SINGERS
Hello, Maggie!
Well, hello, Maggie!
Now you're really on the road to Number Ten.
You're goin' strong, Maggie,
Won't be long, Maggie,
Till you turn that key.
Then, Mrs T,
You'll see Big Ben.
All wreathed in smiles, Maggie,
In the aisles, Maggie,
They'll be dancing on that very special day.
So here's to you, Maggie,
Give 'em the old one-two, Maggie!
Maggie, we're right behind you now.
Maggie, come out and take a bow.
Maggie, we're right behind you all the way!
MT
Mr Chairman, friends,
I must first thank you for that original and wonderful welcome which I confess is quite unique in my thirty years of experience in politics but I hope it will happen may times more [applause]. And isn't it marvellous to see so many well known people prepared openly to come and declare their support [applause], their support for the principles in which we believe, believing that they are the right principles to govern Britain?
Mr Chairman, this rally of Conservative trade union members is an important and a splendid occasion for the Conservative party and at the outset I'd like to thank you, Fred, for your achievement in bringing together so many trade union members who are proud to speak and work for Conservative values today and who are looking forward in less than a week's time to a Conservative Government [applause]. I'm told to “Give 'em the old one-two.” I assure you I will, right up to the number ten! [laughter and applause]
Now the growth and vigour of the Conservative trade unionists has been a great support and encouragement to all Conservatives, and it is a matter of pride for all its members. But all that you've done so far is merely preparation, because there's a greater work ahead for us to do together. We must be sure that the Conservative trade union movement continues to grow as a source of new attitudes and fresh thinking for [end p1] all trade unionists [applause]. Now I find that people often talk of trade union members as if somehow they are all dogmatic Socialists or Marxists. I agree it is rubbish, quite right! And as I look around—you've really taken my next line, but you're going to have it in any case. I didn't think of such a simple explanation, so I've got two sentences and you're going to have to listen to them. Right, as I look round this hall today, and as I remember the many thousands of trade unionists I've met in recent years, the many Conservative trade union members I've met campaigning for us in the last three weeks, I say let us bury this myth [applause]. In my experience, only a tiny handful of trade unionists are Marxists or militants. Trade union members, whether they vote for us or not, are not a thing apart. They're first and foremost, members of families, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters who share our values and who want to see once more a healthy Britain [applause]. And when I speak to you, I know that I am talking to people who cherish the best ideals and values of the British trade union movement, people who reject the destructive aims of Labour's steadily growing left wing. Yours and ours is a healthy blend of idealism and realism, the qualities that this country desperately needs over the next five years.
Mr Chairman, we've just experienced the most disastrous five years in our post war history [applause]. Five years in which our wealth's been squandered, our currency debased, and even more serious, our traditions of honour and humanity gravely damaged. Production and living standards did not rise at all. Unemployment more than doubled, prices more than doubled, taxes reached record levels, and the understanding with the TUC finally collapsed in the most vicious industrial strife this country's ever seen. Labour politicians, and those trade union leaders who put the pursuit of Socialism before the interests of their members, have between them created an economic wasteland for us all.
And at this fateful moment in our history, what is their message, what is Labour's message? It is a call to surrender, a message telling us that nothing can be done, because all they offer are the same old Socialist platitudes, the endless commitments to spend more of your pay packet on their policies and yet another fresh understanding with the TUC. And the crowning insult, after what has happened last winter, their traditional claim that only Labour care about people. There's not one single measure proposed in Labour's programme to get Britain out of its rut. We're told that Britain's days of vigour, imagination and courage are over, that we must simply accept things as they are and vote for another five years of national decline. Well, I will not and never will do that. Decline is no thing for Britain or for the great British people [applause].
They assure us today that their measures will cure inflation, that they'll rebuild British industry, that they'll unite the country. My question is simply this. They've had five years in which to do these things. If they know the answers, why haven't they implemented them before? [applause] And if they couldn't do it before, why should anyone believe that they can do it now? [applause] And how on earth can a divided Labour party unite this country?
I find it strange after all this that some union leaders are strongly urging their members to vote Labour again. But we're a free people and elections in this country [end p2] are decided by individuals in the privacy of the secret ballot, not by institutions casting block votes [applause]. And when the dust settles, as it will, and when the excitement of electioneering dies away, there is work to be done, and the union leaders will work with the next democratically elected government as they have done in the past, of that I am confident [applause].
We Conservatives all know what has to be done to rebuild our economy. We have to increase total production, individual output and investment. We have to cut taxes so that the effort to work and save is worthwhile. We have to stop inflation by stopping government wasting our hard earned money [applause]. And we have to support and encourage in every way we can, the great majority of responsible and law abiding people, and we have to stop the militants who today do our economy so much damage [applause].
Of course we can't make life better for everyone overnight. And let us be clear, the aim of cutting tax is not to give us all a May Day bonus we haven't earned. It's to give fresh purpose and energy to the millions of people whose daily work creates the real prosperity on which we all depend [applause]. For twelve of the last fifteen years, our economy's been sailing in a different direction from the other economies of the free world and, not surprisingly, we are now arriving at a different destination, a destination which may suit the left wing of the Labour party but which does not suit Britain. And that's why we say, “Change course, change course before it is too late.”
Conservative trade unionists have a crucial role in bringing about that change. The trade unions are part of Britain and if Britain is to recover the trade unions must be part of that recovery [applause]. British industry can't prosper unless management and unions work together in partnership. We know that many such successful partnerships already exist. They do so because of the honesty, common sense and energy of the individuals concerned. When such attitudes and practices spread throughout Britain, this country's prospects will be transformed.
But Mr Chairman, you and I always talk in economic terms. But you know, we have to do more than rebuild an economy. We have to rebuild our self respect as a nation [applause]. In this last five years, we've become a sick society. The events of last winter, the unrelenting hostility of Labour's left wing towards our armed services and the police [applause], the rise in crime, vandalism and political violence, they all tell the same story. We're not quite the people we once were.
There's a simple reason why Labour always promises peace, and yet always brings us strife, and it's a fundamental one. Labour doesn't really believe in the individual. It prefers the collective group [applause]. And as a result, they start by removing individual initiative and end by removing individual conscience. We know that if democracy is to flourish, it must call for everything that is best in individual men and women, for the loss of democracy would surely bring out all that is worst.
Britain's at a turning point. On Thursday next its people will choose, either to continue our lonely road towards socialism and poverty, or they will choose to turn again towards the free world of the western democracies before it is too late. And I [end p3] believe that more—yes, do clap [applause]—freedom is the most precious thing of all. You don't always value it while you've got it. Then you find sometimes the government takes it away by stealth until you could wake up one day and find that it's gone. And I believe that more trade union members than ever before will support us this time. Our message to them is this. Labour's Socialism has failed and today it is the Conservative party that speaks for the ideals and hopes of the people of Britain [applause].
We want a Britain where the rule of law, without which freedom would perish, is steadfastly upheld, a Britain where children are taught that there is a real and absolute difference between right and wrong [applause], a Britain where the honest, peaceful and law abiding citizen is valued and defended and supported by all the institutions in the land [applause], a Britain where the sick and the elderly can rely on compassion and kindness, where individually and as a nation, we are daily mindful of our moral duty to care for those in need [applause].
This rally of trade union members for a Tory victory is a massive demonstration of the desire for change, change from disillusionment and decay to hope and prosperity [applause]. As trade unionists first, and Conservatives second, you speak for millions of other union members who seek the healthy society we all want. We Conservatives don't seek to divide or level society. We seek to unite and elevate it. We don't pander to class or sectional interests. Our appeal is both wider and deeper; and we appeal today to those instincts and principles which are common to decent men and women, whatever their income, or age, or status, irrespective of their creed, or colour, or race, irrespective indeed of whether they have voted for us or against us in the past.
And these are the things we appeal to. We appeal to the sense of personal responsibility, to the knowledge that we all have duties as well as rights [applause], to the sense of fairness which makes us want to see skill and effort and enthusiasm rewarded [applause], to the legitimate ambition which drives us to do the best we can for our family and inspires us to make our own contribution to the welfare of all, to the sense of justice which makes us determined to ensure that the innocent and law abiding are protected [applause], and to that spirit of independence which rebels whenever the state tries to take over our lives and tells us how to lead our own lives [applause].
We appeal also to old fashioned love of country [applause]. We are ashamed by the poor figure Britain cuts in the world, and we long to restore the respect and esteem which we once earned for ourselves. We don't dream of lost empires, but we do have a clear and practical vision, of a Britain strong enough at home to care for the weak, strong enough in the world to make our contribution to the Western alliance of free nations.
So, Mr Chairman, while we talk frequently at this election of the things which affect us day by day, of jobs, of inflation, of expanding the economy, we also talk about the things without which you and I could never live or breathe, freedom under the law [applause]. But, you know, a lot of political parties talk about freedom and some do it and they conceal what's really happening underneath. Others, you will find great [end p4] charters in the history of the world, talk about the freedom of speech, talk about the freedom to worship, talk about freedom from want, talk about freedom from fear. Very important. The astonishing thing is that very few of them give the underlying economic structure of freedom, and that is this, without free enterprise, there can be no freedom [applause]. Every free country in the world is a free enterprise country. Extinguish that economic freedom and you will soon extinguish political freedom with it [applause]. Every free country in the world is a country that believes in some private property and some private ownership, because it is that which gives the backing to freedom, and it's that which is why we want to give so many of our people the chance to own their own homes and to become a genuine property-owning democracy [applause]. This is the economic structure of freedom without which the political structure and the individual values could not endure, and this is why we are Conservative, and this is why we will fight for those things, and fight, and fight until we win [applause].
And so, yes, we do talk about jobs, we do talk about inflation, we do talk about growth, but what we really believe in as well is freedom under the law, individual freedom, the future of parliamentary democracy, the future of everything which made Britain a great nation and is founded on the character of our people [applause]. We want a Britain which encourages its people to develop their natural genius for their own sakes, and for the sake of our country, a country to which we are so proud to belong [prolonged applause and cheers].