“Advice and Consent” is a letter to the editor published in The Times on March 16, 1981, and reproduced in the supplied 2022 version. Hayek corrects the newspaper’s description of him as one of Margaret Thatcher’s economic advisers. His distinction is between affinity in principles and responsibility for particular governmental decisions:
Sir, Since you describe me as one “of Mrs Margaret Thatcher’s economic advisers” (March 10)$^{91}$ I may be allowed to say that, while I have the greatest admiration for her principles and [am] proud when told that they resemble mine, I am too much aware of my limited knowledge of political possibilities to presume to advise her on particular decisions.
The sentence moves from correction through affirmation to restraint. Hayek does not withdraw his admiration for Thatcher; he explicitly welcomes the perceived resemblance between their principles. Yet intellectual agreement does not establish an advisory relationship. His stated limitation concerns knowledge of “political possibilities,” rather than confidence in those principles. The letter’s significance lies in this carefully bounded claim: shared convictions should not be mistaken for advice on concrete choices. It clarifies Hayek’s public relationship to Thatcher without offering an assessment of any specific government policy.
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