For the politicians, it's been a morning to take stock of the latest opinion poll published in the Daily Mail, which put Labour slightly ahead for the first time in the Election campaign. Brian Curtois reports on what the Party leaders had to say at their new conferences: [end p1]
Curtois
Mrs. Thatcher was the first to be questioned about the latest opinion poll showing the tiny Labour lead and predicting, a very close finish. She gave what she admitted was the politicians stock answer.
Thatcher
You know, we always have pretty well the same answer to polls, whichever party we represent, namely, if they're very good you try not to crow about them. If you get one that's not so good you say it's the best possible thing that could've happened ‘cos it'll stir up your people to come out more strongly, and, if you're really wise, you don't take that much notice of them, only of the poll on Polling Day.
Curtois
But how did she react to the opinion poll on personalities, which showed Mr. Callaghan well ahead of her?
Thatcher
You tend to get that when a personality's been merged with an office. Once the personality's ceased to be attached to the office, things are very, very different, and once a new personality's merged with an office I hope things will be even better.
Curtois
The combination of the latest opinion poll and the fact that to-day is May Day produced a cheerful mood among Labour leaders at their news conference. Mr. Callaghan had a confident answer to a question about the opinion poll showing Conservatives and Labour neck and neck.
Callaghan
I think the polls are beginning to catch up with what I've always said public opinion was, and no doubt they'll get it right one day.
Curtois
Mr. Callaghan thought the Conservatives' campaign had lost its momentum.
Callaghan
The Conservatives ran out of puff some days ago, I think. They reckoned on a quick sprint to the polls, a vote in haste, you know, a vote in haste, repent at leisure, as people then found after the election, if they had won, what the high cost of voting Tory meant in rising prices and in unemployment and cuts in Health and Social Services, but it hasn't been a sprint, it's been a long distance race and there's been plenty of time to really get behind the glossy surface. [end p2]
(2) Guardian, 2 May 1979Thatcher cool on swing to Labour
Mrs Thatcher was not put off yesterday by the surprise swing to Labour to give them a 0.7 per cent lead in the National Opinion Poll. She agreed with her party chairman. Lord Thorneycroft, that it would be “neck and neck.”
She told a London news conference that if the polls were good “you try not to gloat about them,” and if they were “not so good, you say it is the best thing that could have happened because it will stir up your people to go out more strongly and vote.”
The Tory leader put the Liberals' improved showing down to the exposure their campaign was being given and said it was taken into account in Tory calculation, “All our reports are that the campaign is going very well,” said Mrs Thatcher. People liked and were responding to the positive policies the Tories were putting forward on education, defence, and law and order.
“It is one of the most thoughtful elections I have ever encountered,” she said. And Mrs Thatcher insisted: “I am not looking for a hung Parliament, if we are the biggest majority party by quite a long way, I think we can carry on without making any of the kind of pacts with the kind of wheeling and dealing which I believe has debased parliamentary life.”
The Tories' health spokesman, Mr Patrick Jenkin, was pressed to match the Labour promise of pegging pensions with prices and rises in wages. He replied that the Conservatives had given a categorical assurance that pensions would be protected from price rises—this included the switch from direct to indirect taxation.
Labour had been unable to fulfil their pension pledge in the past and the Tories were not going to bind themselves with a guarantee that would turn out to be meaningless. The value of benefits depended on the ability of the economy to provide wealth to pay for them, said Mr. Jenkin.
Dr Rhodes Boyson said the Tories would bring back direct grant schemes for schools and defend the right of local authorities to have grammar schools. The Tories would also concentrate on social mobility for children in “downtown” schools. “There is no doubt they are the new deprived,” he said. [end p3]
(3) Financial Times, 2 May 1979Steel will avoid hasty alliance
Mr. David Steel, the Liberal leader, will make no dramatic weekend dash from his Scottish constituency to London to cobble together a new short-term political pact if tomorrow's general election results in neither of the main parties' securing an overall majority.
He declared yesterday that if faced with such a situation he will call for an agreed programme to provide stable Government for five years in which priority is accorded to the introduction of proportional representation.
Mr. Steel, reflecting the buoyancy shown by recent opinion polls in registering rising Liberal support, repeated his forecast that the new House of Commons will contain at least 20 Liberal MPs, possibly up to 50.
The latest polls, he said, showed that the Liberals were on the right course for a “people's parliament,” ideally one in which the Liberals held the balance of power.
Mr. Steel was adamant that neither Mr. Callaghan nor Mrs. Thatcher must be allowed to seize the political initiative with a new minority Government capable of generating a wave of popularity that enabled it to secure a majority in a few months' time.
Therefore, he argued, the post-poll talks, if the election proved again that neither Tory nor Labour had a majority in the country, should be conducted on a three-way basis.
A new majority in the new Parliament, Mr. Steel contended, should include the Liberals and rest upon the centre of gravity in the country, not upon the extremists of Left or Right.
The Prime Minister, in the BBC's “election call” phone-in programme, and Mrs. Thatcher, at the Conservative election Press conference, continued to set their sights on an overall majority.
Mr. Callaghan emphasised that a “hung Parliament,” with no single party commanding an overall majority, made the management of Government “much more difficult.”
Nor was he in favour of proportional representation, in spite of its superficial attractions.
Questioned at the Conservative Press conference about the constitutional implications of a “hung Parliament,” Lord Hailsham, former Lord Chancellor confirmed that Mr. Callaghan would have the option of continuing in office and presenting a Queen's speech to the new Parliament.
If defeated, he would be obliged to resign and the Queen would ask someone else to try to form a Government.
Lord Hailsham did not believe that, in such circumstances, the Queen would choose anyone other than Mrs. Thatcher, although she might, and would be entitled to do so.
It would then be for that person to form a Government and try to secure the approval of the Commons for a Queen's speech.
Lord Hailsham added: “I think the truth is that if you have a hung Parliament you have the same result in the end as a hung jury—you have got to have a retrial.
“Nobody really wants that.”
Mrs. Thatcher, after emphasising her belief that the Conservatives would secure an overall majority, reaffirmed that in the event of a hung Parliament she would seek to form a minority Government.
Mr. Steel last night listed some of the “extremist” Labour or Conservative policies that the Liberals would prevent if they won sufficient seats in the next Parliament.
They would not allow Labour to push through more nationalisation proposals, whether of the ports or of the building industry, or let them “kow-tow to the trade unions as an institutionalised part of the Government,” he said in Peebles.
If the Tories won, the Liberals would not let them “cut into the muscle of the Welfare State” or discriminate against underprivileged minorities through their plans for big reductions in public services.
Liberals would also prevent the Tories from dismembering the National Enterprise Board, getting rid of the Scottish and Welsh Development Agencies, abolihing the Price Commission or selling off profitable parts of public enterprises.