Interviewer
How are you? You have been under a lot of pressure this week.
Prime Minister
We had pressure for much more than a week.
Long journeys are quite pressuresome. We went across to Japan for an official visit and then for an International Democratic Union Conference; we called in Moscow on the way back. We got back. We then had the whole run-up to the Party Conference. We went to Nottingham. We did several regional tours in that week and then we had the whole week for the Party Conference which was very successful and then we came back from the Party Conference and we unpacked and we did the speeches and the briefing for the Commonwealth Conference and on the Monday we took off for Malaysia and we went out via Bahrein and stopped there and then we came back via … We got back at 4 a.m. on the Wednesday morning, came here and started work. On the Thursday, other things happened and it is now Wednesday, the following week. [end p1]
We had a very busy week-end. Of course, we had the Brian Walden interview, which I did this Saturday morning and there was quite a lot also to do on the Sunday, quite different really because we were having a new vicar at the Chequers church, and then we had to catch up with work, so it has been much longer really …
Interviewer
… than a week.
Prime Minister
And before that, of course, we had the Scottish tour and were in Cumbria and I had done quite a lot of visits to people doing research in universities. We had been to Ely Cathedral to have a look at the restoration work, so it has been quite busy.
Interviewer
You are famous for not needing much sleep and for working phenomenally hard. If you have something like a major Cabinet reshuffle suddenly, how do you relax from that kind of pressure?
Prime Minister
We have not had much time to relax, I must confess, over the past few days, we really have not and for a few days you can always do with very little sleep so long as you have got one decent day at the week-end. [end p2]
I know what else we had at the week-end! Of course, it was my 30th anniversary as Member for Finchley and we had a great celebration.
I was quite glad that the clocks went back an hour last week, really quite glad! I think it gave me six or seven hours sleep that night, which I had not had for a very long time, and you come out much fresher.
And I must confess last night, I was so exhausted - I came back late from the House - that I did sleep not a long time, but quite heavily, because it is not only the hours you sleep - it is whether you really do sleep and so one feels we have almost caught up now.
Interviewer
Prime Minister, I really want to talk a bit about the present political situation and then towards the end throw it further forward.
Can I ask you about what the ex-Chancellor said last night? He said, in effect, that there was a fundamental disagreement between you and him over - that was the effect of what he said - over ERM, that he wanted to go in sooner than later, you later than sooner. Is that right? [end p3]
Prime Minister
You take just precisely what the Nigel LawsonChancellor [sic] said. He said it in his own way and it is quite evident that he had, in fact, moved away from the position we had at Madrid and which we set out very clearly at Madrid.
Yesterday, in Questions, I was actually reading from the identical script that I used at Madrid to keep absolutely clear. It was a very successful conference, Madrid, and laid out when we would join and I used it again I think, more or less, in the Brian Walden show, when we would join and yes, we did hope that they would come up to that same kind of freedom of financial services that we do but it is agreed that they have quite a way to go.
Early this morning, I had a note of the relative amount paid in subsidies, for example, what each different country pays in subsidies to industry. Can you get that for Mr. McIntyre? It was in my box. You cannot have fair competition. That is what I am after - fairness - a fair case for Britain and let me put it this way: someone has got to do battle for Britain. It is no good taking us in if we are not fighting on a fair set of rules. [end p4]
Another in my box also they were trying to open up: French Telecom, for example, are not as open to competition as ours are. Again, that is hardly fair and when you go into something like that it must be on a fair basis.
I think France is due to abolish her foreign exchange controls by next June, indeed, I think France and Italy. Spain, it will take longer, because she has a transition period, but we have got to be playing by the same rules and it is not fair to Britain unless we are.
I thought we had got it all sorted out at Madrid and we were all sticking to that and, of course, to do Chancellor Lawson justice, he did in his Mansion House speech stick to Madrid. Yesterday, it was he who seemed to have moved away.
Interviewer
Prime Minister, the things you are mentioning, like the thing you have just mentioned, are very interesting, the subsidies that French industries and others …
Prime Minister
And Italy and Germany. [end p5]
Interviewer
… and you mentioned on Brian Walden insurance and pension funds and the restrictions on investment there.
How long do you think it would take for those countries to fulfil those conditions in a way which would them acceptable for us to …
Prime Minister
It just depends how soon they agree to the directives.
People have tended to criticise us because we agreed to some majority directives, which we did, but not to things like industrial relations or taxation. There are about four things on which we have unanimity.
I can only say that unless we had agreed to some majority directives, we should not have got some of the freeing-up we have because quite often it has been Germany, for example, that has been in the minority and not wanting to free-up things because she has quite a number of protective mechanisms and those things take a long time to negotiate. But we have actually benefited - this country has benefited - from the majority rule and we have been very much on the majority side and it is people who are less open than we are who have had to open up, for example some of their transport liberalisation - not all yet. [end p6]
For example, we have freedom of cabotage, that is to say ships of European countries could freely pick up business from one of our ports to another - but we could not always do that with our European colleagues, so again, it is in Britain's interests to try to get us trading by the same rules because it is not fair to Britain otherwise, it just is not, and as I say, someone has got to stand up for them. It is no good saying: “Oh well! Yes, I will go in!” if it is damaging to Britain.
Interviewer
But some of these things really could take a very long time to settle.
Prime Minister
No, they should not because the Single Market should be clear by 1992.
Obviously, the things that we have still to negotiate are the most difficult ones but do not forget I was President during the opening session when it became our target to get a Common Market by 1992. We got forty-eight directives through when we had it at Lancaster House and we were keen to get the Common Market because we said that this is why we joined Europe. But as you know, everyone was [end p7] operating still with their national barriers and the barriers were not coming down fast enough until we had this directive. It includes Stage 1 of Delors and it should be clear. It also depends on how far the Commission do because the Commission are the custodians of fair competition and Leon Brittan is the Competition Commissioner. [end p8]
Interviewer
Given that, as you say, the completion of the Single Market is during 1992 …
Prime Minister
Can I reveal these? Just you see, this was this morning when I was working early. State aids - in some Community countries levels of subsidy have risen very significantly. Risen! We are supposed to be on fair competition in recent years. Commission figures showed in 1986 Italy gave 24 billion ECU, that is about £16 billion aid to manufacturing industry, not including steel and ship-building. Did they give more to that as well?
Speaker
Yes. [end p9]
Prime Minister
The Federal Republic of Germany, 7.3 billion ECU. France 5.3 billion ECU. The United Kingdom 2.3 billion ECU. Well, you cannot talk about fair competition when they have still got subsidies like that. And it is no good accusing me of going for Europe, I have got to fight for Britain and I do.
Interviewer
Is it realistic to expect that those could be got rid of by 1992?
Prime Minister
It is up to the Commission to get rid of them, it is up to the Commission. They should be got rid of by 1992 because otherwise it is not a Single Market on the same rules.
And the other thing, British Telecoms and French Telecoms, French Telecoms, I came across this as a matter of fact in a reception on Monday night, I was alerted to this because some of our people were saying that we have opened up British Telecoms to competition here since it has been privatised but France has not yet opened up hers to competition. Now again it is not a Single Market unless you are all in fact operating on the same rules. But that is Stage 1 of Delors which we were all for in any event. [end p10]
Interviewer
Mr Lawson appeared to be implying last night that we would actually have more influence on these restrictions and unfair bits of playing field if we were in the Exchange Rate Mechanism.
Prime Minister
I must say we got in fact an agreement at Madrid on the ground rules on which we would play and it was Nigel LawsonNigel who had moved away from that and it is perfectly reasonable to say that when we go in we really must have the rules right.
Interviewer
There obviously is, I think a lot of people actually have, great sympathy for the view that there are some real issues of sovereignty involved in ERM and to have economic policy …
Prime Minister
On Stage 2 and 3 that is the guts of the matter, that is the guts of the matter, the heart of the matter if you prefer to use a nicer phrase. And that is why I think we all take the same view, that what Stage 2 and Stage 3 are about really are trying to get a political union and we firmly disagree with that. We firmly went in to cooperate as twelve nation states, to pool our sovereignty over certain things like safety standards and to play by the same ground rules, otherwise you could not have a Single Market, but still to keep our identity, our pride, our loyalty as sovereign states. [end p11]
When you have got the smaller loyalty I think it is much easier to cooperate sure of your smaller loyalty, much easier to cooperate with other people than it is if you are trying somehow to dissolve that smaller loyalty because you do not acquire a new larger loyalty that easily.
Interviewer
But you do not feel that sovereignty is tampered with necessarily by being in ERM provided all the other conditions that you talk about are fulfilled?
Prime Minister
No, going into the Exchange Rate Mechanism does circumscribe your capacity in some ways, obviously. Once you go into any system of semi-fixed exchange rates you have a duty to try to hold your currency there but the weapons you use are the same as outside but you have no option but to use them, when you are outside you can consider other things. But if your currency is coming well below down at the bottom of its bracket you have either got your interest rate or intervention, you have not got anything else. Or, if it is really sticky, then you have to go for a weekend conference to have a re-evaluation. But that becomes a kind of top priority. [end p12]
Interviewer
That, one feels, is not something that you instinctively care for?
Prime Minister
I think you have to be very careful that when you go in you have to have a pretty good likelihood of maintaining the value of your currency as it is by your existing policies. And that is one reason why we came to the agreement at Madrid. The fact is at the moment, whether one likes it or not, and I do not, that we have an inflation rate over twice what it is with Germany and that Germany is heading for a trade surplus this year of £35 billion and we are heading for a trade deficit of £20 billion.
Now obviously the two currencies therefore are in a very very different position and that is why one of the conditions for going in is we have to get inflation down and one of the ways in which you get inflation down it is of course by the use of the interest rate, is something that should also help us to get down the trade deficit.
You never expect to be absolutely on an even keel, you cannot, but I think you hope to get nearer to much more similar conditions than we have at the moment.
Interviewer
Because there has been so much argument about Europe, can I ask you to summarise what you actually see as the positive gains of the coming years in the Community, what you really want to extract from that? [end p13]
Prime Minister
If you read the Bruges speech you will find it. The Bruges speech was taken very selectively, the Bruges speech pointed out that half our history, rather more, has been bound up with Europe, of course it has, throughout the ages that a lot of our values are bound up with Europe. For example, our legal system came from Roman Law, the second Roman Empire, the Justinian Empire. That Europe at one stage was virtually coterminous with Christendom and so many of the values we espouse to human rights come either from Ancient Greece or from the values of Judaism and Christendom because those are the religions which in fact make the individual precious in his own right, entitled to dignity, liberty and choice.
So these come very much from Europe. Most of the art which we venerate and the music, European, and when I say European I do not confine it to the Community, of course not, it goes much wider than that. As I said in the Bruges speech, Warsaw was a European capital, Prague was a European capital, Budapest a European capital. Music, the art and the science. The interesting thing about science too is that other nations, a good deal of the discovery in Europe, but the great thing about Europe was that it had this enterprising capacity to turn scientific discovery to the advantage of ordinary folk, to get the new technology to take a lot of the drudgery out, to bring on the first industrial revolution. We started first and then the second industrial revolution of course came from going from the clanking, mechanical industrial revolution to the electronic revolution which means that industry becomes much cleaner. [end p14]
Now all of these things are essentially European and so many of them, which we call civilised values, the human rights, the rule of law, the freedom, the choice, the sound administration for which Britain is famous, not many people have such a marvellous Civil Service as we do.
We took these values all over the world and do you remember in that remarkable book: “The Triumph of the West”, JohnRobertsRoberts was it not, a Mr Roberts who was Vice-Chancellor, it was also televised, this was the triumph of the West because Western values, European values became kind of synonomous with civilisation the world over.
Now in China, for example, they had many scientific discoveries but they did not turn them to the advantage of the people. The Arabs were marvellous and of course the buildings fantastic.
But we had all of this in Europe and when you think of all of these values Europe has given to the world, how can one be anything other than very pro-European? But of course Europe was never united and it is thought in that book, “The Rise and Fall of Empires” by Kennedy, have you read that?
Interviewer
Yes, I have read that. [end p15]
Prime Minister
You know? You know what he says, that one of the reasons why all of this spirit of enterprise, of liberty and choice developed in Europe and why those who did not get liberty in one country, like the Huguenots moved around to another country, was because we were not a total unity. China was, China was under the Chinese, various Mandarins. India was under the Moguls. The Ottoman Empire, they were large and rigid. Europe was not. So things bubbled up in one place if they were not bubbling up in another and people could move around and they could go from it and so this is partly the reason which he gives for the never lose this variety.
So I would say that the Europe that we want is much more in keeping with the Europe that really gave the civilised values to the world and why I am passionate, as De Gaulle was, and it is a ‘Europe de patries’, freely cooperating together but because we live in a different industrial world, a different electronic world and a shrinking world, you have got to have certain standards, certain standards of safety because of your electronics and your wavelengths you have got to have certain standards with those and it is no earthly good, we want to go to fair trade on a much wider basis than Europe do not forget. Europe may be the centre of our trading capacity, it is not the limit.
If you look back into Europe the point of going into the Common Market to get the constraints to trade down was not to make us a trading block. All that does, and it is happening, is to stimulate other trading blocks, there is a blockism thing going at the moment. We have got a block and there are other people who want [end p16] to block, that is going the wrong way. It really was as an example to others to get their barriers down and therefore to be able to negotiate very effectively through the GATT.
This is why I say Europe may be the centre. If I might just add one thing in parenthesis, it was I and Mitterrand who got the Channel Tunnel going and that historically will do more for Britain and Europe than any other single thing. It was not any other Prime Minister, others cancelled it, we got it going.
So we have to negotiate through GATT and we will have to negotiate with the United States, with Japan, on agriculture through the GATT because we all subsidise it, so we will have to negotiate on things like intellectual property and services as well. So it is as an example and one must never think of Europe as the whole of our ambitions and hopes and dreams. It is not, it is as part of the wider world. Is that clear?
Interviewer
Yes, I think it is. Can I just on the domestic economic matter arising out of all this, you touched upon it a few moments ago, inflation is clearly higher than you would like it to be. Will the government be able to drive it down? [end p17]
Prime Minister
Yes, we have to stick to policies that will drive it down. It is going to take a little time to get down but we have to. The last election I think, or at the previous election we were down to about 3.8&pcnt; and the last election we were down to about 4&pcnt; I think. It is a phenomenon which has come up sharply in the last two years since 1987.
Interviewer
Is your determination to do it such that you would even if it was absolutely necessary be prepared to do what I think you did in the 1981 Budget which would actually be to fiscally adjust?
Prime Minister
Actually we have a surplus you know, we have a budget surplus now. When people talk about a one golf club economic policy, it is not correct. We have a fiscal surplus. There we had to reduce the deficit, but we have actually a fiscal surplus now and the great thing about that is that by using it to repay debt you actually are cutting the amount of your annual expenditure which has to go to servicing your borrowings so that releases that. I think it is something like £3 billion, so that releases it for things like the Health Service and so on which, well you can just imagine in a mortgage, if you have got quite a bit of your income going to your debt it reduces what you can spend on other things. The moment you are paying your mortgage off and reducing the amount that has to go [end p18] out each month you have more money available for other things. It is just the same nationally.
So we have got a budget surplus, it is perhaps a bigger surplus than we had expected because the economy is going slightly faster, the economy goes slightly faster and the demand is bigger, then obviously you will get a good income in in VAT. And your company is doing well, you get a good income in from taxing their profits.
So you just have to watch the amount which comes in and that of course depends to some extent on how your overall economy is doing. But unless you tackle inflation it gets worse and that is why you have got to tackle it and when it gets worse then your unit costs will get more out of kilter with Europe and this is why we have to watch economically now we have to stay competitive and that does mean manufacturers watching their unit Labour costs do not go up. Increasing productivity must go ahead if there are increases in pay otherwise the Germans will gain in competitiveness and we shall lose.
These principles do not change, they do not change.
Interviewer
But I think it is right that in 1981 you actually raised taxes? [end p19]
Prime Minister
Yes we did, yes we did, because we thought we had to get things on a sound basis and everyone said: “Oh there is no way in which you can grow by raising taxes”, that was because they were stuck in the Dickensian era that you somehow had to have a little bit of inflation to make things grow. We said no, you want to go to sound policies because once you say you need a little bit of inflation to make things grow you are printing money and you are then on a roller-coaster.
That was why the decade of the 1970s, when they held that view, was the decade also of inflation which led to a higher unemployment which took us a time to reverse. So it was far better and the whole of the Economic Summit changed course in its second phase, I did a speech about it in Toronto. In their first phase they had done fine-tuning, a bit of inflation here and then they found that they could not stop the inflation and they not only got inflation they were starting to get unemployment and it undermined savings, it undermines investment. So they stopped and said: “Right now we will go to sound policies, inflation down, public expenditure, only what you can afford rather than promising the earth.” Get down your budget deficits, we did, other people still have those problems. The country in Europe that has the biggest budget deficit and debt therefore cumulated debt in relation to its gross national product, is Italy and she has got a real problem. [end p20]
So we are very sound in some things but the inflation is the most urgent thing to get down and the steps you have to take to do that are steps that also will help to bring your trade deficit down.
And let me just say one other thing, I see sometimes that some manufacturers are starting to complain about shortage of demand. There is no way in which you can complain about shortage of demand when you have got people buying consumer goods from abroad at the rate they are now. The demand is there and it is up to our manufacturers to fill it. You cannot fill it on everything but so much of what is coming in is not hi-tech, it is ordinary things for construction, cement, chipboard, cladding, all the ordinary things for construction; television sets, radios, quite a lot of textiles.
Are you getting something that gives you the flavour of the thing?
Interviewer
Very much so, yes.
Prime Minister
The fundamentals of sound finance do not change and we have to return firmly to getting inflation down.
Interviewer
And that could include fiscal measures? [end p21]
Prime Minister
You have to look at both your fiscal and your interest rate. But do not think that we have not looked at fiscal, we have got this surplus.
Interviewer
Can I turn to this fashionable topic of Cabinet Government and ask you first of all how you see Cabinet Government operating?
Prime Minister
Just exactly as all my colleagues have ever seen it. Most of your decisions are done through Cabinet Committees, you cannot take most of your decisions, most of your decisions are done through your Overseas Defence Committee, through your Economic Committee, through your Home Affairs Committee, through your Legislative Committee. I chair only two committees the Economic and the Overseas and Defence. So I am not even present at some of the others.
The idea that everything comes to me is so ludicrous, I am not even present at the Home Affairs or Legislation Committees. It is when you get a difference in those committees that a Minister is entitled to say: “Right, I would like it resolved by Cabinet” and then of course regularly you have your regular sessions of Cabinet so that everyone knows what is going on and some of the big broad outlines of policy will come up in a paper to Cabinet first. [end p22]
But it is quite absurd, it has gone on just as it has. And of course the whole purpose of it is that even if one is not at a Home Affairs Committee or at a Legislative Committee, and not all Ministers are on every Committee, they cannot be, but you are all bound by the doctrine of collective responsibility. You get the papers, you can in fact put in a note for that to be considered if you wish but you are all bound by the doctrine of collective responsibility. [end p23]
Interviewer
Are there not cases, and I am not going into the detail of the ERM but it might be an example, but some issues where you are strong enough as Prime Minister to actually overrule even a majority of your Cabinet? Would you do that if you believed it was right to do it?
Prime Minister
There are some things which if you get a sudden split on it is not a basis for going forward on that because there is a split. Let me tell you there is one thing, ironically enough, which only comes to a Cabinet Committee or Cabinet on the day it is delivered and that is the Budget, very interesting, very interesting, that is the Budget. Of course there has been a good deal of consultation between First Lord of the Treasury and Second Lord of the Treasury and on particular matters with any other department involved. But it is just interesting. [end p24]
Interviewer
And that is traditional, that is historical?
Prime Minister
That is traditional.
Interviewer
You have said several times that you like people with strong opinions around you, you thrive on argument.
Prime Minister
Yes, of course, we do because that is the way we work out our policies on certain fundamental principles, but it is the application of them.
Interviewer
On the other hand, there has been quite a high casualty rate in your Cabinets of people who do have strong opinions. I am thinking of Norman Tebbit, John Biffen, Nigel Lawson, Michael Heseltine.
Prime Minister
Norman TebbitNorman went, as you know, he wanted to have a career outside. It is not uncommon for people who have done extremely well in Cabinet but who feel that they have another career, who feel maybe that they are not going to hit, they have no ambition to be Prime Minister, and they have, well look John Nott, early fifties, but [end p25] passionately wanted to be Secretary of State for Defence, then came and said: “Look I have got another career, I do not just want to be a Back Bench Member, I want to go and follow another career”. Nick Edwards, the same thing round about that time. Norman TebbitNorman I think also wanted to do the same and felt that he simply must be with Margaret TebbitMargaret more often which you can fully understand.
So it is not unusual at all, not unusual at all. Michael HeseltineMichael resigned for reasons you know, he could not accept collective responsibility, the whole of the rest of Cabinet could on that issue but he could not. And then Nigel LawsonNigel. I do not think anyone else. Well, Peter was Falklands and - Peter Carrington - I was deeply sorry to see him go, he was a great loss, he felt he had to.
Interviewer
Some people do say that you have run the Cabinet with a firmer rule, to put it mildly, than your predecessors?
Prime Minister
With all due respect I think we have quite a lot of discussion in our Cabinets now. Indeed I quite deliberately run it that way, quite deliberately and particularly at a time when you have got most of your legislation, your policy on your legislation, is being sorted out. And so in implementation you are actually putting your legislation through, that is the time when you can have quite a lot of just general political discussion and we do. [end p26]
Mind you I do feel that I am the custodian, well there are several of us I think who feel we are the custodian of the general direction and basis of policy on which we were elected and everyone knows that if they want to put up something against the manifesto I will say: “No, you may put it up but there can be no question of us going against the manifesto in this Parliament”. Such a case was child benefit, for example.
Interviewer
You do not see your style of government in this particular respect changing as some people have suggested it either should or will?
Prime Minister
No, no. I simply do not understand them. I have sat in a previous Cabinet, I knew Edward HeathTed's style of government, no-one said to him some of the things they say to me. I wonder why?
Interviewer
Bill Deedes was saying on the radio yesterday morning, and it is a favourite theme of his, that it is more difficult for you in some ways, your relationship with your Cabinet colleagues, precisely because you are a woman. Is that nonsense? [end p27]
Prime Minister
I have never found it difficult but I think that men put questions to me as a woman Prime Minister which they would not dream of putting to a man Prime Minister with the same characteristics. That is a failing of the man, not of the woman.
Interviewer
OK, well I stand rebuked.
Prime Minister
It is a psychological factor.
Interviewer
Yes …
Prime Minister
The failing of the man, not of the woman.
Interviewer
Yes, well it maybe we will get to the stage historically where people ask a man the same question because that is unusual.
Prime Minister
Yes, it is quite typical in the question. “She is the best man in the Cabinet”, to which I reply hotly: “I am not, I am much better than that, I am the best woman in the Cabinet”. It is typical, you see it is typical and it is still a psychology that is [end p28] still there and it explains quite a lot.
But it does not bother me, if you see what I mean, I just go on, I just go on evaluating the problems, the position and seeing that we go forward on the basis on which we were elected and that we are consistent and that we do not resort to doing things just because they are popular if they are not right to do because we would never command respect if we did.
Interviewer
The Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the House, Sir Geoffrey Howe, has I think, this is slightly bemusing for the electorate, he did not, we are told, consult you on his speech at the weekend. If I may say so, you did not I think consult him on the reshuffle?
Prime Minister
Reshuffle is a matter for the Prime Minister, always must be, always has been, never a question raised. You would also consult your Chief Whip particularly with your junior appointments. A reshuffle is a matter for the Prime Minister.
Interviewer
Do you not sometimes consult other colleagues? [end p29]
Prime Minister
Yes, you do sometimes on particular appointments but it has never been raised before, that thing, never. It is one of those things. No-one has a right in perpetuity to the office they hold.
I have to get up young people. You know why I hate doing reshuffles because I have said so often that it means asking people to leave a particular job and if you do not you get restlessness on the Back Benches and people coming up. Oh no, you are in very interesting country now.
Interviewer
Can I put it back the other way which is that I think some people would feel that it was pretty extraordinary that Sir Geoffrey did not consult you on a speech which was very much a central issue of the day about which there had been a lot of discussion?
Prime Minister
Contrary to what you think, I do not require speeches to come in here. First I would not have time to vet them and secondly I would not ask unless they are doing something which is going away from the policy which we have decided.
Interviewer
And you did not feel that speech did that? [end p30]
Prime Minister
Geoffrey HoweHe was not to know what I was going to say on the Walden programme, he was not to know that I had done it. He was sticking to the Madrid principles which were laid down there and so was I. So it was in fact the same thing.
But I do not expect people to come steaming in here and say: “Look, this is the speech I am going to deliver”. They might, if they have any doubts about it or think that it does not quite represent or is a departure from policy, we might just have a word about it or if it is a tricky thing internationally and you have got to watch the wording.
Interviewer
Can I ask you about something else which is said about you from time to time, that your great, or unique instinct is for realising what the British people want and that has really been one of your enormous strengths?
Prime Minister
Yes, and they are not really interested in the ERM. I can tell you they are fed up to the back teeth with it and they are bored. They do not understand what it is, they are not really interested in it and they are fed up with it. [end p31]
Interviewer
Right, however over ten years of being Prime Minister, inevitably because of the extraordinary nature of the office and the time that you have been doing it and also because of security things which are absolutely nobody's fault except the terrorists, but you actually have become cut off from ordinary people.
Prime Minister
No I have not, no I have not, but when I do a regional tour it does not get very much publicity. We went up to Ely and we were round about the town and we did some shopping, we were through the cathedral, everyone was streaming through the cathedral. We went to Nottingham, we were in the university, we went to the research departments, we went then to the school, we did the whole opening of a school full of parents and pupils, we went round it. I went to have a look at the Imperial College of Technology.
I went to Oxford to have a look at some of their research and open an Interdisciplinary Research Centre on the structure of proteins - always scientists everywhere - and we went to Magdalen for lunch and there was a demonstration outside, of course there was.
We went to Cambridge, the Polar Institute. We went to Cumbria to do a business award. We went to a sweet factory in Scotland in Dundee. We did a big NSPCC reception. We went to the Volvo factory in Dundee. [end p32]
This is in the last few weeks! And the day when they were screaming about that, I had 150 people in here on Friday and I had 150 people here on Monday. [end p33]
Interviewer
So you are in touch with ordinary people.
Prime Minister
Of course I am and I am up in my constituency and we had 450 to a celebration for my 30th anniversary for Finchley on Saturday.
Here you are coming to me with this and I can tell you in the last few days I have had 300 people through here representing different things, quite apart from the small groups who are coming in for contact, and 500 people of my constituency. That is in the last few days. I am not cut off and the instincts are still there! That is why I do not flinch when they ask me about the death penalty or law and order. [end p34]
Interviewer
Which you have not changed your mind on?
Prime Minister
No! That is why I do not flinch when I know full well that people work for their families, that whatever they might say in opinion polls … if someone asks you would you rather have more money to a hospital than have tax reductions, you know what the answer is going to be, but you know full well that their ambition is to give their children a better house, a better start, and therefore that they expect to have a bigger share of their own earnings. Of course! That is what makes the world go round!
I know full well that they do want to have some independence and money of their own. That is why we fought for housing, that is why we fought for shares. I know that they want to have something to leave to their grandchildren. That is why we have created more wealth, why we have spread it more widely than ever before. That is why we have given more and more powers and responsibility back to people and this artificial authoritarian thing you have got is diametrically opposed to the truth. They pay lower rates of tax - they have more of their own money. We have taken the sale of council houses to the people and now in Scotland, we are doing an experiment of rents into mortgages, so they have greater powers of ownership. It is the Socialists who oppose it because Socialists want to control people's lives. They want to control industry. I tell them they have not got a clue how to do it. Heaven knows, I [end p35] was born and bred into trade, worked in industry and married into industry. Governments ought not to have control over those. You get them out. So that is a limitation of the powers of Government again. You take away some of the controls. You have not got to trot along with a passport now to a bank to get a stamp for £250. All more powers to people. The reforms on education, more powers to the parents and the local teachers. The reforms on hospitals: more powers and responsibility to the people.
Interviewer
That brings me to the point that I think is fascinating, which is how much further? In other words, does the Thatcher Revolution go on? Are there greater areas of choice that you want to open up?
Prime Minister
You have your fundamental principles which are that governments are there to serve the liberties of the people under a rule of law and not to make people conform to the diktat of government. The difference from socialism is that the diktat of government matters - the plan and people conform to the plan. Conservatism and liberalism - the things that inform America - it is all in the American Declaration of Independence. It is the human rights, the freedom under a rule of law because the rule of law is what makes freedom work between people and the Government is there [end p36] to have limited powers but very strong in those limitations; one of them is to run the finances soundly; another is to make certain that we are always properly defended; a third is to have a firm rule of law; fourth, your enterprise policies - you have got to stop people getting cosy monopolies so that you have got freedom of competition; fifthly, you have got to have a certain fundamental framework of law - civil law - within which you businesses can operate so you have got to have your safety at work, certain fundamental principles.
The next point is you simply must enlarge opportunity. There will always be people to whom opportunity has not yet spread sufficiently and that is why we put fantastic emphasis on education - this is the way I came up - fantastic emphasis on education and finally, you have got to have your fundamental social services and these days your fundamental Health Service because no-one must lack medical attention because they cannot afford it.
Beyond that, you have got your framework of law and you leave the enterprising spirit to get on with it.
Interviewer
But how much of a job, as it were, have you done? Some say you are 95 percent of the way. [end p37]
Prime Minister
We are getting very well ahead with these fundamental principles. You will always have to keep them up-to-date; things change: the way your ships are navigated, the way you do your coastguards, these change, so you have your Merchant Shipping Act.
You will always have people on your fishing trying to take out more than they should and so you have to have your conservation.
You have always got to adapt your principles to present times because times move on. You have got to make them adaptable to present times just as certain fundamental rules of behaviour apply to all times but they adapt according to contemporary times, although the rules are still there to be observed.
And, also you know, it is the new thing; is it J. Russell?
“New occasions teach new duties;
Time makes ancient good uncouth;
They must upwards still and onwards,
Who would keep abreast of truth!”
That is so. And so science, which has given us so much has now brought us to the truth about the atmosphere around our globe. We cannot ignore that. New occasions teach new duties, new information, so of course we have to deal with it and I am afraid the habits and customs of people and the changing of packaging have meant there is a lot of packaging to throw down. Do not ask me why they throw it down. In a very ordinary family, we were taught to wrap it up and take it home. [end p38]
And also, if I might say so, in earlier days when you were trying to get good education to everyone, good housing to everyone, a reasonable income to everyone, so many social workers thought: “When we have got that, that is fine. It will be quite easy to run the world!” Not a bit of it! You are then up against the problems of human nature. Yes, some people are downright evil, some people are downright selfish and they always will be, but they are a minority, but you have got to protect the others from the violence - strong rule of law; you have got to start to protect young children and people from drugs; you have got to do as much as you can with terrorism and a thing that worries me enormously is that sometimes you get intimidation, you get people intimidated out of their views - you can have it in a local community. That is wrong. But these are three fundamental behavioural problems which you have to try to protect the innocent and the majority of your people against - but they are difficult.
Interviewer
Your drive legislatively is still in top gear.
Prime Minister
And, of course, we are getting a much more wider range of broadcasting now, so we have to find a way of keeping the standards up and my goodness me, didn't they fight me over that one? [end p39]
Interviewer
Who did you have in mind particularly, broadcasting organisations?
Prime Minister
Didn't they fight me, some of the people in your occupation, over actually wanting to maintain standards in broadcasting? Because there are some things with being a Tory which as a matter of public policy you really must kind of defend your people against, things which would undermine the fundamental honour, decency of society and so I could see that we are going to have far more television channels, we were not going to be able to stop them and so we set about trying to see that we did not get blue films, pornography, pouring into living rooms. Yes, and some of your confr&egra;res fought me all the way as they fought me when I said: “Look! You too are in the battle against terrorism!” But we got it through, we got it through the Council of Europe, the big one, twenty-two nations and now we have got it through the European Community, certain things on standards.
Now you say I am combative. I have to be! And we won! We won over the Common Agricultural Policy - yes, I was combative. We had to bring it under control and bring surpluses under control and the budget under control. I won over the European Budget - yes, we were combative and there were many people who said: “Oh go on, you settle for half a loaf!” and we won! And that is why Britain's reputation is high - because I will not be a doormat, I will not make Britain a doormat for other people to walk on - and the world knows it. [end p40]
Interviewer
Yes, that is certainly true!
Prime Minister, how long do you want to go on?
Prime Minister
I have no idea. We are now coming to the stage when there will be plenty of people who can take over.
Interviewer
Do you think that is, as I think you implied in another interview with Brian Walden some time ago, from the, as it were, next generation of politicians?
Prime Minister
It is not for me to say but there are a number of the next generation who the Party could choose. It is never for me to say. I do not believe any Prime Minister should try to designate his or her successor. It is not for me to say. It will depend upon what things are like at the time and depend upon the personalities - never for me to say. I came from the back. It is not for me to say whether they take someone from the front, the middle or the back but I do know that there are several people who could do it - in my view. I might fall out of a helicopter tomorrow! [end p41]
Interviewer
I have heard one or two of your former colleagues say that it is not inconceivable that you would fight a fifth election if you won the fourth.
Prime Minister
Really?
Interviewer
Yes.
Prime Minister
That is nice of them, isn't it?
Interviewer
Do you think that is likely?
Prime Minister
No, because I think people would think it was time for someone else to carry the torch, but I want the torch still to be burning and burning bright. It has done wonderful things for our country, it really has. That is what matters to me. [end p42]
Interviewer
But you do plan to lead the Party into the next election?
Prime Minister
I hope so.
Interviewer
Can I, on a much more practical note, ask you what you intend to get out of the UN General Assembly on environmental issues when you are talking to them? I mean what you intend to do.
Prime Minister
Whatever we do has got to be scientifically sound and we must do it because we can deal with the regional things and local things but the atmosphere round the Earth is what enables life to exist on Earth and it is no good Third World countries saying: “Look! We cannot do anything!” Some of the most primitive methods of farming have been responsible for the desertification - there are quite considerable areas.
We do not know the extent of climate change, but if it was such that the monsoons moved, it would be those tropical countries which would suffer most of all, so we have to say to them: “Look! It is not only us doing the ozone layer, not only us trying to get more and more energy efficiency, not only us both planting trees and we have got to help you to keep your trees!” And it is not only in [end p43] the interest of the Western World - it is fundamentally in the interests of the whole of the tropical world because they would suffer from climate change.
But it is no good trying to go back to some simple village life. Life is not like that. We have got to tackle it scientifically particularly with the global climate but also we have got to watch the seas around us, because it is the food chains. The ecology of the seas is the other thing which traps a lot of the carbon dioxide and makes it go down to the bottom of the ocean instead of up into the atmosphere. We do not fully understand the mechanism of it but we know it happens and if you take out too much from the seas, if you alter that food chain or if you treat the Continental Shelf in such a way, it will be quite critical.
So you really have got to have some respect for the balance of Nature but that does not mean to say you have not got to have any pesticides. Last year, there was a plague of locusts and we were jolly glad that we were able to give help to Morocco and some other countries with pesticides - there would not have been any crops - so you have got to be reasonable about it and have a thorough scientific basis, but it does require cooperation.
I beg them not not to set up new organisations. There is a thing in politics where if you do not know what to do, set up a Royal Commission or new organisation and it does not get you anywhere. [end p44]
Interviewer
One other short-term thing. Have you yet taken a view on what you personally will do in what I think will be a free vote, namely Warnock and embryo research?
Prime Minister
This is going to be a very deep battle because people genuinely and sincerely will hold different views and I think, again, we must have a bounden duty to the very best scientific advice.
I have made it my business to meet a number of scientists who are actually doing early research on the embryo because in the early days in so many women the ovum is fertilised and it does not adhere and they are not able to have children and in those early days, that is when the linkage occurs and they are just as sensitive to the laws of life as others.
I do not sit on the legislative committee, so I have not got the full Bill yet, but I will just have to consider it very carefully as it comes, as each vote comes up.
The point that I wanted to make is that most of the scientists who work on it are just as sensitive about the fundamental nature of life and its sanctity, most of them, or those I have met. [end p45]
Interviewer
You have been quite impressed by the case review for continuing with that research, for instance?
Prime Minister
The great battle will come between whether you can do any at all between nought and fourteen days and I think we will have to look at the evidence very carefully.
Interviewer
Do you ever get fed up and decide you want to go off and do something else?
Prime Minister
Well if I do, it only lasts a very very short time and then I am back into the issues and on with the next job and that is very much a feminine characteristic - getting on with the job next in hand, because there is always plenty to do.
Interviewer
And you do not worry too much about the polls? There were some rather savage ones at the week-end. [end p46]
Prime Minister
No. What I worry desperately about is keeping this whole thing going forward on the basis in which I and the whole Party believe which is freedom, choice under a rule of law, and the world is coming that way. We must not falter now!