Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

Remarks visiting Birmingham (denies avoiding demonstration)

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: Birmingham
Source: (1) Birmingham Evening Mail, 12 November 1971 (2) Birmingham Post, 13 November 1971
Journalist: (2) Andrew Moncur, Birmingham Post, reporting
Editorial comments: Time and place uncertain. The Morning Star, 13 November 1971, reported MT saying, "I just got out at the door at which the car stopped".
Importance ranking: Minor
Word count: 1123
(1) Birmingham Evening Mail, 12 November 1971

‘A POLITICAL STUNT,’ SAYS COUNCILLOR

Women in school row with Minister

A row broke out today over demonstrations which took place while the Secretary of State for Education, Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, was visiting Birmingham schools.

Councillor Neil Scrimshaw, Vice-Chairman of the city's Education Committee, said he would lodge a complaint at the next meeting of the Committee over “the deliberate attempt to use parents and children in a political stunt.”

Placard—carrying demonstrators, protesting against Government education policy, waited for Mrs. Thatchers at Chandos Junior and Infants' School, Deritend, her first call of the day.

Later, when she arrived for lunch at Birmingham Council House, Mrs. Thatcher was confronted by a crowd of about 300 students, crying: “Thatcher out.”

At Chandos Junior School the demonstrators—about a dozen mothers and students—were foiled when Mrs. Thatcher arrived at another entrance and went into the school, past dustbins and through the kitchens.

Mrs. Thatcher said later she had not deliberately avoided the demonstrators.

She had no idea they were waiting at the other entrance.

Shortly before she arrived there was a clash between the headmaster of the school, Mr. T. H. Milward and Councillor Mrs. Theresa Stewart, Labour councillor for Billesley ward, who was among the demonstrators.

Mrs. Stewart, who arrived carrying placards protesting against the ending of free school milk, was chatting to a group of children when Mr. Milward asked her identity.

‘Danger’

The headmaster told Mrs. Stewart: “I am very disappointed that people like you feel it necessary to make any sort of demonstration in front of children.

“I would have thought you would realise the danger of introducing politics right up to the doorway of an educational establishment.”

Mrs. Stewart replied: “I think politics are an integral part of education.”

Councillor Bill Turner, Labour councillor for Deritend and an official visitor at Chandos Junior School, said that he should have been with the official party to greet Mrs. Thatcher inside the school, but he preferred to identify himself with the demonstrators.

He joined the official party later.

Leaflets

He said the ward Labour Party had sent out up to 200 leaflets informing mothers who wished to demonstrate over the ending of free school milk and increases in school dinner charges, about Mrs. Thatcher's visit to the school.

When Mrs. Thatcher left the school the number of mothers had grown to around 25.

They asked angrily why they could not see Mrs. Thatcher to put their case.

Mrs. Pamela Reid, of Stanhope Street, Highgate, said: “Mrs. Thatcher has deliberately avoided any confrontation with us when we are only exercising out democratic rights.”

Alderman Sydney Dawes, Chairman of the Education Committee, accompanying Mrs. Thatcher on her tour of the school classrooms, said there had been no deliberate attempt to avoid the demonstrators.

Mrs. Thatcher's chauffeur had found it easier to approach the school from the other side.

Coun. Scrimshaw, also with the official party, said: “This was a deliberate attempt to use parents and children in a political stunt which turned out to be a flop.”

More visits

Mrs. Thatcher said she had been impressed by teaching standards at the school and by the devotion of the headmaster and staff.

After lunch Mrs. Thatcher went on to visit three Marsh Hill schools, Stockland Bi-lateral School, Marsh Hill Boys' Grammar Technical School and Marsh Hill Girls' Grammar Technical School.

Tonight she was attending the speech day of Edgbaston C.E. College for Girls. [end p1]

(2) Birmingham Post, 13 November 1971

Mrs Thatcher dodges all the demos—well, nearly

Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, Secretary for Education and Science, became the Minister in the middle of a game of hide-and-seek during her day's visit to Birmingham yesterday.

The object: to dodge the demonstrations.

At one school, she arrived at the back door and went in through the kitchens while housewives and students picketed the front.

Then she gave student demonstrators the slip at another school campus in Erdington. The students, carrying placards, lined one entrance while Mrs. Thatcher's party drove in by another route.

Three-hour wait

The students waited for three hours—passing the time with a brief but fruitless sortie into the school—only to miss the Minister again as she left.

This time, the police formed up as if preparing for her departure, then dispersed when she had left safely and quietly by another gate.

Mrs. Thatcher still had to face protests against Government education policies.

At the Council House; she was booed by about 300 students.

Unions protest

Students from Aston University, Birmingham College of Food and Domestic Arts and colleges of education were protesting about plans to introduce non-compulsory membership of student unions and to give financial control of the unions to university and college administrations.

The proposals are contained in a consultative document issued by Mrs. Thatcher's Department and rejected by the National Union of Students, which is organising a mass protest march in Birmingham on Wednesday.

Earlier, about a dozen mothers and students staged a demonstration outside Chandos junior and infants' school, Highgate, where Mrs. Thatcher's tour started. They were protesting about the abolition of free school milk.

She did not see the demonstration going in by the back door, but when she left, about 25 women shouted as she drove past.

Deritend Ward Labour Party had issued about 200 leaflets to homes in the area telling mothers who wished to demonstrate about the visit.

Later, Coun. Neil Scrimshaw, vice-chairman of the Birmingham Education Committee, said that he would raise the matter at the committee's next meeting.

‘Stunt’ claim

“In my opinion this was a deliberate attempt to use parents and children in a political stunt that turned out to be a flop,” he said.

Coun. Mrs. Theresa Stewart, a Labour member of the committee, who took part in the demonstration, said: “I think Mrs. Thatcher realises that if they have to hustle her in by the back door there is feeling in this area.”

But Mrs. Thatcher said later that she had not deliberately avoided the protesters.

The students missed her later when she visited the joint campus of Stockland Green Bi-lateral School and Marsh Hill boys' and girls' grammar technical schools.