The Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Mrs Margaret Thatcher, MP (Barnet, Finchley), issues today (Monday, 31st December 1979) the following New Year message to the Conservative Party:
“In Britain, we have a tradition of facing the severest tests as a family, working together to meet and overcome adversity.
“As we enter the 1980s, let us all try to reawaken this tradition, to meet the challenges that lie ahead.
“Let us put away the failures of the past decade. But let us not forget their lesson, that illusions, however appealing, will not earn us our keep in the world. Hope must be tempered with realism—with an understanding of the problems that affect us all.
“This lesson is beginning to be taken to heart; you have seen the evidence of this in the last weeks of the old year. There are signs of a new spirit, of co-operation, of a more realistic approach to our problems.
“Let this spirit rise high, for it will signify, more certainly than anything else, that our country is on the way forward again to prosperity—to be shared fairly, as in a family.
“I wish you all a happy New Year” .