Chairman
Ladies and Gentlemen, I hope you can hear me and I hope you can see the platform here because I now have the greatest pleasure and the great honour to introduce to you, Ladies and Gentlemen, and also to all our Superchannel viewers in Europe, the Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Margaret Thatcher.
Prime Minister
I want to say, not only to people here but to our viewers in Europe, that I am delighted to be here this evening at this super party for Superchannel to celebrate the launch of a service which will give our friends all over Europe the very best of British. And it is going to be a super party here, not only here, but also in almost every embassy in the capitals of Europe tomorrow, for they are hosting parties to celebrate this and this film will be shown at those parties so we want to say to those people in Europe who will be seeing what we have to show for the first time, we send our greetings and we welcome you to our audiences. We also would like to say that British television is something really rather special; like politicians I do not watch [end p1] it as much as I would wish but I do know how very professional and very expert and very welcome it is to audiences who see it for the first time as well as to those of us in this country who appreciate it greatly, and as a politician, may I say this: I know how professional you are when we come to make party political broadcasts and we cannot bring quite the same expertise and keep things moving in quite the same way as you do, we realise then all the expertise of the lighting, the cameraman, the chap who is holding the boom up here and keeping things moving and so on, so we really do know that there is a great treat in store for Europe.
This was a great venture and a great enterprise on its own. It is going to be financed by advertising, now I know that some people can be rather ‘toffee-nosed’ about that—personally I am not—I think if you have got something good you had better shout about it otherwise no-one will ever know about it, and so this not only gives us British television in Europe, but it will also enable British manufacturers to market their products over a very much wider area. Now to those who are watching in some of our embassies, I would like to say I think they are going to have a treat in store in some of the programmes they are going to see—I had a list of them, I wonder if I can remember them: ‘Eastenders’, ‘Van der Valk’, is it ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ or ‘All Creatures Great and Small’—I am not quite [end p2] sure, well I got the hymn right, it is ‘All Creatures Great and Small’ isn't it, and as a kind of foundation course in British humour, ‘Spitting Image’. Now I am not quite sure what they will make of that, but I am quite sure they will learn a great deal.
Now there are just two more points I want to make, and they are very special: first, I am very, very keen that Britain should always be in the forefront of the latest technological advance; that is our history, that is our heritage, that is our talent and that is our ability and that is what this is about, and if I ever get impatient—and no, no, no the press do not allow me anything as normal as that, I can only be furious—well all right, if I ever get furious, it is when I find people trying to resist change instead of welcoming it and using it to our advantage. This whole venture is an example of the latest technological change and a great example of European cooperation.
And just the other point I wanted to make: I am so glad this party, this great party to launch this great venture is being held in the Limehouse Studios. I came here about eighteen months ago when I was going round Dockland; I was absolutely thrilled and fascinated with it, we came to this warehouse—it had been restructured, the front, I thought they had done fantastic things, I went round the studio, they were full of vitality and enthusiasm because many of them [end p3] were having opportunities to do things they had never had before—and it reminded me very forcefully of everything which we have tried to do, of my fundamental belief that if governments create the background and we free things up as much possible, then the great talents and abilities of the British public and the British people will take over—that is what they are going to see in Europe and I am very happy to be here to celebrate it with you at this super party for Superchannel; I wish you well.