MRS THATCHER TALKS TO NORMAN LAMONT. MP

N.L.

Mrs. Thatcher, you have been Leader of the Party now for eight months. What has surprised you most about the job?

Mrs Thatcher

The demands of the job are such you don't really have much time to be surprised by anything! It is very different from holding a specific Portfolio of your own. When you have a Portfolio, you are responsible for formulating your policy, and you do so with your discussion groups and with the Party. When you are Leader, and you give any major speech you obviously have to consult with the particular Shadow Minister on the policy before you say anything, so you are almost more constrained than as an individual Shadow Minister.

One thing that surprised me was that, having been a full time Cabinet Minister during a previous government, you are even busier as a Leader of the Opposition. One reason is that the number of back up staff is inevitably very much smaller, and therefore you have to do a lot more of the routine work yourself!

N.L.

You have placed a lot of emphasis in your speeches on more self-reliance and enterprise. How can one persuade someone who is going to be a wage earner all his life that this matters to him?

Mrs Thatcher

It isn't easy, but the real issues are becoming very clear. So much of life is becoming wholly dominated by the State, the average person is beginning to get a little alarmed. By the time a large number of people depend upon the State or local government for their jobs, by the time that they have found an increasing proportion of their average earnings taken away in tax, by the time they find they have to get some kind of permission from a government before they can do a large number of things, they begin to realise that the State is becoming far too dominant a factor in their lives. This is the message we have got to get across before the next election, and it is one with appeal for the average person. Liberty means nothing as an abstract concept, it only has meaning in so far as it really lives in the lives of individual men and women and their families. Although we often talk about individuals, we spend much of our lives in groups such as our families or our place of work. So we have to find ways of enlarging the opportunities and removing the restrictions that affect these groups.

N.L.

Doesn't the Conservative party now need to become more popular, more populist, and a little less mandarin and intellectual in its appeal?

Mrs Thatcher

Well, I agree that it must convince the people that what they want is virtually the same as what the Conservative Party wants. That, I think represents the commonsense majority of the people against the extremists. That is what I meant when I said that Conservative policy represents the birthright of every British citizen.

And you say a little less intellectual, a little less mandarin. I am always struck by the number of journalists who think we are not sufficiently intellectual, and tend to criticise us for it. You have to operate on several levels to be a successful party. You must have a clear, understandable philosophy which you can use to persuade people of the rightness of your own cause, and you must be able to translate it into practical politics.

N.L.

Are there any particular Conservative philosophers or statesmen which influence you, and to which do you turn for inspiration?

Mrs Thatcher

During the recess I was looking particularly at the lives and work of Disraeli, also of Lord Salisbury—who was a very highly successful Leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister. He [end p1] extended the power, authority and popularity of the Conservative Party enormously during his period of office. More recently the only memorable phrase illustrating our philosophy was ‘property owning democracy’ which was Anthony Eden 's. And one has to applaud Harold Macmillan for the practical way in which he made Conservative philosophy a reality for the average person in Britain. He brought within the reach of the average person things which hitherto had been the prerogative of a comparative few.

N.L.

What foreign trips are you now going to be undertaking in the future?

Mrs Thatcher

My first trips of course were to Europe, to Bonn, to Paris and to Luxembourg, and I went to these while the European question was being finally decided. I have, as you know, just done a trip to the United States and Canada: they are our great historical allies and without them we would not be able to ensure the future of the democratic way of life. I have also paid a quick visit to Roumania, which I have visited before as Minister of Education when we set up a number of research contacts there. I think that my next visit must be concerned with the Middle East. I have had a number of invitations from the Middle East, from Israel and from the Arab countries, and I would very much like to take them up.

N.L.

What do you think Britain and other members of the European Community can do about Portugal?

Mrs Thatcher

Public opinion does have an influence on foreign affairs. If the free democratic nations of the world make it totally clear that they regard Portugal as a test case for the success or otherwise of the treaties signed at Helsinki, that will have an ultimate influence on what happens in Portugal. Democracy is not democracy unless you have freedom to express your thoughts, not only left wing thoughts, but other philosophies as well. Freedom of speech means nothing unless it means freedom to say things with which other people disagree and with which governments may disagree. If all of the western nations make it quite clear that this is their idea of democracy, and that they will regard Portugal as a test case of Russian intentions, then I think we can influence what happens there.

N.L.

Were you pleased or surprised in any way by the reaction to your speech about the Helsinki Conference?

Mrs Thatcher

There were two distinct reactions. I had a very large post bag in favour of the Helsinki speech from all kinds of people, who said thank goodness someone has a last spoken out. Some of the Press thought it was not the time to make the speech. I was very interested as the week passed after the speech, when one leading statesman after another said virtually what I had said, namely that it is not treaties or pieces of paper, but nations' actions that count. President Ford 's speech, which was a superb speech, said in much better language what I tried to say earlier. So I think those who criticised it were overtaken by the speeches of some very eminent people.

N.L.

Turning now again to the domestic field and that of industrial relations, a lot of people now ask the question: ‘can a Conservative government ever again live peacefully with the trade union movement?

Mrs Thatcher

Yes, of course we can. We did for thirteen years of government when we had the biggest rise in the standard of living we have ever had in the country. Later we had only the one confrontation which was extremely difficult.

The trade union movement is very important in the life of the country. But if you are suggesting that the trade unions will decide who is to be the government, or that they will work only with one party, that would be the end of democracy. I do not believe that we have reached that point, and I think the trade unions themselves would draw back from any such conclusion.

N.L.

Even if the trade unions do not decide who is to be the government, is there not a real danger today that all governments, Conservative and Labour, are increasingly becoming subsidiaries of the trade union movement?

Mrs Thatcher

There have been times during the last fifteen months or so when I have felt that too. But we must make it quite clear that it is the Government which is responsible for the management of the economy, and the Government cannot abdicate its responsibility to anyone. Its task is to consult and to get as wide an acceptance as possible for its policies. But it is the Government which has to decide what those policies should be. It cannot and should not either by-pass Parliament or take the attitude, ‘well, this is the only sort of agreement that we could get’.

N.L.

When you made your first speech as Leader of the Conservative Party at the Europa Hotel, you made a remark: ‘May be it is not right to face a great objective in your path by trying to go through it. It might be better to try to find a way round it.’ What did that mean?

Mrs Thatcher

I do not think it is advisable to seek head on clashes on great issues. If you look back into history, many organisations that appeared to have conflicting objectives have learned to live together by getting to know one another and by being influenced by one another's viewpoints. Undoubtedly the unions are extremely powerful bodies. At each point in history when a lot of power has passed to a new group, it has taken some time to learn to use it, not just in their own interests but in the interests of the nation as a whole. One must not be too impatient about this.

N.L.

What is your view about industrial democracy and the various plans that are now being considered to putting workers on the Boards of companies? Do you think that will make a great difference?

Mrs Thatcher

I don't think that by itself it will make a great deal of difference. I am perfectly happy for workers' representatives to be on the Board of companies in the same way as you have a Sales Director, a Finance Director and other directors representing particular interests. But my one proviso is this: once a person is a director of a company, then regardless of the specific interest which he represents, he becomes a full director of that company, takes full responsibility for the actions and decisions of the Board, and a worker representative is no different from any other representative of the Board.

But what can make a real difference is whether employees in a firm are fully in the picture about the company's activities, what it is going to do and why it is going to do it. The employees should at all times be consulted so that they really are part of the firm. Industry is not something abstract, it is a living structure of human beings whose future is intimately bound up with the profitability of the individual companies. You cannot get understanding unless you spend a good deal of time explaining and consulting, and that matters far more than actual specific representatives on the Board.