Thatcher in push for quick election

Mrs. Margaret Thatcher attempted yesterday to close the Prime Minister's options over the General Election date with a threat to bring the Government down if it tried to run for another session.

During a visit to the Scottish Borders she repeatedly stressed her impatience for the election to come, and said that if Mr. Callaghan tried to carry on in office the Conservatives would seek support from minority parties to defeat the Government on the Queen's Speech.

“Then we would see who ultimately wanted to keep Socialist government in power, and who is prepared to face the electorate.”

Talking to party workers, she introduced the notion of the “entitlement society,” a new gloss on the old theme of too much emphasis on state handouts and too little on building individual self-reliance.

Her visit to Berwick and East Lothian, a Labour marginal, was planned in the spring. With dissaffected Liberal and Scottish Nationalist votes, the Conservatives could take the seat.

The Press is following the Opposition Leader in force. At a golf club factory there were puns about swings as she posed for pictures with a putter, and at Dunbar Harbour jests about life-saving as she talked to lifeboatmen and coastguards.

She was to have boarded the lifeboat—named Margaret—but those who planned her tour had forgotten to check the tide tables. The water was too low for the craft to be brought alongside the quay.

Fishing and farming are important in the constituency. Mrs. Thatcher paid homage to both, and got some uncompromisingly frank talking from the National Farmers' Union and fishermen's organisations, who are suspicious of EEC intentions.

She will spend most of today in Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles, the constituency of Mr. David Steel, the Liberal Leader, and is to make a major speech to Young Conservatives in Glasgow tonight.