His rousing speech with more than an echo of Thatcher...

RISHI Sunak’s closing remarks echoed Margaret Thatcher’s famous quote: ‘There is no such thing as society.’

Labour said her 1987 comment showed a lack of concern for the poor. Supporters said she simply meant ‘society’ is a concept made up of individuals and families whose first duty is to look after themselves. Mr Sunak, who was just seven at the time, has let the spending taps run in a very un-Thatcherite way.

But the late Tory PM would have lauded his argument that the state cannot ‘mandate or distribute’ a thriving society... it must ‘come from each of us’.

Too many people have been given to understand ‘I have a problem, it is the Government’s job to cope with it!’

They are casting their problems on society.

There is no such thing as society. There are individual men, women and families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.

There is a living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and be prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate.

RISHI SUNAK YESTERDAY:

This huge investment... deals with the material matters of government.

But encouraging the individual and community brilliance on which a thriving society depends, remains a work unfinished. We in government can set the direction.

But it is the individual, the family, and the community that must become stronger, healthier and happier as a result. The new spending is secondary to the courage, wisdom, kindness and creativity it unleashes.

These cannot be mandated or distributed by government.

They must come from each of us and be shared freely because the future, this better country, is a common endeavour.