Britain's Alternative Prime Minister Squares up for the Crucial Battles Ahead

WE'RE READY TO TAKE ON JIM AND HIS LEFT OVERS

This morning, at 7.30, Margaret Thatcher was due at Grimsby fishmarket for a spot of by-electioneering.

On Saturday, she was on walkabout in Ashfield, Notts. A long way from the secret talks in Peking, the Great Wall of China, the car factories of Japan, the bustle of Hong Kong and the rest of the Far East trip she completed only days ago.

It is a busy and vital time for the Tory leader.

The Conservative victory at Stechford confirmed that the voters are still moving her way. And, she hopes, Thursday's by-elections at Grimsby and Ashfield and next week's nationwide local government elections will strengthen the springboard which could bounce her into Downing Street.

But did she really think her chance would come this year?

I asked her this in the temporary calm of her room at the House of Commons.

Overseas

“I don't know how long it will take,” she said. “But I am going to be ready. There will be no long foreign visits this autumn, just perhaps a couple of short tours.

“I'm not going to be overseas when something happens.”

But wasn't it much more likely, that instead of an election coming, the Liberal-Labour deal and another round of pay restraint would see Jim Callaghan through to better times?

In politics you never know what is going to happen next, any more than you know where the next ball is coming from on a tennis court.

“You've just got to be ready, when it bounces.”

She smiled: “I no longer have much time for tennis … but you've got to be on your toes.

“Look.” she said earnestly, “there are all sorts of possibilities. Autumn is the time for political conferences. All kinds of unexpected things happen.

“It is the time when we could have currency problems.

Jobs

“It is the time when unfortunately, a lot of school leavers have difficulty getting jobs.

“Is there going to be a difference of opinion with the trade union movement over Stage Three?

“The Liberals will have to explain to their own party what they have achieved by joining forces with the Socialists.

“The Labour Party Conference itself tends to be extremely Left-wing.

“Ours, on the other hand” … she laughed. … “Ours will be united, constructive and forward-looking. And you will probably say it is dull.

“If an election happens even earlier, then we are ready and waiting. That is what I would much rather see happen.”

But why should the Tories be able to do any better in tackling inflation, in getting Britain on the move again, than the present Government? [end p1]

“The fact is,” said Mrs Thatcher, “that people abroad cannot understand why we do so badly.

Talents

“I was asked in Japan. ‘Why is your output so static?’

“In Hong Kong, they asked, ‘Why are you declining?’

“They still look up to what Britain was and expect it to be the same.

“We gave Parliamentary democracy to the world. Most of the great inventions were ours.

“We were inventive. We were resourceful. We were just. We were fair.

“We were free.

“They still expect us to be the same, and don't quite understand what is happening.

“I believe we still have those talents.

“We have to create the mood for them to grow.”

Much of Britain's trouble, she argues, stems from non-stop industrial agonising.

“In Japan they have what they call the Spring Offensive when they have all their disputes and sort out their pay deals company by company, and it doesn't really affect the national productivity.”

So have the Tories now decided their attitude to incomes policy?

Profit

“Yes we have,” she insisted. “We must try to get a general understanding of the sort of wage levels which are reasonable.

“It is not going to be easy.

But it will be clear that any agreement which is not matched by production is going to produce unemployment.

“We must provide for differentials and for productivity, but there must not be a lot of detailed intervention.

“Where people are working well, it is right that they should profit from it.

“Everyone, in the end, works for profit. That is an earnings policy not just an incomes policy.”

The implication, she made clear, was that a Tory Government would not ask the taxpayers to subsidise unjustified wage deals in order to shield from the consequences those who got them.

Both sides would have to negotiate—managements as well. The nationalised industries would have firm cash limits on what they could spend and would have to work within them.

Would there not inevitably be a clash between her and the unions?

“No” she said. “That is not inevitable at all.”

“Things are changing with the trade unions quite fast. More and more people are realising that the job of the unions is to look after the interests of their members.

“If the unions merely make agreements at the top with governments, without proper regard to differentials and so on, it is their members who suffer.

“Our philosophy is much more akin to basic trade union philosophy than is that of centrally-controlled socialism.”

Detail

She is convinced that, provided there is no rigid statutory policy as there was in the 1974 showdown, the unions will respect the statement made by the Labour Party and the TUC in 1952 that industrial action to achieve political ends is a direct challenge to democracy.

What about her election strategy? Will the Tories spell out their policies in great detail as Ted Heath did in 1970?

“In great detail—no,” she said: “People are now pretty sceptical about politicians' promises. You also run the danger of making so many pledges to pressure groups that you finish up with something you cannot fulfil.

“We will offer a broad general philosophy. A policy, but not a highly-detailed programme.

“There will be some exceptions—housing for example. But more incentives and less taxation are going to be the biggest thing.

“People will work if it pays them.”

She regards the American election campaign as a clear warning.

“President Carter did not spell out his commitments in immense detail,” she said. “But where he did, on a specific tax rebate, he has now had to decide that it would not be appropriate.

“That was a very courageous decision for him to take. But it is an object lesson.

Mess

“I intend to try not to make any promises which I might not be able to deliver.”

But even if the Tories were to win, do they really have the people to run a Government? Could her front bench team match Jim Callaghan's?

Margaret Thatcher glowered.

“We really couldn't make a bigger mess than they have done,” she said scornfully.

“Our front bench team, and the people who back them up, are better than theirs.”

She counted off the names on her fingers … “Willie Whitelaw against Merlyn Rees.”

Her eyes narrowed.

“John Davies against young Owen. Geoffrey Howe against Healey … and he's backed up by John Nott at Trade who is every bit as good as Edmund Dell.

“We have David Howell.

Ahead

“We have Keith Joseph at Industry who has the best brain in the House of Commons. He was way ahead of his time in his views about inflation.

“Keith has the best intellect in the House—and he is in opposition to Eric Varley.

“Patrick Jenkin is far better on the social services than David Ennals.

“Francis Pym is far better on devolution, far better on everything, than Michael Foot, and everyone knows it.

“When it comes to chief whips we are streets ahead.

“Defence?” She paused “How can anyone put Fred Mulley in the same class as Ian Gilmour. We have the best intellects.

“Michael Havers against Sam Silkin … John Peyton is doing very well at agriculture.

“And Jim Prior is certainly much better known than …”

Chance

She paused as if searching for a name … “much better known than Albert Booth.

“I could go on. I've missed some out. But the point is we match up very well.

“The Government team are all left-overs now. They've lost Crosland and Roy Jenkins. They have lost their intellects.

But if she got the chance, could Prime Minister Thatcher and her team really end the long decline which Britain seems to have endured over the past 15 years?

“Yes, we can,” she said. “But the first thing is to give people confidence that we can.

“I have seen nothing in Japan, or elsewhere, that we could not achieve here.

“You have to have a government which says to people that if they do well they will benefit.

“Of course, you must have compassion. You must have social services to catch those who fall.

“But it is not enough to tell the country that they are getting the ‘social wage’ of government subsidies.

“They must have money in their pockets.

Venture

“We must have an attitude which says that the British workman must be satisfied with only the best machinery to work at.”

Mrs Thatcher spoke enthusiastically about a joint venture between the British United Biscuit Corporation and a Japanese company in which, with similar management methods and equipment, the British factory had matched the productivity of its Japanese partners.

“There is no magic about,” she insisted.

She spoke, too, of a small Hong Kong firm which having lost out in the footwear market, got its employees to agree to switch to another product.

When that also failed, they started to produce instead a new kind of camera which was now being sold to Japan, Britain and the United States.

Methods

“The point is that this company is now employing 4,000 people. If they had not had the will to make changes those jobs would have been lost.

“Each country has to find its own way of doing things. Their methods might not always suit us.

“But we are every bit as good, and we can do it here so long as we are not afraid.”

And that, she made clear was her own attitude to the nation's political battle when it comes …

“Fear is no master in politics if you want to succeed,” she said.