievement and sound honest money.

And the third, Rule of Law.

Long before we had a universal franchise in this country, we called ourselves a free people. This is due to our reverence for the Rule of Law which really means three things:

• 1. That everyone whatever their background or religion, whether they are the governors or the governed, is subject to the ordinary law of the land.
• 2. That we can’t be punished except when the Courts find the law has been broken.
• 3. That if it is to be respected the law must be properly enforced and the guilty person found and convicted.

No nation ever retained its freedom for any length of time after losing its respect for the law, after losing the law-abiding spirit, the spirit that really makes for freedom without fear.

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You will understand why we stress the need to have enough police, to have them well paid, well equipped and well respected.

You will understand why our sympathy lies with the victim and not with the offender when our elderly people are subjected to hideous and senseless attacks, when many of our young people are victims of the savage violence of their contemporaries.

You will understand why we call for sentences on such offenders heavy enough to deter others from similar barbarous behaviour.

We have come through a strange period—a period when traditional and tested values were set aside in favour of sociological theories divorced from experience.

Twenty years of social analysis and woolly political theory have been aimed at trying to ‘prove’ that crime and law-breaking are not the responsibility of the individual, but are the fault of social conditions and society. The older language of morality and legality, of right and wrong, is conveniently forgotten. While we must do everything we can to improve social conditions where they are bad, the truth is that crime grows where the pressure of established values and conventions is removed. 

Children must be taught what is right and wrong and the religious basis of those values. That is not ‘indoctrination,’ but only a practical recognition of the truth that while a mature person may reject the faith in which he has been brought up, a child will find it difficult to acquire any faith at all without some instruction in the discipline of belief and practice.

Once the law and its moral basis is humbled, all else that is valuable in a civilised society will vanish, usually with frightening speed.

So I totally reject the view of a former deputy leader of the Labour Party, who said:

“It is not our job to go about telling everybody to obey the law” . (Ted Short)

It is our job to do just that, and that is precisely what the Conservative Party will do. [Note by MT] Zeal for achieve’nt, Sound Finances, Rule of Law.)

Patriotism is the fourth pillar of national greatness. Take it away, and greatness decays; national freedom, even national survival will be placed in jeopardy. 

Patriotism links the individual with the nation, not only with its present but with its past and with its future, with our forebears and those yet to be—as Burke put it. Patriotism means that we cherish a nation’s history and feel concern for its future long after we ourselves have gone. It means that we will be prepared to make any sacrifices for the sake of our country and the things for which it stands. Such feelings have given us a national character which others recognised and respected.

When people said, “That’s not British” , we all knew what they meant.

Patriotism underlies the spirit of service, civic courage and the other civic virtues, the extra effort and self-denying ordinances, the voluntary services, the things we don’t have to do but choose to do.

No less vital, pride in our nation’s past is an essential ingredient in the inspiration to overcome present dificulties and dangers.

Without pride in our past, we should have no hope for the future. That is why the sustained effort by socialists to portray our history as dark and discreditable is so damaging. To denigrate our past achievements strikes at the very root of our future advance. It undermines our belief in ourselves.

They present our past as misery and injustice at home and oppression abroad. They never stop to think why people the world over admired and imitated Britain. 

They never stop to think what we have given to the world. Parliamentary democracy; Liberty under the Law; an Empire and Commonwealth; a wealth of literature; free trade unions.

Scientific discovery and invention owe more to Britain than to any other country; the list of great names is almost endless from Newton to Darwin. Our political thinkers—Burke, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Adam Smith—altered the course of world society, not just British.

Each generation’s contribution must be judged by comparing what it inherited from its forebears with what it bequeathed to its children. We shall be judged similarly. We must not be found wanting. 

Russell FairgrieveMr Chairman, I have come to this Conference as the Leader of the Party of the Union.

No-one can claim that the last few years have been easy or successful for Britain. Today, our national self-confidence is at a low ebb. Indeed there are those who would argue that the United Kingdom has had its day, economically and constitutionally.

You will not be surprised to learn, Mr Chairman, that I am not one of them.

I have come to Scotland to reaffirm my confidence in the Union, in the United Kingdom.

The four nations of these islands have long and glorious histories—but it was only when they came to form one United Kingdom that our full splendour came to fruition.

It was in the Union that the peoples of these small islands of ours found strength and purpose, and greatness.

None of this involved any sacrifice of distinctive national traditions. It was a Union, but absolutely without uniformity—a unity of the individual genius of the separate nations, into an even greater whole.

To preserve and to strengthen that Union is the great historic mission of the Conservative and Unionist Party, and it is on that basis, with policies and a programme geared to that end, that we will be fighting the next election.

Our opponents offer only division and discord, socialism and separatism. Each of them wholly at variance with our great heritage, our great traditions. Each of them wholly destructive.

Nearly forty years ago, these islands stood alone, a beacon of light and freedom, while the rest of Europe lay in darkness under the dictator’s heel. Anyone who wants to write off Britain should remember that.

In the past we struggled together, we fought together, we succeeded together, we triumphed together. In our Union we have found strength. Let us face the future as we faced the past, united for victory.