Thatcher denies deflecting jobs issue
Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister, on alleged attempts to deflect debate from unemployment said: “Far from trying to deflect it, I am trying to focus it on unemployment because our policies are the ones that will produce genuine jobs and genuine hope for our young people in the future.
“We can help to try to create the conditions. How industry responds to them and how it takes up the opportunities we cannot determine. We can do a great deal by tax incentives to small business, a great deal to encourage all the new products in technology, a great deal to help industry keep costs down, a great deal on training and a great deal on training and a great deal on the balance of trade union power. That is the most vigorous, forward-looking, get ahead programme of any party in this election.”
On alleged Conservative heartlessness, she said: “I do not know anyone who is heartless about unemployment. I think to go out day after day to try to find a job and not succeed must be most demoralizing not only for the person who is searching but also for their family. Fortunately, a lot of people find jobs.”
Mr. Michael Foot, leader of the Labour Party, on the opinion polls said: “We are catching up and that is a move in the right direction. Of course I know we have got a considerable way to go but I believe we have got a magnificent campaign going throughout the country. I believe the election is being fought primarily on the issue of our choice and that is how we are going to get Britain back to work and get jobs for our people and I believe that is what is going to help us to win.”
Mr. Roy Jenkins, leader of the Social Democratic Party, said: “I am rather bouyant at this stage in the campaign. I am rather experienced in fighting elections in the last two years and I think I can tell when a movement of opinion is taking place before it shows itself in the polls. I am absolutely sure that our position is much stronger than is shown at the moment. The underlying support is there and it is coming our way.
“For the first time we are offering an effective third choice of government, and I believe that increasingly many people will come to see that this is what they want. The essential thing is that people should have the self-confidence to vote for what I believe they want rather than merely to vote against the greater of their two different fears.” (ITN News At One.)