Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
… . at the beginning if I may, to talk about the inner cities and Peter Walker suggested at the week-end that this was going to be a very important part of the election campaign.
I wondered what you saw as the problems of the inner cities which need to be tackled and how you intend to tackle them?
Prime Minister
I think the problems of some of the inner cities are that many of what would you call the natural leaders in a town have moved their homes to well outside a city. Days of yore. Manchester—this great, enormous commercial city. A far bigger proportion of your business leaders, your commercial leaders, would live within the bounds of the city. Many of them, I think, [end p1] have moved out in many many cities. Although they have their businesses there, you do not any longer find so many of them on your local councils or doing work, and even sometimes you will find some of your head teachers and teachers sometimes have moved further out.
Now, this gives you a problem because a city must have leadership of people who are passionately interested in the future of the city and be able to draw from all backgrounds. Now, what you find in many many cities, as you know, is a considerable amount of dereliction which of itself is extremely depressing.
In a city like Manchester, which had the most fantastic Manchester Grammar School—a direct grant school—available to anyone who had the necessary ability—you know, it was a test of ability but it was not restricted by background in any way; it was a test of ability; that is why they were called direct grant schools—the whole educational standing of the city, I think, was raised by that school being a direct grant school open to youngsters from whatever background. They were right to go independent; they could not continue to serve the city of Manchester.
What we are left with is a dereliction, what I would call the post-war problem of massive numbers of council blocks, and I think, if we could go back to the beginning of the post-war period, we would not have built council properties like that, and it always seems [end p2] to me that some of those properties were built without any regard to crime and vandalism, so they are built with some walkways, they are built with many features that actually facilitate those who wish to disobey the law.
And I remember in my early days as a Member of Parliament saying to someone at the Home Office: “Tell me, when you are doing your town planning, do you not ensure that the police are consulted about how to construct these great estates so that they are open and they are constructed so that they do not give areas in which crime can take place and be comparatively hidden?”
We have found that the education in some of those areas is just not good enough. We have found that many of the parents are seriously concerned about it, and they have not an alternative school, frequently, to which to send their children, which teaches the sort of things they want their children to be taught, and this is one of the fundamental things.
And so we find that we have to try, by ownership of council properties, to sort of break up the social structure of those blocks. We are trying, through city technological colleges—starting those—to give parents alternative schools to go to, so that they will really fulfil a function on a larger scale than the direct grant schools filled in the past.
We tried to give one grant after another to get rid of dereliction. Nothing is more depressing! [end p3] Sometimes, some of the councils will not take them up.
We tried to have grants called the Urban Housing Renewal Grant, because those are specific grants, sometimes to do up the blocks of houses, to make them more attractive; sometimes to take down some of the walkways where crime flourishes and to reconstruct them.
We have just done another one—comes in April 6th I do not know whether Manchester will take it up—which is to go directly to the private sector, to try to regenerate jobs within the city through the private sector, but in many of our inner cities we find that councils do not welcome business, they do not want it.
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
Is that the nature of the councils?
Prime Minister
That is right. It is the nature of the councils. Some of them will not even take some of the grants that are available. Some of them will not take some of the housing grants.
The one we announced yesterday, the Urban Regeneration Grant …
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
This is for larger sites over twenty acres. [end p4]
Prime Minister
That is right, but for private sector. … regenerate jobs.
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
And you are hoping that that is going to be taken up?
Prime Minister
Yes. We have allocated £20 million for it.
If you are going to get new jobs, if you are going to get business regenerated in the inner cities, you have got to get it through the private sector. You have got to see you do not frighten them away with a council that is anti the private sector. You have got to see you do not frighten them away with enormous heavy rates.
The wealth of a city—Heaven knows, Manchester led in wealth creation—is the wealth and the business it can create within it.
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
Yes. Manchester has, in fact, turned round the problem of losing manufacturing industry and now has something like 60%; service industries, but do you think … [end p5]
Prime Minister
We have just done in your area a new Urban Development Corporation, Trafford, because we went there, and you look at it, and it was not in fact being dealt with, so it was a classic case, so Central Government has to come in and break through the local authority mesh of controls, and we are urged to do it again and again.
We have had four urban development corporations. You have to break through the planning controls and break through some of the rates.
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
So a council like Manchester, which is fairly left wing, it is the sort of thing that … .
Prime Minister
It is not attractive!
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
… Mr. Tebbit would call Loony Left?
Prime Minister
Well, I do not myself like the phrase “The Loony Left” . It is a left wing council, anti-private sector, and makes no bones about it. [end p6]
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
How do you tackle that in a city like Manchester? How do you control those councils?
Prime Minister
We cannot. We cannot in any way if the people choose to elect that council, but you see what happens is the phenomonen that I described earlier. More of your leaders of industry do not actually live within the … . of the city. You will find different areas there. You will find that some of them live in one particular part of the city, but constantly, you see, people from other areas come in and say: “What can we do?” I say there is no way in which one can interfere. You can offer grants, you can do rate capping, because it is the task of Central Government to see that too great a tax in total is not imposed on citizens, but if citizens still go on electing those councils, that is what democracy is all about. That is why I hope that on May 7, in Manchester and elsewhere, people take the opportunity in their local council election to elect Conservative Councillors. [end p7]
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
But your Urban Development Corporation overrides the council?
Prime Minister
Yes, but the fact is that the Urban Development Corporation does for things like planning, but not for housing, not for education, not for rates. An enterprise zone will override the rates for a short time there, but not for housing, not for education.
Now, you take Manchester, if I just go on talking. Whenever I go to Manchester, people complain that nothing is ever done for it. The amount that is done is enormous and look at the great Conference Centre, built from the old station. It may be the local authority takes credit for that—it should not. It was done with money from Government.
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
And Europe!
Prime Minister
And Europe. Listen! Every single penny you get from Europe is paid for by the tax-payer here, every single penny, so it was done by money from Government in one way or another, and it was a Government project.
You look! You have the biggest complex of university buildings and higher education buildings, one [end p8] of the biggest … . across Europe. Excellent university, excellent polytechnic, excellent institutions of higher education, excellent institutions of practical training in catering and so on.
You have one of the biggest complexes of teaching hospitals in Europe.
All of these things are fantastic, so you have got the education, you have got the hospitals.
The road system is quite outstanding and we now, in one way or another, are trying to try to pour in money, but not just to disappear into the activities of whatever a left wing council wants to do with it, but into specific things like that great big conference centre, into specific things like the new urban regeneration grant. It is for specific things like the derelict land and buildings … there is an urban programme, an urban development corporation, which you have got in one of your areas, urban development grant, urban regeneration grant.
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
I wonder though, if we go back a few years, the malaise in the inner cities which some of your Ministers are now expressing … what was shown in the riots … . did we learn the lessons from those riots do you think? [end p9]
Prime Minister
I hope we learned the lessons from those riots, but there is no way in which from the outside in you can make the people inside take the necessary steps. This is one of the problems … . as you know full well … the policing of Manchester is very much community policing … they have tried to get involved. They have not always been welcome, their activities sometimes in trying to get involved with the community through the schools have not always been welcome, but you are not going to get law and order in a city unless you get people working with the police and looking upon them as the friends of the community. You never will. You cannot do that from the outside. That has got to be done within.
You have now got, I think something like 3,000 … . is it as many as that in Manchester … schemes … . you have got 3,000 kind of watch schemes … they have now started, because law and order is partly the resources of government and local government to the police. We have put up the numbers of police. They can have the equipment they wish in order to carry out their duties, but you have got to get the cooperation between police and people if law is to be upheld. It is not a thing government can do on its own. Everyone has to be involved.
Yes, you do have problems there. I wish to goodness we were able to recruit far more police from [end p10] the ethnic minorities. We are not stopping them; we are encouraging them but, you know, again, some of the ethnic minorities who have joined the police force are not exactly given an easy time when they are policing their own areas.
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
The rise in crime, though, still seems relentless and we have suffered particularly recently from appalling attacks on old people.
Prime Minister
They are absolutely appalling.
Every person is his own master in deciding whether he lives a decent life as a decent member of the community or whether he resorts to crime. It is not society. Every person is his own master, and the over-whelming majority, from whatever background, of whatever colour, basically are or want to be law-abiding. One has to remember that. And some of those who are most proud to be law-abiding and most decent and most honourable—and I have heard them on the streets of Manchester when I have been up on tour say to me: “What we want is more law and order!” and they are the people in the heart of those council estates because they suffer most—and the overwhelming majority are and want to be and want their children to be, of whatever background, with a job or without one, old or mothers [end p11] with their younger children, and this is why you really expect and want the cooperation of those people with the police, when they have to go into areas—and it is difficult sometimes for them to do so and it makes me very angry indeed when the police, knowing what they will meet in some areas, have to go in in sufficient numbers and then that is called a provocation. It is not. It is defending the rights of the law-abiding citizen.
And in other parts, I remember, not in Manchester but in Bristol, in the St. Pauls area of Bristol, the police had to go in in very considerable numbers and some of the lefties condemned it as provocation, but the people inside there said: “No! You were right to come in!” and they have to go in sometimes to protect one ethnic group from another.
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
But you must feel a personal heartache when you see 82-year-old widows beaten to death.
Prime Minister
I think it is utterly disgraceful and I may tell you that I have always—let me say it—I do not believe that anyone should be able to go out and do that knowing that he could never suffer the same penalty that he is prepared to inflict on others—and that is why I believe in capital punishment as a punishment available [end p12] to a judge when a case is so savage … .
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
… so evil
Prime Minister
… . so evil … . that no-one, in my view, should be able to go out knowing how savage, how evil, how often he does it … [end p13]
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
Were you very disappointed with that vote?
Prime Minister
… He will not forfeit his own life.
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
Are you very disappointed the vote was lost?
Prime Minister
I am afraid I have got used to being disappointed … people turn round and twist it, they twist the argument and say “Oh, the death penalty would be mandatory” . I say, “No, it would not” ; it would be one of the penalties along with a severe sentence or life imprisonment or the death penalty for cases that are so hideous—and I believe it would be a deterrent for some people. But I say each person is his own master in deciding what he shall do. That is what the individual is about. Now there are some youngsters that we say, of whom I have the greatest possible sympathy, they are the ones, and this also has always bothered me from my early days, who have terrible times at home—at homes where there is violence, at homes where there is drunkenness, in homes where there is abuse—you cannot rely on the police or the NSPCC inspector always to know that, but the next-door neighbour does. I know it is a very, very [end p14] difficult thing to do but our prime duty is to protect the children and young people; some of the things that we are learning from that child, the life-line, the Esther Rantzen thing.
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
Even in 1987?
Prime Minister
The need for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is as great now as it ever, ever was. But I say each person has his own dignity and self-respect and makes his own decision whether to be subject to the worst of his most savage and awful instincts or whether to act like a civilised human being and curb them and live as an upright member of the community, but it is the crimes of violence that bother me most of all. The crimes of violence, fortunately, are not actually going up as fast as the others, it is the property and the theft going up faster, and the police are concentrating much more on the crimes of violence because they are hideous, but you see, days of yore—criminals in days of yore—it sounds a strange thing to say, they would never have resorted to beating up an old person; there were certain limits, and never have resorted to some of the things with children which go on. [end p15]
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
May I just slightly change gear? [Remainder of question missing.]
Prime Minister
But in the inner cities it is, the grant is now going to the actual dereliction, trying somehow to break up the social structure of the council housing by getting far more ownership, trying in some cases to—in some areas they are letting some of them go to private developers who will restructure the thing and then it takes on a new lease of life and a new pride, but you cannot do it without the local leadership, without the local leadership welcoming business and without them taking up some of the grants and recognising what Government is doing to try to rejuvenate those inner cities. But you see there are some—when I say there are areas in inner cities' land, where the actual planning permission to build private sector houses [sic], and you cannot get a builder to do it, and why? Because he said, “The reputation of that city is such, I could not be certain that within those cities I could sell those houses” .
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
The Government is tackling the inner city problem as a major issue, the Labour party consistently talk about what they see as a north south divide. Roy Hattersley repeated it again yesterday when he accused [end p16] Members of the Cabinet of having constituencies with very low unemployment. I wonder, do you see gaps in the living standards of various parts of the country?
Prime Minister
That is far too crude, you have heard me say this before, far too crude a generalisation. There are patches of unemployment in the south, in the south west where you have got farming and tourism are your main things and some light industry in parts of Kent, in patches where they either relied on one particular industry which became outdated and closed. If we have coal mines in Kent, if a coal mine closes down there, as it has done, you have just exactly the same problems of redundancy. If a steel plant closes you also have the problems. The fact is there is a bigger concentration of coal mines and steel plants and ship building in the north, but you also have it in the south. We closed down Rochester and Chatham dockyard and had to have an enterprise zone there, so do not think these things are unknown in the south, they are just the same. We have to close down a dockyard in the south or where you get Vosper Thorneycroft Repair Shipyard having to close down because it has not got enough there, or you get a coalmine in the south closing down, where you get a steel plant closing down; you get exactly the problem but you have got a bigger concentration of them in the [end p17] north where your heavy engineering industries were, and let's face it: your great prosperity, because of those was in the north. Look at the houses; you can buy a magnificent house in the north for a fraction of what it costs you in the south. A manager in the north on a good salary has a far higher standard of living than a manager in the south because his housing costs are lower, his transport costs are lower.
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
So you agree with Kenneth Clarke that perhaps people should even consider taking home cutting pay [sic] in the north?
Prime Minister
No, I am not even saying that; I am saying that salary for salary you get a far higher standard of living in the north because your housing costs are lower, because your transport costs are lower, but I am also making the point that there has always been some difference where your heavy industries have been concentrated, and the north was, in the days when those industries grew up, the great flourishing part, when ship building flourished, when steel flourished, when heavy engineering flourished. Now part of the reason why we are having problems is first because of the car industry; it did not for years keep up its former prosperity and ability to compete with others, second [end p18] because of the rise of Japan and Korea and Taiwan and Hong Kong, the rise of others who learned to compete better with certain things, in textiles, also part of the north. Now if I might say so, we are having the great fight back and we are seeing a rejuvenation, and when I come to Manchester or when I go to Newcastle or when I go up to Nissan in Sunderland, I see the best roads in the country, the best hospitals, some excellent universities, traffic jams in city centres, that is not characteristic of a poor community. I see the big supermarkets and the new shopping centres are being built in the north, they would not be being built in the north if there were not money. Quite a lot of new service industries, quite a lot going there now because it is cheaper for your managers to live and to get houses. That is good. Where were we?
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
Do you think service industries are as much to the economy?
Prime Minister
I was telling you about what you talk about the north south divide. The difference in terms of income have not changed much since 1975 and of course, as I say, housing and travel costs more in the south, costs less in the north. Incidentally, what I was saying is the great fight back; textiles are winning against [end p19] overseas competition, they are winning, in the north west; the Carrington and Viyella, what they have done is fantastic. They are winning the fight back.
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
Despite the problems overseas?
Prime Minister
Despite the problems overseas, they are doing it, they are putting in massive investment. You see labour now, the cost of labour is going to be a smaller and smaller proportion of the cost of your finished goods and that gives us a chance to get it back, so it then becomes a matter of design and use and that is flair and enterprise and that is where we can again start to compete with anyone. Textiles are coming back. Steel is now making a profit, … if you haven't got steel in the north west, that is in the north east, Scotland the north east, Wales north and south. Shipbuilding—I am afraid the world has about two years' supplies of ships swinging on the buoys because every country subsidised them so so many were built, there is a glut. That causes great difficulty.
Now what else are we doing? I must say this: the Mersey basin is having more public money spent on it than any other if you go right back to its sources, it would be about four billion over twenty years, so we are doing a fantastic amount for the environment. Now [end p20] unemployment in the north has risen proportionately a little less than in the south. Let me tell you in the north …
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
Can I ask some points …
Prime Minister
Gave me enormous pleasure, and I usually say it: the number of self-employed is up by 406,000 since 1983 with almost half of those jobs in the north. So self-employment is coming back to the north. North east too, when I went up to open the plant at Washington of Nissan, the labour, the administrative labour of the Department of Employment said to me, “You do realise that at the moment we have more people on Enterprise Allowance creating their own jobs in the north east than Nissan are at present producing in jobs?” That is returning. The unemployment is coming down fastest in the north, the north east, and Wales. … . by manufacturing, not new. Now, average weekly male earnings in the north are the third highest in Great Britain and only just below the British average. The British average is for average men, is a £174 a week. In the north, where a weekly man who earns is £173. So there is a lot of money there.
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
A reflection there, if I may Prime Minister … [end p21]
Prime Minister
And if you are looking at, let us look at this figure: the number of households in the north with central heating has gone up, with fridges, with telephones, more households have video recorders than in any other part of the country. Households in the north spend £14 a week less on housing. They do, because in … maybe they are cheaper, because they are cheaper to build, because price of the land is not as much. £10 a week less on transport, not nearly as much travel to do. Now those are facts, and what I want to get rid of is the feeling that the north is not the sort of place you go to, it is, do not run it down, I almost spend all my time trying to run it up.
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
Why, I mean, you still, if I may, in terms of a north south gap, most of the seats in the north seem to be Labour seats, most in the south are Conservative seats. How do you react when people suggest you washed your hands?
Prime Minister
Yes it is quite wrong; in Manchester and Liverpool, for example, you know this one, I was going to say this, I could not find it, just look at Robert [end p22] Kilroy-Silk, that is what I was trying to say to you earlier.
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
It is on the book, yes.
Prime Minister
Incidentally, you have got some steel, I went to a steel company, a steel producing company, not far outside on my last tour to a steel producing company, steel rolling company. It was doing very well, very well, because they were actually, [words missing?] just get up Manchester tour last time, it was very good, no we want more.
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
You must feel aggrieved though when people suggest you are washing your hands of the north as they do in the Commons?
Prime Minister
That is what they say; they know it is not true.
Since 1979 the north has received over £2 billion of regional assistance compared with about £200 million for the rest of England. In the north west we have recently now, setting up of an Urban Development Corporation, Trafford, and £2 billion is to be spent on the Mersey campaign programme over next years. Each year, now this is the point which people in the [end p23] north do not realise, the rate support grant is a great redistributive mechanism. Now we do have—and sometimes when the rates go up in the south, not because the councils are extravagent, they are not, the south complains that some of their councils are very economical and they get very good value for money out of every pound, nevertheless their rates are still going up. Why? Because they are being economical and they say it is going to the spending councils. Now this is because the rate support grant formula actually redistributes money, and it redistributes it in favour, from the London and the south east to the north, primarily the north, the north west and Yorkshire and Humberside and it redistributes about £1 billion. Now that is not doing nothing.
On the Health Service we have a redistributive programme. I know, I am a London member, I go and open hospitals in the north or visit hospitals in the north; the last one did in the north, … in the north west, in Barrow, a lovely new hospital, second phase going on and I did one in the north east, you have got very good hospital complexes. Money is redistributed from the south to the north on the Health Service programme.
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
You have still got 61,000 people on the waiting list at the moment. [end p24]
Prime Minister
Yes, indeed, in spite of lots and lots of extra things, because what we are now looking at is not only the extra money but what is being got out of the extra money; let me say to you, all right, the money for the Health Service is not found by Government, it is found by the people. The day I walked in here the average family of four, that is if you take about 14 million families in this country, taking all what they have paid in tax, the average family of four, through taxation, income tax and Value Added Tax, contributed every week to the National Health Service £11. This is how it is financed. Now, they are contributing every week, whether they use it or not, £26 a week. Government does not find it, and when the pay of nurses goes up, and the pay of doctors goes up, all right, there will have to be more and it will have to be found from somewhere—it can only be found from the pockets of … so what we are now looking at is, is that extra, is everyone getting value for that £26 a week which they are contributing week in, week out? That is what I am having to look at. Revenue spending for the north west region, this is in the Health Service, of which Greater Manchester is a part, rose from £382 million in 1989 (sic) to £860 million in 1985/6, that is over and above inflation, it is a real terms increase of 19.2%;. There is always going to be extra demand for health because of the speed at which research is going and because we are all going to [end p25] live longer and as you live longer you need more hip operations, more cataract, more heart, and yes it is going to be a problem and we are addressing our mind to that problem. [end p26]
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
Can I ask what you would like to address your mind to after the next election for the next five years?
Prime Minister
I am very anxious to get rid of more dereliction. I think it is so depressing.
We now know that you cannot just do it through rate support grant. Local councils will not spend it on those things. Sometimes, I think some of your local councils are not so concerned to get people out of unemployment. They are concerned to keep them in council houses so that they control their rent, control their lives. We are concerned to get them much much more independent. That is why we want more private enterprises to be in the cities; that is why we have got a new urban regeneration; that is why we have got land dereliction; that is why we have got particular housing renewal grants which not all authorities are taking up.
This is why we are deeply concerned about education, and we will have some proposals to make about it in the manifesto and Kenneth Baker is … and we are going more and more to giving parents more and more … and saying every child must be taught certain subjects, every child, because these youngsters … education is not free either. Because every family pays for education, every family on the same basis pays for education [end p27] £22 a week, each and every week, through taxation. It is not free. You pay for it. And what many parents say is: “Are we getting value for money for it?” and the answer is no. So we are doing that.
Roads … you really have got an excellent road system around Manchester. I think we poured roads into the North. It is very well connected.
The environment we are pouring money into again to clean up the Mersey Basin, but we have got to have help. We have got to have local authorities who welcome the private sector. We have got to have local authorities who want to help people in fact to purchase their own homes. Got to have local authorities who are quite prepared to let developers come in and refurbish some of these council properties. There have been one or two excellent examples with some of the monies that are available, so that you get a new pride.
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
Would you dispute Roy Hattersley 's claim that we do not have one nation?
Prime Minister
I most certainly would dispute it. I do suggest that the Labour Party is doing its level best to create divisions. The essence of Socialism is class distinction. It is based on Marxist class warfare. [end p28]
We are the party that governs, trying to get rid of that by saying: I do not care who you are or what your background, we want you to have a chance to get to the best school! Oh, that is not Labour authorities! Allow people to have an assisted place? No! Allow the Manchester Direct Grant School to go on? No. Kill it! Allow grammar schools of any sort to go on? No. Kill them! Not bringing people up. It is the Labour Party that is levelling people down, because it wants to control their lives.
No. We are saying: I do not care what your background, I want you to get to the best educational school possible and I want every school to have certain basic core curriculums, certain education and to be excellent in every subject! And then, I do not care what your background, I want you to have a chance to own your own home and when you put money in savings—and there are 52 million building society accounts, many people have several—and there are astonishing numbers of parents who put money into building societies for children even under five … you have got to know that you have got a government which keeps down inflation so that those savings keep their money (sic). This is the way you are building one nation of property owners, so that a man of property is not someone in Forsyte Saga whom you see on the television screen on Sunday nights. It is everyone, because we are pulling people up, and we will go on doing it, in spite of the worst that Labour [end p29] can do—because this is really what people want. They are keeping them down, wanting them in rented council properties, wanting as many of them on the local government payroll as they can get, so they control their lives.
That is not what liberty is all about.
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
Finally, Prime Minister, if I may—it has been fascinating—can I just put that back to you?
Neil Kinnock suggested this week that Conservatism was based on greed. What would you say to that?
Prime Minister
Absolute nonsense. Is Neil Kinnockhe not trying to do two things at the same time? Say first: “We want more and more people to have a higher standard of living, but if you do want a higher standard of living you are greedy!” Stupid isn't it?
Is it greedy to want a better house for your family and your children, to want better furniture, to want a good kitchen, to want nice fitted cupboards in your bedroom?
Is it greedy to want to have enough over out of your earnings, yes, to let your children go on an overseas tour with the school, to see what it is like in other countries? To be able to show them sometimes [end p30] the theatre; to be able to take them to London to see things; to be able to take them to the Lake District?
Is it greedy to want to put some savings by for your old age?
Is it greedy to want to have enough to give your parents a treat when it comes to their silver wedding?
Greedy! Crackers!
It is ordinary human warmth and kindness and generosity to want to be able to let your children and your parents benefit from your own efforts.
I trust I make myself clear!
Ian Craig, Manchester Evening News
Indeed! Thank you, Prime Minister. That was lovely!