"We have become a grandmother" was a phrase uttered by
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013), was a British stateswoman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party (UK), Leader of th ...
,
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The prime minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government of the United Kingdom. The prime minister Advice (constitutional law), advises the Monarchy of the United Kingdom, sovereign on the exercise of much of the Royal prerogative ...
, in 1989. It has attracted notoriety for her unconventional usage of the
royal ''we''.
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.
Thatcher made the statement to press gathered outside
10 Downing Street
10 Downing Street in London is the official residence and office of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, prime minister of the United Kingdom. Colloquially known as Number 10, the building is located in Downing Street, off Whitehall in th ...
. 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".
Her grandson was born close to the tenth anniversary of the start of
Thatcher's premiership. 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
erpolitical vision for the next twenty years".
Thatcher's
Downing Street press secretary
The Downing Street Press Secretary is an adviser to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on news media and how to manage the image of the British government to the press. The position is part of the Prime Minister's Office and involves using ...
,
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
dto the
gaiety of the nation".
Use of the royal ''we''
In the United Kingdom, the usage of the
royal ''we'' is typically restricted to the
Sovereign
''Sovereign'' is a title that can be applied to the highest leader in various categories. The word is borrowed from Old French , which is ultimately derived from the Latin">-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to ...
.
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 intended statement may have been "we have become grandparents", rather than "a grandmother".
Dean Palmer felt Thatcher's use of the royal ''we'' showed how it "seemed to the world" that Thatcher was losing touch with reality. The sociologist Louise Hadley wrote in her 2014 book ''
Responding to Margaret Thatcher's Death'' that her use of the ''we'' "seemed to include the public in the celebration, breaking down the distinction between public and private".
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
A royal family is the immediate family of monarchs and sometimes their extended family.
The term imperial family appropriately describes the family of an emperor or empress, and the term papal family describes the family of a pope, while th ...
, coupled with Thatcher's "imperious personal manner" was "the source of considerable disdain at the time".
See also
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Personal pronoun
Personal pronouns are pronouns that are associated primarily with a particular grammatical person – first person (as ''I''), second person (as ''you''), or third person (as ''he'', ''she'', ''it''). Personal pronouns may also take different f ...
Notes
References
Works cited
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External links
Thatcher impressionist Steve Nallon recalling "We have become a grandmother"on ''
ITV News
ITV News is the branding of news programmes on the British news television channel of ITV (TV network), ITV. ITV has a long tradition of television news. ITN, Independent Television News (ITN) was founded to provide news bulletins for the netwo ...
''
{{Margaret Thatcher
1989 in British politics
Speeches by Margaret Thatcher
1989 quotations