Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

Interview for TV Times

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: No.10 Downing Street
Source: Thatcher Archive: COI transcript
Journalist: Trevor McDonald, for TV Times
Editorial comments: 1100-1145.
Importance ranking: Minor
Word count: 4806
Themes: Arts & entertainment, Autobiographical comments, Autobiography (childhood), Parliament, Conservatism, Education, General Elections, Family, Media, Science & technology, Sport, Trade union law reform

Interviewer

Prime Minister, I was wondering whether you had a general view of television. Most people seem to find some way of encapsulating what they feel about it in one particular way or another. Do you have a philosophy about it, as it good or bad?

Prime Minister

I do not think you can say it is either good or bad, I think it is how you use it. It enlarges your vision, it can enlarge your knowledge, or if you just use it for pure entertainment or just sit in front of it because you have not anything else to do and are not discriminating about it, then I think it can be bad. Very well used it undoubtedly enlarges people's understanding, enlarges their knowledge, it brings all sorts of things to their attention and notice that they would never otherwise know about and it is extremely interesting.

Interviewer

What do you use it for? [end p1]

Prime Minister

Obviously I use it for the news quite a bit because at any hour of the day or night it is very convenient if you can go and turn it on and know that there will be news at a certain time. We also use it for a little bit of relaxation, we love to watch any detective stories, you know Hercule Poirot, anything like that we think is absolutely marvellous, or any of the Alec Guinness things.

Interviewer

Like the spy …

Prime Minister

Yes that is right, that was a fantastic series.

Interviewer

Do you watch Colombo?

Prime Minister

We can watch sometimes on Saturday night, but Saturday night is not the best evening for television at all. Sometimes television are very kind to us and will let us have a video of some of their best things so for example we can watch over Christmas, over the Christmas Recess. We also love anything to do with nature or the environment which is really lovely, there are some marvellous things. They are particularly good, they are fantastic. Cameras have got better and better and they are just marvellous and again they enlarge your knowledge and understanding. And sometimes you will have some of the art and the music things we watch as well. [end p2] And we love Paul Daniels too, we think he is absolutely terrific.

Interviewer

Who organises all this?

Prime Minister

It is not organised, it is not organised. It is only on a Saturday night we have usually both been working quite late and might suddenly look and say: “Is there anything that we can watch over supper?” , you know supper on laps. I am afraid quite often there is not really anything that appeals to us, though it varies.

Interviewer

Is there any conflict about what you should look at?

Prime Minister

No, sometimes there is a detective story on a Saturday night, sometimes it is a master class, sometimes there is an opera, sometimes Paul Daniels. And then sometimes they move it all to Friday and that is out.

Interviewer

I just wonder if there is ever a conflict between you and Mr Thatcher?

Prime Minister

No, Denis Thatcherhe wants to watch golf but that comes on later and of course one does watch some of the sports. And I really think you know television has done wonders for snooker. But it is very [end p3] interesting, I think that the people who play golf and the people who play snooker, normally they are very very professional in that whatever it is right to do by the rules they abide by and it makes such a difference you know, there are not any histrionics usually.

Interviewer

Are you a Coronation Street fan?

Prime Minister

We have watched Coronation Street because the characters are absolutely terrific and when I went to see the set and saw Rovers Return and saw Alf Robert's shop and met some of the people it really came alive for me, much much more than just watching it. And you have no idea, well you have because you are in the business, the difference between actually seeing it and seeing it on the screen. It comes alive, the characters come alive, and then of course you speak to them. It was fascinating, I loved it.

Interviewer

I am glad you mentioned the characters because I have been asked to ask you, if you were to choose playing one, which would you choose?

Prime Minister

Oh goodness me, I do not know, but obviously I would have a particular interest in the grocery shop! [end p4]

Interviewer

What about television as far as Parliament is concerned, do you think MPs should be groomed to appear on television?

Prime Minister

It is such a difficult question to answer. You are not until you watch yourself aware of your own mannerisms at all and if you have got some then obviously it is best to get rid of them because that gets in the way of the message you want to give. On the other hand, if you have got to sit there, whether it is in an interview or whether it in the House of Commons, thinking all the time: I cannot do this, that or the other, then your mind is not wholly on what you say.

I did have just a look, I think most of us did, have a look at it before it went on television and unless you keep your chin up then all they get is the top of your head. But that is the positioning of the cameras at the moment because it is not permanent. When they get it permanent I think that they will position it a good deal better. And so one does just automatically now, it has become second nature.

Interviewer

Do you watch yourself?

Prime Minister

No, I have never watched myself, I have never gone back over film and if the news comes on and it is something about me, I will say: “Turn it off” and they say: “We want to see it” , so I have to go out. No I do not, we are the one person who really does not [end p5] know what they are like.

Interviewer

It is very extraordinary, I never do either.

Prime Minister

I never do, never do. I could not possibly do it. When we were doing a test run in the House of Commons I did watch it because it had not gone out and that was … I never watch myself on the news. I never have, I just cannot do it.

Interviewer

You must have great difficulty getting rid of the bits of you in the news because you always seem to be there one way or another?

Prime Minister

Well not always, not always, thank goodness.

Interviewer

Do you mean state performances where you make a speech, like the Party Conference?

Prime Minister

Yes that is right, or where I have done one of the shows or where I have done a long interview. I just do not do it. Other people will tell me what I have done wrong. [end p6]

Interviewer

How do you react to things said about you on television, when your opponents say: “I think she is mad, I think she has done this and it is stupid” ? Do you watch and react to that?

Prime Minister

There is no earthly point being in politics and getting touchy or tetchy. This is part of it and if you are going to let that worry you then you are going to take your mind off what is your main job which is to do what you want to do. It is just too small-minded to get fed up about that. It happens and it happens again and again and again and it will go on happening and it is meant to hurt and you must really put a little bit of an armour round yourself, a little bit, and it is best not to hear it.

Interviewer

If your children were much much younger, would you have a problem about deciding what they should look at on television and what they should not?

Prime Minister

Yes I think so, I think it is absolutely wrong for children just to come back from school and then kind of sit down and look at it and then have to be dragged away to do their homework. I do think you have to have a little bit of discipline about it otherwise they see things that they should not see or they see too much violence and it must eventually have an effect on them.

Do you know at the Children's Summit recently I think it was the Luis Lacalle HerreraPresident of Uruguay who said that had we calculated that if a [end p7] child watched television for the average amount per week, which is an astonishing amount, it is something like four hours a day, an astonishing amount, then by the time that child was eighteen they would have seen 100,000 deaths on television. It was a statistic which, normally statistics do not shake you because they are statistics, but all of a sudden it brought it home.

So I think that yes you have to be discriminating both on what they see and on the time they spend, although you have always got to know that children will be children, and so will we, you always want to watch what is forbidden, so the time you are out, or they will go to tea with someone else and see what they should not. But I think it is what they see regularly and the regular habits which really matter. And I think that you should teach them to get involved in things themselves and not merely to be a spectator in front of a television set the whole time.

Interviewer

If I were to say to you: do you think news should be censored, you would of course say no. But I suspect what is really behind this question is do you think there are some things in the news which you might like to change in some way or the other?

Prime Minister

I think that there are certain rules of decency and not letting children see the terrible things that can happen. I think there are certain rules which are common sense and consideration for others, and particularly for children, that you should observe and which are not always observed. And I think that you have to bear in mind that the general standards of our country are affected not [end p8] by what government says or necessarily only by the law, but by what people themselves permit and the way in which people themselves conduct themselves, what they tolerate which they should not.

Sometimes you will get parents getting together and saying: “We are not going to tolerate our comparatively young teenagers being out at night and not knowing where they are and we are not going to tolerate them coming back any hour of the night. We are all going to get together and say: Look, these are certain rules” . So whichever way you look at it, when you live as a country, when you live as a village, when you live as a town, you have to have certain rules by which to live. But they are the rules of decency, they are the rules of courtesy and consideration for others and particularly the rules that you do not frighten children or alarm them. Because these things go round and round in their minds and they get fears long before they have any knowledge or common sense to try to counter it.

Interviewer

You said earlier that you do not react to criticism of yourself because it would be very small-minded.

Prime Minister

Well, you do react to it but there is no point in being overwhelmed by it, there just is not.

Interviewer

Is there a difference between that kind of political attack and the kind of satire that you see on Spitting Image? And do you think that there are times when satire can be a bit cruel really, [end p9] there is a very fine line sometimes?

Prime Minister

Oh yes, but satire is cruel, satire and caricature are cruel because they take what they see as a characteristic and then they extend it and therefore it can give a false … but satire again is part of life, it is part of theatre.

Interviewer

So you are not offended by Spitting Image?

Prime Minister

No it is part of theatre, no, no. We are in a tough business, we are in a harsh and cruel business, but we are in it because in spite of that we want really to get certain things done and it is really what you want to achieve, that you must not be put off by those things.

Interviewer

Would you like to be able to turn the tables on some of the people who poke fun at you, if you got a chance would you enjoy rather doing that, would like to make a spitting image of …?

Prime Minister

A spitting image no, but what I think is much more subtle …

Interviewer

You must see your political opponents in a certain way, would you like to caricature them in that way? [end p10]

Prime Minister

No, no, it does not necessarily appeal to me at all. What I think is much much more subtle is the Yes Minister, Yes Prime Minister. That is subtle, it is not cruel, it is not putting in a knife and turning it, no-one can possibly object to that or find anything but fun in it.

Interviewer

Do you get nervous before you appear?

Prime Minister

Always, always, always, and I shall never not get nervous.

Interviewer

You must remember your first appearance then and how you felt then?

Prime Minister

It was in an election when I was a candidate and I went on a panel. But we did not know very much about television in those days, we really did not. If you look back at some of those things, they were very much less professional than they are now. But the thing then that you had to learn was that if you are answering a question I would naturally tend to explain all the ins and outs about it to put it all in context. It is quite different, you have just got to get some things over in one or two points quickly and it is not therefore something that will wholly enlarge your understanding, it becomes a debating medium rather than something which enlarges. [end p11]

Interviewer

Like the American sound bite, as they say?

Prime Minister

It is a terrible phrase, is it not, it is one that has just come in.

Interviewer

It is, yes.

Prime Minister

Yes it is and it is usually one that gives a slightly misleading impression.

Interviewer

But nevertheless your point remains, you have to encapsulate what you want to say very very briefly?

Prime Minister

Yes you do and in some things people tend to have a flamboyant phrase, it is not necessarily the best way to understand politics.

Interviewer

Do you have plans to abolish the TV licence?

Prime Minister

I do not at the moment, no, but please let us have one thing clear. It is not a television licence. Not a penny piece goes to [end p12] independent television, it is a BBC licence. And it is not a licence, it is a levy because it is compulsory even though you never watch it, even though you never watch BBC, even though you had a black box which prevented you watching it. It is a compulsory levy and it is not like if you do not pay your rates or your Community Charge then that is recovered as a civil debt, but not to pay your BBC licence is a criminal offence.

Now I would far rather it were not a criminal offence, I think it should be a civil debt to recover. But I think people still call it a television licence and when I say to them: “But you do realise not a penny piece goes to another television station, it all goes to BBC” , then they are quite surprised. [end p13]

Interviewer

How do you justify a deduction of £1.25 from the TV licence for the blind?

Prime Minister

Blind people can get the hearing part of television, for which they do not have to pay a television licence because there is no sight involved in it, so they do not really have to pay anything. Some of them still do nevertheless because they listen to the television and that small amount has a history attached to it, but it was the original part of the licence which went to radio—that is the justification for it and it has not been changed. But it is far better for blind people to get it from the Royal National Institute for the Blind so they do not have to pay a licence fee at all because they cannot see it but they are entitled just to listen to it without paying a licence fee. [end p14]

Interviewer

Prime Minister, you touched on this earlier but do you think that television can incite people? You talked about the dangers of violence, it is awful for children to see it and so on.

Prime Minister

I think it can give them ideas. If you have people watching it who have not really been taught either at home or at school that there are certain rules by which you live, I think there is an imitation factor.

Interviewer

Prime Minister, I now want you to tell me when the next election will be and I want you to tell me why people should vote Conservative!

Prime Minister

I do not know when the next election will be because you look at it at each possible time and decide whether you are going to take it then.

Why they should vote Conservative? Because we really, I believe, have done all of the things that are best in keeping with the British character, that is to say we are people who take initiative, we are enterprising people, we are people who are naturally good allies, we are not people who have to be told what to do and so steadily we changed over from socialism because socialism is about putting the maximum amount of taxing power as [end p15] well as powers in the hands of the central government, so they have far higher taxation than a Conservative government because they like to have more control over your money; so they have far more industries under the control of central government even though they do not know how to run them, because they want to control industries; so they have far more regulations on incomes, on prices, on dividends, on foreign exchange control because theirs is controlling the lives of people; so they object when we try to say people should be able to own their own houses, a property-owning democracy, own more shares, have bigger amounts of savings and be able to leave them to their children because private property puts power into the hands of the people.

We have throughout believed passionately that Government is there not to dominate the lives of people but to serve their liberties and for that you need a strong rule of law and so of course we brought taxation down; of course we denationalised industries to get them out; of course we tried to let people buy their own council houses; of course when we denationalised industries we said the workforce must have a chance to buy the shares for a lesser amount and now we find we are really getting a capital-owning democracy and for the first time in our history ordinary folk can in fact have a house to leave to their children and grandchildren, they have quite a lot more savings. I do not know whether you looked at the figure I gave at the Party Conference the other day; old-age pensioners now have twice as much in real terms over and above inflation to leave to their children as they did in the past. [end p16]

But this is a real belief in liberty. We did not just do those things as a miscellaneous programme—we did them because we believed in them.

There is one other thing: we found the trade unions were not serving the wishes of the people who belonged to them. The trade union bosses were dominating them; they were making them come out on strike even if they did not want to, so we said that is not in keeping with our beliefs, you simply must have certain ballots of people before they come out on strike and you must insist that they have ballots to appoint their leaders because in fact the trade unions were harming the interests of their own members and of course by making them come out on strike so much were harming the interests of other trade unionists as well as other people and it is a great comfort to me that now we have the lowest number of strikes in the post-war period.

So this is a fundamental real philosophy: Government are there to serve the people, not to control their lives. Schools: we want the money which goes to educating children, not to go to the local authority administration but into what is called a “Grant Maintenance School” which is free to parents—the money is going to the school and do you know, the headmasters are saying: “Good Heavens! We never knew we had as much money as this!” Of course there is more because it is not being absorbed in a local authority administration and it is giving the parents and teachers much more say over what they do.

You set the framework, a curriculum, and you must know how a child is doing and come up to certain standards and then you say: [end p17] “Now the domination goes away from local government, the responsibility comes to those who run the school!” because that money, which is spent on those schools and on hospitals, is people's money, it is paid for by the taxpayer and you must in fact in public services see that they have choice as to where they go and therefore the money moves around with the pupil—and it is working!

I remember George Bernard Shaw saying once—you probably know the quotation— “Freedom incurs responsibility!” He went on to make a very interesting comment: “That is why many men fear it!” Just because some fear it does not mean to say that you can deprive other people of that freedom. We reckon that we changed the balance of power, took a lot away from Government and gave it back to people where it should always have been and this has been rolling back the frontiers of socialism—the Old Clause 4—nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange, one regulation after another, maximum taxation, 83 per cent was the top rate of tax on earnings when we came in, it is now 40 per cent. They even taxed savings more heavily than they taxed earnings even though for most of us your savings are made out of your earnings.

Those are very good things and it is all in keeping with the British character and once again the enterprise was not showing during the years of the 1970s and I began to wonder whether it had been snuffed out; it has not! It is there! We just uncovered it again and people are starting up on their own.

Because we have taken down taxation, far more people are looking at the Arts—I got the figures the other day. Far many more people get to look at this enormous treasure. [end p18]

We have spent a little bit more on science; I would like to spend a lot more, partly because it is my own background and partly because I am fascinated with some of the new things that are coming out, but it is this enlargement of liberty which is every man's birthright and we are there to serve it, not to dominate them, to tell them what to do. It is so arrogant if you tell them what to do.

Interviewer

Prime Minister, whenever we see you, you are always rushing about on matters of state—in fact you have a very tight schedule now. You did tell me that you occasionally relax but when you do, other than watching television, how do you relax?

Prime Minister

Walking, reading. You can pick up a book towards the end of the day and you often have to, really because otherwise all of the things are going round and round in your mind, you cannot get rid of those unless you turn your mind to something else. But I think really best of all you have a few friends in and talk to them and you exchange experiences and ideas. That really was what we learned to do, I suppose, at home, but that was against a background, you know, when we did have radio but there was no television and radio meant a great deal to us. We did listen to quite a lot of talks and then we listened to “Monday Night at Eight O'Clock” and ITMA and so on but because we did not have anything to sit down in front of, we were always taught to do things so you went [end p19] out and joined various associations and did things and we really always were taught to read a lot and our parents did talk to us about things that were going on. That is partly having been brought up living over the shop, people come into a shop and in those days it was very much personal service and you stayed open quite late and you learned to discuss things with people. My Alfred Robertsfather was always passionately interested in everything that was going on so we talked and discussed and you talked about industry, you talked about living history, about the history we were creating and how you should tackle it and that has always stayed with me so one of the nicest things is just to ask some people in for supper and you just sit down and talk about things.

We do watch old films sometimes, the Ginger Rogers and the Fred Astaire ones, the marvellous musicals and the dancing, fabulous! And when you think that they had to do all of those dancing scenes in one sequence—absolutely fantastic! Some of the acting, some of the Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn films and Robert Donat, oh they were fantastic! And Orson Welles, oh marvellous! And there are still some extremely good ones made.

Interviewer

I hope you find some time to watch “News at Ten” in all this! We would be very distressed if you did not!

Prime Minister

It is half an hour and it is very good; you get a good go at the news but we do switch off when it comes to me! [end p20]

Interviewer

Prime Minister, finally, I was told that I should ask you about whether you had anything else that you wanted to do as a non-political achievement but if I could turn this question around, I was wondering whether there was any television job that you saw that you would like to do and before you answer, I would have thought you would be a very good moderator of something like “Question Time” , like Sir Robin Day or something like that.

Prime Minister

No, I do not think so. I would like something that I could put over because I believe it it. I am not a television professional.

Interviewer

You would be a very good moderator; you have that very good way of guiding people and getting people to do what you want them to do. I would have thought you would be very good at that.

Prime Minister

There are some remarkable things. Some of the very good programmes are the science programmes explaining things and I would quite like to be involved in those because of one's background and because here one of the things that I do which is partly for the job but partly because of the way I do the job is that we do have little scientific seminars. We had one recently when I said to a scientific adviser: “Get me half a dozen young people who are [end p21] really working at the frontiers of knowledge!” and then we have a little seminar and some Ministers and some of our scientific advisers and these young people come in and tell us of the work they are doing. People are very interested in the “what” , “where” and “why” of things. The interesting thing about these young people is that they are not only good at doing the work but because they know all about it, they really can communicate the most difficult concepts in the simplest of ways.

I think the treasures of the scientific world are the ones that still have to be discovered and I was thrilled when I went to Prague recently and they took me round the municipal square and said: “Look at that balcony over that house! That is where Einstein came out!” Absolutely thrilled!

People are really thrilled when we get a new scientific breakthrough. There is quite a bit done on television as “The Sky At Night” and so on and there is quite a lot of explaining to young people. I think we could do more about these fantastic discoveries that we are making and I would love to be involved in that.

I was very lucky in the way I was taught art. We were really shown some of the marvellous great paintings of the world and taught about them, taught how to look at them, taught about the composition, taught about the way the light came. You understand so much more about things when you know some of the technicalities which can be explained quite simply and that is done sometimes on television with the structure of some of the great symphonies or some of the piano pieces and how to sing things; you know, “Don't hit a note, incorporate it!” [end p22]

I believe that education must be obviously for the world of work but that is not the limitation of it. Really, there are so many wonders in the world that this is where it really can be used to enlarge people's ideas but not in the way that children say: “Oh Mummy! That is education! I don't want to watch that!” You say it is education and it dies—it must be exciting and something they want to do. I was taught science as a series of mystery stories— “This is the problem! We will tell you the solution next time!” It is really fascinating. It really is a remarkable world and no-one should ever be bored—there is so much of interest and fascination to learn about—and it is how to communicate in a way which just stimulates the interest.