Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

Speech to Welsh Conservatives

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: Llandrillo College, Clwyd, North Wales
Source: Western Mail, 27 November 1976
Editorial comments: Evening engagement. This item also contains brief accounts of a speech at Bangor (party workers should prepare for a General Election in "six to eight months") and remarks at Caernarvon about the voluntary sector. Reproduced by kind permission of the Western Mail.
Importance ranking: Minor
Word count: 321
Themes: Economic policy - theory and process, General Elections, Taxation, Foreign policy - theory and process, Labour Party & socialism, Voluntary sector & charity

Labour ‘making a bad job of ruling Britain’

Tory Leader Mrs. Margaret Thatcher last night attacked the Labour Government for making “a bad job of ruling Britain” and receiving repeated loans.

She told party workers at Llandrillo College, Clwyd. “Our standing with the nations overseas depends on how well we do at home, but we cannot expect to stand high if the Government cannot put things right in this country.”

She said no other country in the world had such a high rate of tax on such low incomes and until incentives were restored, people would not put in the effort necessary to achieve what was wanted.

Mrs. Thatcher scored an opening success with her friendly impact on those she met in her early-morning Holyhead visit, spending an hour discussing personal problems with workers at an electrical factory, then braving the windy weather to walk the streets for another hour with the Mayor, Mr. Mervyn Ankers, and the island's Tory candidate, Mr. Owen Wyn Wright.

Bareheaded and wearing a darkbrown suit, the Tory leader chatted with shopping housewives about their general complaint of high prices and worries about paying their way.

But at Caernorfon later she adopted a non-political role to praise 150 local voluntary workers' work for the community. “No local government can play the part of the good neighbour in society,” she said.

At Bangor she told 120 party workers from Anglesey, Caernarfon and Conwy, to prepare for a general election in “six to eight months time.”

Today the Tory leader goes on a farm walk at Babell, Clwyd, meets party workers at Mold, goes on a walkabout in the town and lunches with about 500 people at Deeside Leisure Centre. In the afternoon she takes part in a BBC sixth form discussion programme at Wrexham and goes on a walkabout in the town's shopping precinct.