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| To let with a full repairing lease |
In Britain, many commercial premises are let on leases that require the tenant to pay for routine property maintenance. This is called a "full repairing lease".
Margaret Thatcher used this analogy several times.
I remember saying in my Royal Society speech that we had a full repairing lease on this Earth. With the work done by the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change, we can now say that we have the Surveyor's Report and it shows that there are faults and that the repair work needs to start without delay. The problems do not lie in the future—they are here and now—and it is our children and grandchildren, who are already growing up, who will be affected.
These are Margaret Thatcher's words when opening the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in 1990.
As Margaret Thatcher pointed out, we don't own the earth, we are tenants who are responsible for its upkeep.
Like old buildings, the Earth doesn't negotiate about the work that needs doing. If the roof leaks, you fix it or take the consequences.
Margaret Thatcher's words are very similar to the American Indian proverb.
Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children.
Peter Sinclair allowed Margaret Thatcher to do the talking in this video (10 mins) that critiques the Heartland Institute's "Murderers, tyrands and madmen" billboard and shows that Heartland has positioned itself at the extreme right. No wonder their sponsors are leaving them in droves.
True conservatives aren't looking for a free ride. They understand responsibility and full repairing leases.
