British PM Boris Johnson, who tested positive for coronavirus last week, has short video here, praising the UK population’s coronavirus response, exhorting them to help protect the NHS and thanking some 20,000 health-care workers for returning to serve in the NHS during the crisis. But there’s an interesting little coda toward the end — something probably British viewers will catch more than Americans. He does a kind of anti-shout out to Margaret Thatcher, saying that what Britons’ response to the crisis has “already proved, is that there really is such a thing as society.”
Thanks to everyone who has been staying at home.
By delaying the spread of the disease we can reduce the pressure on our NHS, and that's how we hope to save many thousands of lives.#StayHomeSaveLives pic.twitter.com/kxdqItMYSE
— Boris Johnson #StayHomeSaveLives (@BorisJohnson) March 29, 2020
This is certainly a reference to Thatcher’s claim — an encapsulation of her worldview — that “there’s no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families.”
