The impact that Hayek’s writing had on Thatcher, her advisors, and her policies is undeniable. There is a famous anecdote that during a Conservative Party policy meeting, Thatcher removed her copy of Hayek’s Constitution of Liberty from her handbag, slammed it down on the table and declared, “This is what we believe.” Throughout her political career Thatcher was a fierce advocate of free-market libertarianism. Ralph Harris explained "although she is known as being a rather overpowering lady she sat down like a meek schoolgirl and listened." Soon after her election Thatcher met Hayek at The Institute of Economic affairs. The book, published by Routledge in 1944, was a warning that central planning posed a threat to freedom, and was specifically written to address a British readership at a time when there was growing pressure for a welfare state to be developed in the UK after the war.Īlthough the work was widely read, Hayek remained a relatively marginal figure in the UK until 1975 when Margaret Thatcher was elected leader of the Conservative Party. Hayek’s tenure at the LSE saw the publication of his seminal work, The Road to Serfdom. Margaret Thatcher arrives at the Institute of Economic Affairs The two men shared fire-watching duties on the roof of King’s Chapel, and Hayek later said that “the evenings at High Table and the Combination Room at King’s are among the pleasantest recollections of my life.” When the LSE moved to Cambridge at the outbreak of World War II it was, of all people, Keynes who found rooms for Hayek at King’s College. It was a world in which, at its best, intellectual disagreements went hand in hand with collegiality.
It was a very particular vision of Britain that attracted Hayek: “of all the forms of life, that at one of the colleges of the old universities still seems to be the most attractive” (Hayek on Hayek, p.98). In 1938 – following the absorption of Austria into the Nazi Reich – Hayek and his family became naturalised citizens of Britain, and Hayek retained his British citizenship for the rest of his life. Emotionally and intellectually it was my climate and it still is.” (interview with The Times, 1985). “I fell in love with England when I first went to Cambridge in January, 1931. The move to the LSE proved to be of great personal importance. Hayek’s passport from Lot 5, Desktop ephemera, Estimate £200–300
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