Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to Finchley Conservatives (Association AGM)

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: St Mary’s Hall, Hendon Lane, Hendon
Source: Finchley Times, 14 March 1975
Editorial comments: 2000.
Importance ranking: Minor
Word count: 978
Themes: Conservatism, Education, Industry, General Elections, Monetary policy, Taxation, Trade, Labour Party & socialism, Conservative (leadership elections), Society

Profit from inflation

Inflation was the keynote of Mrs Margaret Thatcher's speech at her constituency annual meeting on Monday.

She told Finchley and Friern Barnet Conservatives what 20-plus per cent inflation could mean to this country, but added there were some who had gained by it, and named them as “those with the big battalions able to hold the country to ransom.”

Other people, she said, were “worried stiff” because they would not be able to carry on in a situation where £1 would only buy 80p compared with last year. If that rate went on, nobody would be able to prepare for the future.

For a youngster of 18 starting a job at £1,800 a year, the current rate of inflation would mean a salary needed of £16,000 by the time he or she was 30.

That was why Britain had to tackle inflation as a priority—the country had not been as successful in coping as overseas countries.

TAKING

If there was one league we were winning, said Mrs Thatcher, it was the Inflation League. And we could not blame it on the rest of the world.

Britain's real problem was a home-growth problem. People were taking more out than they were putting in.

She referred to the Industry Bill and the Minister in charge, Mr Wedgwood Benn, and said that if some of the Socialist Ministers knew how to run industry their Parliamentary Bills would be different.

“That's it they want to keep private enterprise at all,” she added. And Mrs Thatcher was applauded when she went on: “It looks as if they are out to destroy private enterprise.”

This, she contended, would have a damaging effect, and Britain would not get the trade the country needed. It wasn't out goods that were wrong: it was the labour problems and late delivery dates, often the fault of those willing to go on strike.

If the Industry Bill went through, it would be almost impossible to run industry. Firms would have to disclose information of value to competitors.

The Finance Bill, said Mrs Thatcher, was moving in the opposite direction to the way the Tories wanted it to go. New taxation was coming in, and Britain was already the highest taxed nation in the Western world.

One in four jobs in this country was in a small business and, under too heavy taxation, firms would have to sell or go under.

This would affect not only those who ran the businesses, but those who worked for them.

FREE

Conservatives stood for a free society—most people wanted a well-ordered life—and that included having more of a say in the way their children were taught.

To those who vilified Tory ideals as middle-class values, Mrs Thatcher had a one-word answer—Nonsense. She quoted Abraham Lincoln: “You can never help the weak by weakening the strong.”

It was impossible to encourage the brotherhood of man by proclaiming class hatred, something she abhorred. Class hatred did no good for Britain or for any society.

The cloud on Mrs Thatcher's horizon …

There was only one dark cloud on the horizon when Mrs Margaret Thatcher made a triumphal pilgrimage to Finchley on Monday to talk to a couple of hundred of her more devoted disciples, writes Dennis Signy.

They rose to the 49-year-old Conservative Party leader, they applauded her 20-minute speech, and they gave her a bouquet to take back to her room at the House of Commons.

Mrs Thatcher, who had to rush back to Westminster for a three-line whip on the Finance Bill after answering questions, was in top form, all smiles and efficiency. The audience were positively purring.

But after she had left St. Mary's Hall, Hendon Lane, to a standing ovation, the cloud appeared. Her parliamentary majority.

The chairman of Finchley and Friern Barnet Conservative Association, Councillor Jimmy Sapsted, re-elected for the seventh time despite a challenge from Councillor John Fitzgibbon, introduced the subject in his annual report.

“We were not so happy that the majority dropped to just under 4,000,” he said, adding that this was partly due to an 8.2 per cent lower turnout in October than there had been in February.

That was in his script. But Councillor Sapsted underlined the need for new members and the build-up of the Young Conservative movement when he said: “It was a blow to us in Finchley that her majority slipped to under 4,000. I was shocked.”

The Tories, under the leadership of Mr Heath, polled 11m. votes last February. “I felt that we had that figure to build on,” said Councillor Sapsted. But the Conservative vote dropped to 9m. in October.

Despite Councillor Sapsted's shock, the rest of the meeting was roses all the way for him, for Mrs Thatcher, and the president, Mr Henry Oppenheim.

He opened the meeting by drawing attention to the large attendance— “I wonder why” —and said that Mrs Thatcher had brought prestige to their association and honour to the Tory Party.

Mr Oppenheim, whose MP wife, Sally, has been drafted into Mrs Thatcher's Shadow Cabinet, said that before long. Finchley's own MP would emerge as Britain's first woman Prime Minister.

REVIEW

Mrs Thatcher gave a review of 1974 that might have been subtitled That was the Year That Was. “Quite a bit has happened since last February,” she smiled.

At that time she was Minister for Education. But, she said, at that time the electorate did something rare for them, and got things wrong. She became Shadow Minister for Housing.

In October, when they again failed to return the Tories, she became Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer to oppose Mr Healey. Then, a few weeks ago, things changed again … “and I lost that job too.”