Introduction
Mr. Chairman, we are approaching the half-way mark in this Election.
We are going strong. We shall finish strongly. And I believe we shall win.
It's a rough campaign. But I never expected our opponents to fight according to Queensbury Rules. They seldom do. [end p1]
If there were a referee in this contest, half of them would have been shown the yellow card by now. And one or two of them would have been sent off the pitch.
But we are not going to be distracted. We are not going to stop putting the issues straightforwardly before the British people.
Because we believe we have a fine record and the only programme for the future that will guarantee [end p2] peace and our traditional liberties, the only programme that will hold out real hope of prosperity and employment for our people.
We have already done a great deal. But the tasks ahead are formidable.
Our Approach to Unemployment
Mr. Chairman, unemployment is the deepest and most heart-rending problem now facing the nations of the West. [end p3]
There are 26 million people out of work in the OECD countries. Every country in Western Europe has been hit by the recession.
Every country has been hit by the competition from the newly industrialised nations of the Far East.
Every country has lost jobs in the transition from the old industries to the new technologies.
And the recession hit us harder because for years we had been more inefficient. [end p4]
Pay had gone up regardless of output. Inflation was among the highest in the Western world—and we were bedevilled by strikes and restrictive practices. If past Governments had done more to deal with inflation, there would be fewer people out of work today.
Unemployment concerns all of us in this country. Every one of us cares—and cares deeply. [end p5]
Everyone understands the feelings of a man who sees his skills suddenly become redundant. Everyone understands the frustrations of a school-leaver looking for his first job. And I know what it must be like for his family too.
But concern is not enough. There must be action. Practical, effective action to tackle the root causes of unemployment.
And this Government is taking action. [end p6]
We had to bring inflation and interest rates down so that we could sell our goods at competitive prices, both at home and abroad. And we have.
Price rises are down to four per cent. Interest rates are down by nearly seven per cent from eighteen months ago. And every percentage point off the cost of borrowing is worth more than £250 million a year to business. [end p7] (Congratulate Treasury Team)
Lower costs, higher sales, more jobs—that's the way it works. That's the way this country will increase the employment we all want to see.
We had to reduce income tax to encourage managers and workers. And we have. The basic rate reached 35p in the pound under Labour. We have cut it to 30p. [end p8]
We had to cut tax on business. And we have.
We have slashed the National Insurance Surcharge—Labour's tax on jobs putting £2,000 million a year back into industry and commerce. [end p9]
We had to help new business and new technology. And we have. There are now more than one hundred measures specifically to help small business.
Our loan guarantee scheme has enabled ten thousand small firms to borrow over £300 million to start up or to expand.
And this Conservative Government is now spending twice as much on stimulating new technology as Labour ever did. That's the way to create the firms of tomorrow and the industries of tomorrow. [end p10]
We had to improve our training. And we have—with the biggest and most exciting training scheme in our history—costing £1000 million a year and with places for 400,000 young people. That's the way to make sure that the next generation can match the skills of any other country in the world.
All these things we have done. And already you can see the evidence of dramatic improvement in our efficiency: productivity UP by sixteen per cent since 1980semi; strikes DOWNsemi; profits UPsemi; new businesses UP. [end p11]
We shall do more. And we shall not slow down nor rest on our achievement.
We are determined to continue until Britain has the best opportunities for business and the fewest obstacles to business of any Western country. That is how the Conservatives confront the challenge of unemployment.
That is how Conservatives care. [end p12]
Labour runs away
Labour's leaders are brave enough in the battle of words. Yet when it comes to the real battle for economic survival and lasting prosperity, they have no stomach for the fight.
Once again, their Manifesto confirms that in the end Labour always runs away. They are at it again in this Election; in full flight as fast as their legs will carry them. [end p13] — They are running away from the need to defend their country. — They are fleeing from the long overdue reform of the trade unions. — They are running out on Europe. — And they are running scared that you might read and understand their Manifesto. [end p14]
Above all, Labour is running away from the true challenge of unemployment. Its glib promise to create millions of new jobs—or rather, old jobs, or non-jobs—is no more than an evasion of the real problem that has long confronted us all. [end p15]
Labour's promises are easy and empty. But they fly in the face of their own experience.
They are deceiving themselves. Why did unemployment more than double under the last Labour Government from 600,000 in 1973 to nearly 1½ million in 1977? Did the last Labour Government want more unemployment? Didn't they care about the unemployed? Of course they did. Yet unemployment more than doubled under them too. [end p16]
The jobs labour would put at risk
Would Labour do any better if there were to be another Labour Government. Why read the crystal ball if you can look at the book?
And I've got the book here. Labour's Manifesto. I wouldn't make it your book at bedtime. It might give you nightmares. But if you're one of the don't knows, I recommend you to read it. You'll know then all right. [end p17]
For there's no better place than their Manifesto to look at the job prospects for Britain if Labour were ever returned to power. I read one or two extracts at our tremendous rally at Cardiff on Monday and I thought you might fancy a further instalment.
Here is what they say about Europe. “British withdrawal from the Community is the right policy for Britain—to be completed well within the lifetime of this Parliament.” [end p18]
Mr. Chairman, more than 2½ million British jobs depend on British membership of the Common Market. More than 2½ million. Every single one of those jobs would be at risk.
Then listen to what they say about defence: “Labour will reduce the proportion of the nation's resources devoted to defence so that the burden we bear will be brought into line with that of the other major European NATO countries.” [end p19]
To do that would mean cutting Britain's defence by some £4,500 million—equivalent to the entire budget of the Royal Navy.
According to Labour's last defence spokesman, Mr. Brynmor John, Labour's defence cuts “would mean a loss of jobs of a minimum of 325,000 and probably over half a million” .
Now they claim that they would make sure that their defence cuts didn't lead to unemployment by converting defence factories to making what they call “useful goods” . [end p20]
But even assuming you could make the conversion overnight, who'd buy those goods? Our ex-partners in Europe who'd just been repudiated by a Labour Britain?
Our American Allies who'd just seen their nuclear bases in Britain closed down by order of a Labour Government—because that's what the Manifesto says—with thousands more British job losses in and around those bases?
Who'd buy from a Labour Britain which had slammed on import controls? And that's in the Manifesto too. [end p21]
But far the most chilling sentence for job prospects in this devastating document is this one: “At the heart of our programme is Labour's new partnership with the trade unions” .
Mr. Chairman, it was Labour's old partnership with the trade unions that brought this country to its knees. The strikes, the restrictive practices, the overmanning, the political blackmail—all of it endorsed over and over again by Labour leaders—and not least by the present one. [end p22]
Remember how the last but one Labour Government surrendered over the legal reform of trade unions. “In place of Strife” —that was the name of their white paper. And In Place of Strife, Labour preferred appeasement. Remember how the last Labour Government obediently restored the legal privileges of the trade uniones. Those surrenders would be trivial beside Labour's plans today. [end p23]
“Our starting point in Government” , they say, “will be to discuss and agree with the trade unions a national economic assessment” .
Not with Parliament, but with the Trade Unions.
But it goes on “New statutory rights will enable workers to draw up plans for their own enterprises and sectors of industry, which we will seek to incorporate into our strategy.” [end p24]
“Negotiate agreed development plans with all leading companies—national and multinational, public and private”
“Support these agreed development plans with new industrial powers, including discretionary price controls, financial support and access to credit; and take powers to invest in individual companies, to purchase them outright or to assume temporary control” . [end p25]
“We expect the major clearing banks to cooperate with us fully on these reforms, in the national interest. However, should they fail to do so, we shall stand ready to take one or more of them into public ownership” . [end p26]
Of course Labour will try to fudge it and fog it.
But you can be sure that the moment they were in power, Labour's leaders would claim they had a mandate to carry out every single pledge in their Manifesto and the background documents.
And if they tried to slide out of it, there would be a clear majority of Labour MPs to hold them to their pledges. [end p27]
This partnership with the Trade Unions was a disaster before. It would be a partnership in disaster again.
Labour backs those whose actions would destroy jobs. We in the Conservative Party support the job-creators.
For unless we have a flourishing trade and industry, we can have neither the personal standard of living nor the standard of public services which we need. [end p28]
We Conservatives have always believed that the sick, the elderly and the disabled must be properly cared for. That has been part of the Conservative tradition for a century or more. Yet still our opponents try to spread the hoary old allegations that the Conservatives are out to dismantle the Welfare State.
They tried it last time and they're out on the doorstep putting it around again. It didn't wash at the last Election, and it won't wash this time either. [end p29]
Let's remind our opponents, and go on reminding them, of our fine record in the social services.
This Government has maintained those services through the worst recession in forty years.
At a time when many countries on the Continent like France and West Germany have had to delay pension increases and cut the real value of benefits, the Conservative Government in Britain has more than protected the retirement pension against rising prices. [end p30]
We promised it. And we did it, by prudent management and sound budgetting.
We promised to maintain spending on the National Health Service. And the 45,000 extra nurses and the 6,000 extra doctors are witness that we have kept that promise.
We have kept the war widows pension ahead of prices too—and taken it out of tax. [end p31]
We promised to help the disabled. And benefits to the disabled have been increased by more than nine per cent—and that's after allowing for rising prices.
We've raised the mobility allowance ahead of prices—and exempted that from tax, too.
If there's a Government anywhere in the world which has done more for the disabled in the past four years, I'd like to hear about it. [end p32]
We are proud of our stewardship and we have every reason to be proud.
But we Conservatives do not believe that the state can or should do it all. [end p33]
Let me remind you of some words worth remembering: “The state in organising social security should not stifle incentive, opportunity, responsibility; in establishing a national minimum it should leave room and encouragement for voluntary action by each individual to provide more than that minimum for himself and his family” .
That was Lord Beveridge in 1942. It was true then. And it's true now. [end p34]
Partnership between the state and the individual; partnership between the Government and the voluntary organisations; partnership between the state services and private effort in pensions, in health, in education for all ages—that is the British way. That is the Conservative way.
Governments can't please all the people all the time, but they can be fair. [end p35]
Mr. Chairman, in our Party we trust the people. And we listen to them. Democracy is a conversation, not a monologue. And if ever we stop listening to those who have placed their trust in us, then we shall not deserve to retain that trust.
Home ownership
We listened to the growing demand from families all over Britain who wanted to own their home. And so we gave Council tenants the legal right to buy their own home. [end p36]
The Labour Party fought those proposals tooth and nail. They are still fighting them today. This is what the Labour Party Manifesto says: “Labour will end enforced council house sales.”
How typical. Labour looks at it from the point of view of the state which wants to keep control over your homes and your lives. We look at it from the point of view of the people who want to buy. [end p37]
But the upshot is clear enough. If the local council says no to sales under a Labour Government, bang goes your right to buy.
And if you've already bought your home from the council and then want to move to a new job or a different area, under Labour you couldn't sell it to just anyone—oh no. That would make you finally free from the Council. Under labour, you would be compelled to sell that house back to the Council.
We do not know at what price. But when there's only one customer, who fixes a fair price? [end p38]
And if you should live under a Conservative Council eager for you to buy your council house, Labour has announced that they would take away the generous discounts which Council tenants can now get under this Government.
That great liberating hope of home-ownership would be snuffed out for millions of our fellow citizens.
Labour calls this policy “a new deal” for council tenants.
I call it a raw deal. [end p39]
The truth is that Labour wants to prevent you from owning anything to pass on to your children—the most natural and laudable of human instincts, to give your children a better start in life than you had yourself.
Mr. Chairman, under the Conservative Government, half a million council houses were sold. Half a million families growing up as freeholders. [end p40]
I tell you frankly: we would like to have sold more. But first we had to pass the law in Parliament. Then we had to force recalcitrant Labour councils to do their legal duties.
In the next Parliament, we shall go full steam ahead. We want to double that half million to one million, at least. [end p41]
Because we want to see a society in which every family has the chance to buy their own home, and to build up their savings, and to pass something on to future generations.
Mr. Chairman, the greatest thing we can pass on to our children is peach with freedom and justice. [end p42]
Safeguarding the peace
Mr. Chairman, those who want to work unremittingly for peace, for justice and for freedom have this government on their side. We are the Peace Party.
But we are more than that—we are the peace-keeping party. Peace doesn't come automatically. But because we have enjoyed peace in Europe for nearly 40 years some people have come to assume that this [words missing] state of affairs. It is not. [words missing] substantial efforts [end p43]
So don't let's take it for granted.
We must continue to work for it. — By keeping the deterrent up to date—so that war is never an option — By constant negotiations and efforts to limit arms and control weapons — By our spending on defence and our support for the armed forces. [end p44] Beginning of section checked against IRN Report 26 May 1983
That's where the Labour Party have got it so desperately, so dangerously, wrong. They do take peace for granted, because we've had it for forty years.
So much for granted that they're prepared to put our security at risk. They would abandon our nuclear deterrent; they would slash our defence forces, and they would throw out our American nuclear bases, bases which have helped to protect the peace for so well and for so long.
Hardly the act of a staunch ally to a friendly country Applause. [end p45]
Some of the Labour leaders know their policy's wrong. That's what the row is about [laughter]. They say that they're making a nonsense of it, but it's a dangerous nonsense. Well it's all here in the Labour Manifesto—and they voted for it. We're told it took a mere hour and a half for the so-called moderates to give up a vital part of our country's defences. That's all it took to agree their manifesto. [end p46]
An hour and a half for the extremist left to win, as it has won, and won, and won again [End of section checked against IRN Report 26 May 1983.] —Gaitskell wouldn't have given way, but then he belonged to a different Party—he belonged to the old Labour Party.
Where the Trots were banned and the Militant Tendency fought under its own colours, he had the courage of his convictions. These men have not convictions to have the courage of. [end p47]
When it mattered, they did not fight. Now it's too late they pretend that plain words have no meaning. That the Labour Manifesto commitment can be overlooked.
It can't. It's there. Clearly and unambiguously. Labour's commitment is to establish a non-nuclear defence policy for this country … the removal of all existing bases and weapons … “We will after consultation carry through in the lifetime of the next Parliament our non-nuclear defence policy” . [end p48]
Mr. Chairman, everyone wants peace. There is much at stake. The horror, and sacrifice, and waste of war are so awful. [end p49]
But the fact is, peace doesn't come about by accident. It is a rarity in the world today. Outside Europe, where there is no deterrent, peace has been hard to come by. 158 wars since 1945—ten million people killed—millions more maimed. There are vast numbers who cannot take peace for granted. Theirs is the terrible warning.
It is weakness that leads to war.
It is defenceless nations which are overrun.
It is the sight of easy pickings that tempts the aggressor. [end p50]
So if the Labour Party were to turn Britain's strength to weakness; if they were to dismantle our defences; and lay us open and unprotected—they would take the very action which would destroy the peace for which we have worked so hard.
Labour's one-sided disarmament makes war more likely. By taking peace for granted, they encourage the warlike and tempt the aggressor. [end p51]
So I wonder how Mr. Andropov received Labour's famous letter outlining their policy of one-sided disarmament. Did he hasten to produce his own unilateralist plans to respond to this gesture? Was “Me, too” the first phrase on his lips? Or did he say “The West is cracking up?”
“I need make no concessions in disarmament talks. I need give way on nothing. I need only hang on until they disarm on their own—leaving me in undisputed possession of the nuclear arsenal, able to blackmail them all—whenever I choose” . [end p52]
I suspect we know how Mr. Andropov answered the letter. He has already dismissed the suggestion that Russia should disarm unilaterally. He said: “We are not a naive people” . Well, Mr. Chairman, nor are we—only the Labour Party thinks so. Labour seems to have overlooked the invasion of Afghanistan and the Russian tanks in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and in Poland. But the British people haven't forgotten. They remember even further back. [end p53]
They remember how our weakness once encouraged a Nazi dictator. He believed we would not defend ourselves. He made war because he thought we were not serious about defending freedom.
Never again must we leave any potential aggressor in doubt. Britain is determined to keep the peace by making sure that no-one dare risk making war. [end p54]
I am not prepared, and no British Government since the War has been prepared, to put our liberty and security at risk by one-sided disarmament.
Our Disarmament proposals
Our disarmament proposals have the strength of the Western Alliance behind them. In the talks on strategic arms and intermediate arms in Geneva, in the talks in Vienna on troop reductions in Europe, in the Madrid Conference on security and cooperation we stand together with our friends in Europe and with the United States. [end p55]
Our opponents try to pretend that what we are doing for disarmament is of minor importance, that there is little of real substance at stake.
But let me tell you what would happen if all the East-West negotiations on disarmament were successful; if the Russians would actually agree to our many proposals. — The world would be free of the threat of chemical warfare and biological warfare. These horrible weapons would have been banned and destroyed. [end p56] In Britain we've already destroyed all our chemical weapons. Russia hasn't. Unilateral disarmament had not the slightest effect there. — A whole class of nuclear weapons would have been banned and existing stocks destroyed. We'd never need to deploy Cruise and Pershing. — Both super-powers would have reduced by at least one-third their stocks of the biggest nuclear weapons of all. [end p57] — Both sides would have the same number of troops in Central Europe—900,000 each. Equality would exist between the two sides, and each could verify that the other had carried out its promises.
And that would be only the end of the beginning. The mistrust and fear on both sides would begin to be broken down. And we could go on to agree further balanced and verifiable reductions in the armaments of both sides. [end p58]
Disarmament would not have weakened defence. We would still have security at a lower level of weaponry.
Many of us came into politics determined that the terrible slaughter of two world wars should never again be visited upon our people. And we are determined to leave to our children a world which is safe for them and their children. We shall not falter in that duty. [end p59]
Peroration
Mr. Chairman, in this country the things that most of us believe in are greater than the things that divide us.
There are people in all walks of life who share our vision, but who have not voted for us in the past.
At this Election there is so much at stake that I feel I must say to them: [end p60]
“The Labour Party today is not the party you used to support. It no longer stands for the traditions and liberties which made this country great. It is the Conservative Party that has stayed true to those traditions and those liberties.
Our principles have not changed. We believe in defending our country, and upholding the law. We believe in looking after the pensioner and the sick, in encouraging talent and ability wherever it may be found; and in helping families to own their own homes. [end p61]
If those are your beliefs, too, then we ask you to think deeply whether this time you would feel it right to support us.
For I believe that with this Conservative Government, our country has found its way again. We have a distance to travel yet before we fully regain our old strength. But we have already regained our pride and our self-respect.
Let us go forth from this hall confident in our cause, tireless in action and strong in resolve, and, on June 9th, victory will once again be ours.