We have become a grandmother
| "We have become a grandmother" | |
|---|---|
| Remarks on becoming a grandmother[1] | |
.jpg) Entrance to 10 Downing Street in 1977 | |
 Statement outside No. 10 on YouTube[2] |
"We have become a grandmother" was a phrase uttered by Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, in 1989. It has attracted notoriety for her usage of the royal we.[a]
Thatcher made the remark on 3 March 1989 following the birth of her first grandchild, Michael Thatcher, the child of her son Mark Thatcher and his wife Diane Burgdorf.[1] Thatcher made the statement to press gathered outside 10 Downing Street.[3] Dean Palmer, in his 2015 book The Queen and Mrs Thatcher, wrote that Thatcher emerged from Downing Street at "great speed" and that she was dressed in "oversized" pearl earrings, a purple coat trimmed with fur and "blonde hair as rigid as fibreglass".[3]
Her grandson was born close to the tenth anniversary of the start of Thatcher's premiership.[4] The academic Heather Nunn wrote in her 2002 book Thatcher, Politics and Fantasy that the birth of Michael showed that "As a grandmother her maternal credentials were extended a generation to fuel [her] political vision for the next twenty years".[5]
Thatcher's Downing Street press secretary, Bernard Ingham, wrote in his diary that he would "never live down" the incident, as prime ministers are "thought to be intensively rehearsed before they utter a word to the world", but that the incident "add[ed] to the gaiety of the nation".[6]
Use of the royal we
[edit]In the United Kingdom, the usage of the royal we is typically restricted to the monarch.[3]
Thatcher's biographer, Charles Moore, after noting that the public interpreted the usage as an example of Thatcher's "pseudo-royal grandiosity", offered different explanations: that she had always had a perpetual embarrassment with using the word "I" to describe herself, and that perhaps she had been trying to include her husband, Denis, in her statement but made a simple slip of the tongue: the expression may have been intended as "we have become grandparents", rather than "a grandmother".[7]
Dean Palmer felt that Thatcher's use of the royal we showed that it "seemed to the world" that Thatcher was losing touch with reality.[3] The sociologist Louise Hadley wrote in her 2014 book Responding to Margaret Thatcher's Death that the use of the we by Thatcher "seemed to include the public in the celebration, breaking down the distinction between public and private".[4]
The Churchill Archives Centre, holders of Thatcher's papers, describe the comment as having caused a "huge negative public reaction" to its use by a prime minister, as opposed to a member of the royal family, coupled with Thatcher's "imperious personal manner" was "the source of considerable disdain at the time".[8]
See also
[edit]Notes
[edit]- ^ However, that interpretation may be mistaken as Thatcher had trained herself systematically to use the first person plural when speaking of herself. The apparent intention was to counter the accusation that she made too many government decisions unilaterally, denying her cabinet a say. To imply that, "The cabinet and I have become a grandmother" would still have been a notable gaffe.
References
[edit]- ^ a b "Remarks on becoming a grandmother". Margaret Thatcher Foundation. 3 March 1989. Retrieved 6 May 2021.
- ^ "Margaret Thatcher announcing she is now a grandmother". Iconic. 10 December 2010. Retrieved 14 May 2021 – via YouTube.
- ^ a b c d Palmer 2015, p. 6.
- ^ a b Hadley 2014, p. 19.
- ^ Nunn 2002, p. 127.
- ^ Ingham 2019, p. 26.
- ^ Moore 2020, p. 290.
- ^ "1989: The year Margaret Thatcher's apparent mastery slipped away". Churchill Archives Centre. 9 March 2019. Retrieved 6 May 2021.
Works cited
[edit]- Hadley, Louisa (2014). Responding to Margaret Thatcher's Death. Springer. ISBN 978-1-137-42825-7.
- Ingham, Bernard (2019). The Slow Downfall of Margaret Thatcher: The Diaries of Bernard Ingham. Biteback. ISBN 978-1-78590-495-0.
- Moore, Charles (2020). Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography, Volume Three: Herself Alone. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14-198692-0.
- Nunn, Heather (2002). Thatcher, Politics and Fantasy: The Political Culture of Gender and Nation. Lawrence & Wishart. ISBN 978-0-85315-962-9.
- Palmer, Dean (2015). The Queen and Mrs Thatcher: An Inconvenient Relationship. History Press. ISBN 978-0-7509-6471-5.
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