PM flies in with a jobs rocket

Mrs. Thatcher flew into North Cornwall, the Conservative marginal seat, last Friday and blasted the Labour party's “most extreme measures” for ending large-scale unemployment.

In the area where Mr. Gerry Neale defends a 3,700 majority, the PM immediately got to grips with the problems facing fishing and farming, two of the constituencies major industries.

At Padstow, accompanied by Mr. Neale, she was greeted by large crowds and the town had to be sealed off as she visited Cornwall Fishermen Ltd.

Mrs. Thatcher then boarded a chartered campaign bus and, accompanied by 80 international journalists and TV crews, she donned wellington boots to visit Trelyll Farm, Whitecross.

Mrs Thatcher addressed supporters at Padstow and Wadebridge, agreeing that wages and job opportunities in the North Cornwall area were “on the low side”. But she said the Government were concerned that there should be adventurous training for young people.

“You either carry on under a Conservative government trying to tackle long-term problems, or you go to the alternative which would be a Labour government consisting of the most extreme programme ever seen laid before the British electorate,” she said

During the half-day visit Mrs. Pat Smith, mother of Kevin Smith, one of the lifeboat crew lost in the Penlee disaster, handed a 1,400-signature petition to Mrs. Thatcher calling for the restoration of the Gwennap Head Coastguard station.

(2) BBC Radio News Report? 2000 20 May 1983 [end p1]

Lucas

The Prime Minister herself has spent her first day out campaigning. She flew to the West Country and tramped across muddy farms in Devon and Cornwall. She addressed a crowd in the centre of Wadebridge, getting warm applause for saying Britain had recovered its self confidence and its standing in the world.

Mrs. Thatcher

That is no small achievement, I think it arose from a number of factors, not only that we were shown to be ressolute in defending freedom and justice overseas, but also because people knew that this government was the first to be prepared to tackle the fundamental long term problems of our economy.