Q
Disregard the economists who will prove black is white and white is black. What should the ordinary voter make of the mixed economic indicators? The inflation rate now well into single figures. Interest rates rattling down. No shock-horror headlines about sterling or the balance of payments. But more than three million unemployed. Industrial production stagnant. And a persisting world trade recession.
A
The world trade recession is far deeper than anything we could ever have envisaged. There was a fantastic increase in the price of oil just when we had not absorbed the first increase. It has caused very great damage to the world economy. But we still have some problems.
If you look at a combination of monopoly nationalised industry together with monopoly unions we still have the great problem that there is no substitute for competition. You cannot imitate competition. You can still be held to ransom, and your only weapon is persuasion, reality, and truth.
You mentioned the 1950s and the 1960s. I can remember the warnings given then as other nations began to catch us up in efficiency and then to overtake us—in the equipment they used, the design, and the working methods. They were more efficient because they did not have this terrible history of over-manning that we have. One of the reasons we had growth in the 1950s and 1960s was that we were enjoying a sellers' market.
Apart from the resurgence of countries industrially destroyed by the war, there is now a whole range of newly developed countries—Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, as well as Japan—producing goods more cheaply. Now their design and production are first-class; they are highly efficient; their capital equipment is first-class. They are doing a good deal of the export trade we used to have. They are taking our overseas markets and now competing with us in Britain.
Another thing developed in this country but not elsewhere. You remember Selwyn Lloyd 's pay pause of 1961; wages here had lost relationship to output. Since then, four pay policies. Since then, people have come to think they have a divine right to pay increases every year, regardless of performance.
The characteristic of the 1970s in Britain was that we paid ourselves more and more for the same production as or less production than other countries, which paid themselves more and more only in return for more production. We are now doing better, but some of our competitors are doing better still.
And you will not succeed if you try to deny the truth. You can only take it and try to do something about it. You go down the drain if you do nothing about it.
Q.
YOU'VE always said that two full Parliamentary terms will be necessary to complete the task you've set your hand to. But as you enter the final lap of this first Parliament, what are your priorities?
A.
To do everything possible to facilitate the growth of new enterprise. Note the way I put it. I don't say Government itself can create jobs. I think we have happening a third industrial revolution. We have had an industrial revolution in our agriculture, and there are far fewer people employed in agriculture—about three per cent of the work force—than there used to be.
Far fewer people are employed in mining as machines have taken over, far fewer in steel as new capital equipment can meet the demand. And now you have the new automated machine tools, and we are going to have the capacity to produce what we are producing now—even more—with fewer people. It means we are going to have to look to the service industries. We have to look as a country, as a people, for the new things which we can't all foresee, any more than we could foresee the transistor radio and the growth of television in my young days in Grantham.
We must do everything we can to build up the inspired and creative people and encourage them to carry out the things they want to do. We must not weigh them down with so many Government regulations and burdens that they are unable to do the things we need to do.
If you ask me what I believe the political objective is—I can't clothe it in quite the right words—it is to try to ensure that people take more personal responsibility and are willing to do so, and they don't say every problem must be solved by the State—because that means we shall cease to be an independent people. We are an independent-minded and spirited people prepared to take responsibility.
Q.
You give a lift to the party conference. What does the conference give you?
A.
It gives me a spur for the coming year. You have always your long-term objectives. Then you have to decide your immediate objectives and keep your people with you so that they know where you are going. The real feeling is an emotional one—as it is in politics. They are marvellous people who stick with you through everything, believing in the same things.
At a party conference you need a new impetus. We are not going to run out of ideas.
You have to convey them, and the real difficulty is giving something an individual aspect or a contemporary aspect. A party conference gives uplift both ways.
Q.
TELL me about the Falklands and how you felt. On top of all your other commitments, I gather that you presided over 87 ministerial meetings to take decisions during those few weeks of military action. What were the most severe strains?
A.
It's a strange thing to say. What I found desperately hard was towards the end when we lost Sir Galahad. The bad luck hit hard at that particular time. Two hours either way and it would have been different. That really was extremely bad for the Welsh Guards. Another thing was when HMS Glamorgan was going to bombard—getting closer to Port Stanley. She was hit by an Exocet missile fired from land.
The nearer we were coming up to the end, the more terrible you felt every loss of life. And even then we thought we might have a terrible battle in the streets of Port Stanley.
We had another very, very bad time when HMS Conventry was attacked by several aircraft, and the Atlantic Conveyor was lost the same night. That was a very bad night. That was a very bad night. We knew about Coventry, but we were not saying the name because we did not know how many had been rescued and families would have been terribly worried until we had the names.
That evening I was in my room at the House. When I came back to No. 10 my duty clerk was waiting with the message that Atlantic Conveyor had been hit, was on fire, and had to be abandoned. And we didn't know until the following days whether the Harriers had been off-loaded. Atlantic Conveyor was a very bad loss, but if the Harriers had been on her it would have been a crippling blow—we hadn't very much reconnaissance material because there was nowhere to put up reconnaissance planes from.
In victory, you get the most terrible sorrows. The fact was that when the supreme test came upon us suddenly we were not found wanting in our responsibility. The leadership was there on the part of us all—Government, Parliament, and people. It is pretty good to go there as a united country and have our reputation as a country increased. Suddenly, when the unexpected happens, we coped, and coped magnificently … The response of the young people was an inspiration. And don't forget—in any battle the brunt is borne by the young.