Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

Remarks on Conservative relations with trade unions

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: Unknown, USA
Source: Sunday Times, 18 September 1977
Journalist: Henry Brandon, Sunday Times, reporting
Editorial comments: Date, time and place unknown. The comment may well have been made at one of the three press conferences MT gave during her US visit.
Importance ranking: Major
Word count: 389
Themes: Foreign policy (USA), Labour Party & socialism, Trade unions

What Carter said to Thatcher

From pressmen to president, the question all Americans wanted to ask Mrs Thatcher last week was about how the Tories would get on with the unions, Henry Brandon writes from Washington.

In some exasperation, she suggested at one point that maybe the thought had been planted by visiting Labour politicians as a way of convincing US leaders that for general peace and quiet, the Callaghan Government should be encouraged to stay in power.

In the White House, as elsewhere, she offered the same sort of answer as she extends to hecklers at home—thus reinforcing an impression that she tends to treat interviewers, however exalted, rather like a public meeting. But the speech was clearly interesting enough to win her almost a full hour with President Carter.

It was she, apparently, who led the conversation, eagerly pursuing points, quick to pick up points in mid-sentence and to fill any pauses—so much so that at one point President Carter asked rather diffidently if she would like him to answer any questions.

While appreciating the honour of her audience (rarely granted to opposition leaders, and quite pointedly denied recently to the French Socialist front-runner, Francois Mitterrand) Mrs Thatcher failed to bend noticably on two important matters.

The first was on Rhodesia, where Carter went to some lengths in explaining the frailty of the Anglo-American enterprise and the importance of its succeeding, as a prelude to pointing out how helpful it would be for her to moderate her critical comments.

The president's second suggestion was that it might be helpful for a leading British representative to say something publicly, in support of Carter's controversial Panama Canal treaty, now under embattled debate. Mrs Thatcher hesitated, suggesting that, although she thought the US had found a better way of handling its canal problems than Britain did with Suez, it would be unwise for a visiting politician to get involved.

Up to the time of her departure, she has not budged from this position, despite the president's reminder that the treaty might well affect Britain's interests, too.

Americans find her brainy and forceful, but also charming, attractive and more feminine than they expected of someone with the reputation of being an “iron butterfly.”