Drugs, jobs, Liverpool people … and Derek Hatton. What does Mrs. Thatcher think about them all? The Prime Minister talks exclusively to Echo editor Chris Oakley after the day-long tour of the city
Pushers are the real enemies of our society—cold, callous, heartless
It was the picture of baby Tracey that hit home.
“Born an addict” , read Mrs. Thatcher. Then it was the mother, not the Prime Minister who took over.
“How awful, how terrible,” she said. “All because her parents were taking the drug. Still, doctors can get the babies off drugs, can't they?”
For that moment all her concern was focused not upon E.E.C. budgets, or the East-West arms race, not upon the miners' strike or even her own party conference next week but upon the fate of one Birkenhead baby, the poignant symbol of the Echo's drugs campaign.
Then the Iron Lady was back with steely words to back the Echo's campaign against the evil peddlers of misery and death on Merseyside.
She said: “I think they are the real enemies of society, cold and callous in their heartlessness in selling these terrifying drugs to young people. I hope that they will be given heavy sentences when they are found.
“The penalty for those who peddle or the pushers, the maximum penalty, is 14 years in prison.”
The Prime Minister was talking exclusively to me at the end of her hectic tour of Liverpool triumphs and tragedies.
Snubbed by council
It was a day in which she had been demonstrated against, peered down a blocked loo in a Toxteth slum and been snubbed by council leaders who, typically, felt it more important to make a dramatic headline than sensibly argue the city's case.
But if that was the Merseyside of myth in the saloon bars of the Home Counties' stockbroker belt, she had also seen the successes—the magnificent International Garden Festival, created out of wasteland in a timescale the world's experts said was impossible; the splendid Albert Dock renovation; and the conversion of council-flat slums into attractive owner-occupier homes.
What had she thought of it all?
“I found it absolutely fantastic! Fantastically warm! In the Garden Festival hundreds and hundreds of people came up to me and said ‘Carry on with your good work’.”
They were surprising sentiments for someone who had spent the day walking through the lion's den.
Wasn't she tired? She was a little weary now, she admitted sinking back on to an imitation leather bench settee at the Huyton Conservative Club. All the time you were on the go, you felt buoyed up. It was only when you took a break you felt at all tired.
Her grey shoes bore evidence of the tough day. The toes were scuffed by the slimy dereliction of Prince William Street or the smart new cobbles of Albert Dock.
Otherwise she looked as immaculate as when she had landed at Liverpool Airport more than eight hours earlier—grey and white dress, pearl necklace and earrings, blonde hair obediently lacquered.
I wanted to tell Mrs. Thatcher first of the Echo drugs campaign, of the hundreds of heartbreaking calls on the Drug Action Line, of heroin so plentiful that it is cheaper than whisky, of the 200 names of alleged dealers we had passed to police, of wasted talents and of ruined lives.
There is a Home Office working party on drug abuse and a debate at the Conservative Pary Conference next week, but is there going to be any real action, I asked?
“I think drugs are one of the most worrying things. They have got much worse because they have got much cheaper. Of course, more of them are getting in.
“First we have to try to stop the places where they come in. You're a port and presumably that is one reason why it seems, I'm told, easier to get it here. We've got to try to stop that.”
Mrs. Thatcher said that, although the total number of Customs officers had been reduced, the number assigned to trying to stop drug smuggling had been increased. Recently, another 60 Customs intelligence men had been allocated to ports and airports.
She added: “We've got to try to stop the points of entry. We shall just have to go on trying to find the areas where it's coming in, trying to find the stuff before it gets on the market, trying to find the people who are peddling and pushing.”
The link between drug-taking and the hopelessness of unemployment is hard for Conservative politicians [end p1] to admit, though those who can see every day how the shadow of the jobs scrapheap casts a dark apathy over the young, destroying their self-respect, know that drugs and the dole are simply different strains of the same cancer.
So could Mrs. Thatcher give Merseyside any hope on jobs? Sadly, she had little new to say.
“We do everything we can to encourage the growth of small business. If you take Liverpool, we started up enterprise zones—Liverpool had an enterprise zone.
We started up freeports—Liverpool had a freeport; we have the Merseyside Development Corporation—there are only two in the country and Merseyside is one.
The highest levels of regional assistance are available in Liverpool; and we have about ten information and technology centres here—all of these are things we're piling in to see that young people can get the best training as the jobs come along; and we're doing everything we can to help with new small businesses growing.
Finally, what does Mrs. Thatcher think of the man everyone in Liverpool has an opinion about—the council's deputy leader but chief spokesman, Derek Hatton? After all, in the not too distant future the Prime Minister may be looking at him across the floor of the House of Commons.
Wholly sympathetic
“Well, Mr. Hatton and I aren't going to convert one another. We have a fundamentally different approach. As Prime Minister I obviously have to see those who are on the local council when I come, regardless of what their politics are. The fact that we take different views does not prevent us from meeting.”
Then it was time to face another audience—this time a wholly sympathetic one, already warmed up for her by the Environment Secretary Patrick Jenkin in the club's main hall. Afterwards there was dinner, then Downing Street.
I would like to think that sometime on the journey back to London or in the quiet of No. 10, the mother may take over again and remember the big sad eyes of baby Tracey.
Then the Prime Minister's determination may ensure the success of the Echo's campaign for all young Merseysiders in peril from the drug merchants.