Llew Gardner, This Week, February 5 1976:

There are those nasty critics, of course, who suggest that you don’t really want to bring [the Labour Party] down at the moment. Life is a bit too difficult in the country, and that… leave them to sort the mess out then come in with the attack later … say next year.

Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, 1979-1990:

I would much prefer to bring them down as soon as possible. I think they’ve made the biggest financial mess that any government’s ever made in this country for a very long time, and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money. It’s quite characteristic of them. They then start to nationalise everything, and people just do not like more and more nationalization, and they’re now trying to control everything by other means. They’re progressively reducing the choice available to ordinary people.