Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to Manchester Conservatives

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: Prestwich, Greater Manchester
Source: Manchester Evening News, 30 January 1969
Editorial comments: Exact time and place uncertain.
Importance ranking: Minor
Word count: 167
Themes: Higher & further education, Media

“Send down” the rebel students

Dissident students responsible for the present troubles in Britain's universities should be “sent down if need be” , the shadow Minister of Transport, Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, told an audience of Conservative women at Prestwich.

Their only aim was to destroy a free society, and they were merely stopping everyone else, both students and teachers, from getting on with their work, Mrs. Thatcher added.

Mrs. Thatcher's audience at the North West Area Divisional Council included members from Middleton, Prestwich and Whitefield and with her was Mrs Alan Haselhurst, the division's prospective parliamentary candidate.

The rebel students, she declared, were a small minority who, thanks to TV, were getting more publicity than they would have got twenty or thirty years ago.

“The vast majority are anxious to get on with their jobs and do justice to the vast expenditure poured into our universities” .