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Who really said it

There is no such thing as society

Spoken by Margaret Thatcher 1925–2013 · British Conservative politician; Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1979–1990
Verified In copyright

She said it, and the source is not in doubt: an interview with Douglas Keay for Woman’s Own, conducted on 23 September 1987 and published on 31 October. Wikiquote carries it in its sourced section ↗, citing the magazine at pp. 8–10. The wording is the part worth knowing about: the transcript records “and who is society? There is no such thing!”, and the sentence after it — the one about individual men and women and families — almost never survives the quotation.

Last verified 23 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Verified quote & credit

“There is no such thing as society” Margaret Thatcher, interviewed by Douglas Keay for Woman's Own, 23 September 1987; published 31 October 1987, pp. 8-10. In the interview transcript the words run "...they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families..." The five-word sentence is the magazine's condensation, and the clause that follows it is almost always dropped. · Verbatim: “...and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.”

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by The estate of Margaret Thatcher; the 1987 interview text remains the property of the publisher of Woman’s Own). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

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In context

Evoking the world of Margaret Thatcher — British Conservative politician; Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1979–1990. Theme: "There is no such thing as society". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "There is no such thing as society". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Interview
Margaret Thatcher, interviewed by Douglas Keay
Conducted
23 September 1987, while Prime Minister
Published
Woman’s Own, 31 October 1987, pp. 8–10
Transcript wording
“…and who is society? There is no such thing!” — the five-word sentence is the magazine’s form

I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand “I have a problem, it is the Government’s job to cope with it!” or “I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!” “I am homeless, the Government must house me!” and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations.

The passage as it runs in the interview transcript, printed identically by Wikiquote ↗ and Wikipedia ↗. Wikiquote adds that the magazine moved the famous sentence up from a later part of her remarks, and that the Thatcher Foundation’s transcript “differs in several particulars, but not in substance.”

Wikiquote’s sourced entry, with the magazine citation

How we verified this

  • Wikiquote lists the line among Thatcher’s sourced quotations ↗ — not in its Attributed, Disputed or Misattributed sections — and cites “Interview 23 September 1987, as quoted by Douglas Keay, Woman’s Own, 31 October 1987, pp. 8–10.” The same note records that the Thatcher Foundation’s transcript “differs in several particulars, but not in substance,” and that “the magazine transposed the statement in bold, often quoted out of context, from a later portion of Thatcher’s remarks.”
  • Wikipedia’s article on Thatcher ↗ quotes the same passage from the transcript, word for word as we print it above, and sources it to the Margaret Thatcher Foundation’s record of the interview of 23 September 1987.
  • Wikipedia’s article on Thatcherism ↗ cites that transcript too, and preserves a detail worth having: at the Sunday Times’s request, Number 10 issued a statement elucidating the remark, published in the ‘Atticus’ column on 10 July 1988. The sentence needed explaining within the year.
  • A note on what we could not do: the Margaret Thatcher Foundation’s site, which holds the full transcript, is not reachable from our fetcher, and no copy of the 1987 magazine is online. Everything above is quoted from sources we could open and read in full.
In copyright

This is a 1987 interview, comfortably inside copyright in both the United Kingdom and the United States. We quote one paragraph in order to show what the famous sentence actually sat inside; no public-domain status is claimed for any part of it.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

How it gets quoted

The attribution is right. What goes missing is everything after the full stop.

“…who is society? There is no such thing!” The transcript wording

Wikipedia prints the transcript passage ↗ in which the phrase is the answer to her own rhetorical question, not a standalone declaration.

“There are individual men and women and there are families” Context stripped

The clause immediately following is the one that says what she thought existed instead. It is dropped in nearly every quotation of the line, including many hostile and many admiring ones.

“There is no such thing as society” as one sentence The popular wording

Wikiquote records ↗ that Woman’s Own “transposed the statement in bold… from a later portion of Thatcher’s remarks.” The five-word sentence is an editor’s arrangement of her words — an edit, not an invention.

She said it. She also said, in the same breath, what she thought there was instead ↗.

Context

Why it mattered

Thatcher gave this interview on 23 September 1987, three months after winning a third term, and it became the most argued-over sentence she ever spoke — a line her critics read as the whole of her politics and her defenders read as a point about who actually does things.

The argument over it was live enough that Number 10 put out a statement explaining the remark, published in the Sunday Times in July 1988. Governments do not usually gloss a magazine interview nine months after the fact.

Not a slogan she chose. A rhetorical question, tidied into one by a magazine sub-editor.

Read the full story

The interview transcript shows the phrase doing a different job than the quotation does. She is describing people who say “I have a problem, it is the Government’s job to cope with it”, and asks who exactly they are addressing: “who is society? There is no such thing!” The next sentence supplies her answer — individuals, and families.

Wikiquote is unusually careful about this entry, noting both that the magazine moved the sentence and that the Foundation’s transcript differs from the printed version in several particulars though not in substance. Both things can be true at once: she said it, and the form everyone knows is an editor’s.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Character Purpose Power

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Wikiquote: Margaret Thatcheren.wikiquote.org

The sourced entry, citing Woman’s Own at pp. 8–10, with an unusually frank note on how the magazine rearranged the remark.
Wikipedia: Margaret Thatcheren.wikipedia.org

Prints the full transcript passage and places it in the argument about what Thatcherism meant.
Wikipedia: Thatcherismen.wikipedia.org

The wider doctrine, and the note that Number 10 issued a clarifying statement about this remark in July 1988.
Wikipedia: Woman’s Ownen.wikipedia.org

The British women’s magazine, founded in 1932, that carried the interview.

The author

About Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher

1925–2013 · British Conservative politician; Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1979–1990

Margaret Hilda Roberts, born in Grantham in 1925, was a research chemist and then a barrister before entering the Commons as MP for Finchley in 1959. She led the Conservative Party from 1975 and was Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990. She gave this interview in September 1987, four months after winning her third general election, and spent much of the following year explaining what she had meant by it.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The primary source (Chicago)

Margaret Thatcher, interview by Douglas Keay, 23 September 1987, published in Woman’s Own, 31 October 1987, 8–10. In the interview transcript the passage reads “…they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families…”; the five-word sentence in circulation is the magazine’s rendering.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘There is no such thing as society’?” Last verified 23 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/there-is-no-such-thing-as-society/

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