Thatcher call for award to cartoonists

The Prime Minister yesterday gave a warning against the substitution of pressure group tactics and industrial “muscle” for individual skill and merit.

It was her most difficult message to get across she said.

“Your standard of living and your future depend on your own things, your own skill and your own merit, and if you try to substitute pressure group tactics against the Government or industrial muscle, you would son cease to have the society you would like to live in.”

Mrs Margaret Thatcher was presenting in London what she called the newspaper industry's “battle honours” , the British Press Awards. Her speech ranged widely over home and foreign affairs.

She pleaded for freedom from restrictive practices, an issue with which the newspaper industry was familiar and made a reference to the Employment Bill, which was just coming through the Commons. It would change the law, and the law was important.

“But the task in the coming year is to get the greater prosperity which might even lead to greater circulations.” Investment had to be put to use so that we could look forward to greater wealth in the future.

On foreign affairs, Mrs Thatcher said it would be a tragedy if Afghanistan became “just another nine-day wonder” and people accepted the occupation by Soviet troops to the extent of not worrying too much who was going to be next.

She also related the tragedy of world events to the way the British people reacted to them.

This was a time of law and order, she said. But our way of life consisted in doing more than simply obeying the law. “It is not enough just to obey the law and pay your taxes. If you feel strongly about something, you have to do something by personal effort yourself.”

On the awards, Mrs Thatcher said one citation said: “He is not frightened to make intellectual demands on his readers and is consistently challenging” . She asked if it was unusual in the newspaper world to make such intellectual demands.

People who did that kind of writing, like David Wood of The Times, like leader writers and commentators, gave a perception of events that was like a headlight into the future and for which there was no substitute.

“I come here as an admirer of the system” , she said. “It is perhaps trite to say so (but most trite things have stood for thousands of years) but freedom would not last unless we have freedom of the press.

“And freedom of the press would not last unless you also have commercial freedom. Never let Government interfere with the press; you would lose everything you hold most dear” .

Mrs Thatcher made an appeal for next year's awards to recognize the work of the cartoonist.

The cartoon, she said, was the most concentrated and cogent form of comment and just about the most skilled and the most memorable, giving the picture of events that remained most in the mind.

Sir Edward Pickering, chairman of the award judges and vice-chairman of the Press Council, said they would consider next year introducing a Margaret Thatcher award for cartoonists.

Among the award winners were Robert Fisk, of The Times, the international reporter of the year; Melanie Phillips, of The Guardian, the reporter of the year, and John Pilger, of the Daily Mirror, journalist of the year.