Jubilant Mrs Thatcher ‘hope’ of Western world

Posies of blue and yellow flowers decked the top table at Firs Hall, Southgate, on Friday, when Finchley and Friern Barnet Conservative Association Women's Advisory Committee welcomed Opposition Leader, Margaret Thatcher, to their annual lunch.

The mood was one of celebration following the GLC results of the previous evening, and Mrs Thatcher looked jubilant.

Among those with her on the top table were Chingford Conservative MP, Mr Norman Tebbit, and a victorious Roland Freeman and his wife, Marion. Mr Freeman had increased his GLC majority by 4,114 votes with a surprise result of 14,758.

Joined

Mrs. Thatcher was also joined by Mrs. Joyce Foster, newly elected chairman of the Greater London Area Women's Advisory Committee.

Fortified after the night's excitement by steak, kidney and mushroom pie (followed by sticky chocolate profiteroles), Mr Tebbit made a stinging verbal attack on the Government.

Mrs Thatcher was not only the hope of the Conservative Party, he declared, but the hope of Great Britain and much of the western world.

“Unless Britain gets its politics right, the rest of the Western world will not be able to stand up to the continued assault from our enemies in the East.”

Nazis

Looking for Labour supporters these days, he went on, was like looking for Nazis in 1945— “there were none of them left: none of them willing to take the blame.

“There is a growing realisation that Socialism is bad for Britain; for people like us it's not good enough.

“The unique achievement of this Government is to put more men on the dole queue than any other government in post-war Britain.

“You cannot have democracy and Socialism side by side. Socialism is about controlling people, not giving them freedom. It's about stopping people from getting rich. That's why it can't produce any wealth.”

Replying to Mr Tebbit, Mrs Thatcher warned: “If Labour get in again it would mean that the extreme left had won … and we should lose the Britain that we know.”

The Conservatives, she said, did not compromise with the left.

“Once you start compromising with the near left you find yourselves compromising with the middle left and then the wreckers.”

The Conservatives, she said, were winning in the industrial heartlands of Britain. “We are the party for everyone in Britain who really believes that if you work harder you are entitled to more pay.

“You can never get a responsible people if governments try to take all the decisions for them.

“Britain has a future, but I don't believe she will have that future under Labour.”

Mrs Thatcher described the Tory GLC victories as a splendid dress rehearsal for the final battle … “but we have to win that battle, not only for the Conservatives but for the future of our children and for the future of Britain.

“Together we will achieve that task,” she declared.