Maurice Saatchi: These are our values

Lord Saatchi restates the values of the Centre for Policy Studies as it celebrates its 35th anniversary.

Two in every three voters gave their allegiance to “None of the above” at the recent EU elections. As we know, confidence in the political process has been replaced by disilluionsment and cynicism.

It need not be like this. There is an alternative. As Lady Thatcher is fond of saying, “Circumstances change, values endure”. So on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of its founding by Mrs Thatcher and Sir Keith Joseph, the Centre for Policy Studies is proud to declare its values.

• A rising tide lifts all ships.

• A bigger cake means a bigger slice for everyone.  But first you have to create the wealth to make the cake bigger.

• Caring that works costs cash – the Good Samaritan shows that first you need to money in order to do the good works.

• Lower tax is good – for moral reasons, because it means more freedom and choice for individuals; and for economic reasons, because lower tax rates can mean higher tax revenues and more wealth creation.

• A smaller state is required; the Government is already far too big.

• A man or woman has a right to spend what he or she earns, to own property, to have the State as servant and not as master; that these are the essence of a free country and on that freedom all our other freedoms depend.

• People are not numbers in a State computer; they should be seen as individuals. 

• Everyone has the right to be unequal.  No one, thank heaven, is quite like anyone else.

• The spirit of envy can destroy; it can never build.

• The essence of mankind is the power of choice; the glory and dignity of man is that it is he who chooses, and is not chosen for.

• Human dignity resides in independence, individuality, self-determination.