Radio Interview for IRN (end of session)

Peter Murphy

If I can ask you first of all, Prime Minister, looking back at the year, it's been a year with rather more ups and downs for you than usual hasn't it?

Prime Minister

I think one or two things have been fought very strenuously, but you know that's what Parliament is for, to get things thoroughly debated and discussed and the House of Lords is after all a proper revising chamber, so I'd say they'd carried out their function very well indeed.

P. Murphy

Rather more banana skins than usual?

Prime Minister

You have invented that phrase, I hope to goodness we've seen the last of it.

P. Murphy

You hope you've seen the last of banana skins?

Prime Minister

What do you call banana skins?

P. Murphy

Well, there was the invasion of Grenada, the problems that have arisen over G.C.H.Q., your local government problems.

Prime Minister

I would hardly call Grenada a banana skin. Local government problems—why have you invented the word ‘banana skins’? I wouldn't have called the invasion of Grenada that, I wouldn't have called the passage of the local government bill a banana skin. It's up to Parliament to go through each clause properly and to amend it if need be, we've been doing that for centuries.

P. Murphy

Do you think that the size of your majority in the Commons has contributed to some of the problems you've had in the Lords?

Prime Minister

Oh, no, I don't necessarily think so, I think the Lords took a different view on certain things, they're entitled to do so, they then put forward amendments which we in the commons accepted. That's not unusual either.

P. Murphy

What about …   .

Prime Minister

It's only just that you haven't highlighted them previously.

P. Murphy

What about the coming session, do you expect it to be a quieter year?

Prime Minister

I don't think you ever have a quiet year in politics, don't forget the biggest rows in the House of commons aren't so much about the actual content of bills, they're about procedural matters. We're constantly having rows about procedural matters.

P. Murphy

And you expect the rows over local government obviously to continue next year?

Prime Minister

There will be a major bill, a very big bill on local government next year, on the abolition of the GLC and the other metropolitan counties, that will be our major piece of legislation and it will be fought in its customary robust way. [end p1]

P. Murphy

Over the past few weeks there have been reports that party morale has been dropping off very rapidly. Looking back at this time last year and assessing the state of the party now, how do you feel morale is?

Prime Minister

Morale is excellent.

P. Murphy

Looking forward to the summer recess?

Prime Minister

Are you suggesting that's the only reason why morale is excellent? Well, everyone looks forward to a recess.

P. Murphy

What about your own leadership of the party? There have been criticisms of that, after the Portsmouth south by-election defeat, you were criticised as being too strident?

Prime Minister

I should think all the time I have been here, there have been criticisms about my style, none of us can alter our style. You can't alter your style of interviewing, I can't alter my style of leadership. We each have it and so far it has won some elections—I admit it's a fairly forthright style but I'm not here just to be a chairman, I'm here to give a lead and I try to do just that.

P. Murphy

So there's no change in the future for that?

Prime Minister

No, there'd be [Sic] wholly artificial if there were.

P. Murphy

Can I turn now to the miners' strike, it's gone on now for twenty-two weeks, do you see any end in sight?

Prime Minister

At the moment I cannot see quite how it will end, though I hope it will end soon, every strike has to end and does end. No-one will be more pleased than I am when peace has returned to the coalfields.

P. Murphy

But how much longer can it continue, how much longer can the nation put up with it?

Prime Minister

Well, certainly the coal stocks can endure well into next year, but one isn't really thinking of the strike in those terms. I think it's gone on too long.

P. Murphy

It's been suggested that the money that has been spent on the coal strike so far by the government in extra costs—in policing, in the extra cost as regards electricity, is money well spent, a worthwhile investment.

Prime Minister

No, I think that is a total misinterpretation of what Nigel Lawson said and if you look towards the end of that debate, he made it very clear that the government didn't want this strike and does not wish it to continue. But when you are faced with a strike in spite of everything …   . this government did to prevent a strike, because don't forget no government has ever given the miners a better deal than this one, either in pay, either in voluntary redundancy terms, or in investment for the future—no government has ever given the miners a better deal. We did that to try to prevent any possibility of a strike. [end p2] nevertheless when you're faced with one, then in duty to all of the other people who are staying at their jobs, then of course you have to do your level best to keep things going as normal and that is what we've done.

P. Murphy

The Labour party has criticised you for not intervening in the strike and not actually doing anything to try and bring both sides together.

Prime Minister

Both sides have been together, they have been together for a total of seven days, thirty-five hours in seven days, you know how it ended. We thought that Mr. Macgregor, for the National Coal Board, put on the table a very reasonable offer, in addition to the things I've mentioned, the very best deal the miners have ever had, what Mr. Macgregor 's offer amounted to was the self-same procedures about uneconomic pits that should be followed in the future as have served the industry very well in the past, he put out a statement yesterday indicating fully what those procedures were and how they worked. Those procedures should continue—and what is wrong with that? You heard from the debate we had in the House the other day that the Labour party accepts that uneconomic pit should be closed, even put into legislation, even provided for grants to be made in that eventuality and it then appeared to come to an argument about procedure, so Mr. Macgregor tried to meet that immediately by a statement yesterday explaining the full procedures under which I think some seventy-nine pits have been closed and that those will continue to be followed in the future.

P. Murphy

Can you foresee any new developments during the summer arising which might bring the sides back together?

Prime Minister

Well it's not a question of bringing the sides together, they have been together,

It's a question of whether the sides, if they come together again, will take the view that appeared to be the view at the end of the debate of the Labour party in the House of commons, namely that there is a case for closing uneconomic pits, that they closed them, that they put the closure of uneconomic pits into legislation, so it's not …   . they don't actually only believe in it, they actually enshrined it in legislation and they were then quarrelling about the procedure, the full procedure was explained, in a very long statement yesterday. Now if you look at all of that there is no reason for the strike. None at all.

P. Murphy

The House has now adjourned until October. Do you think it right that the M.Ps should go away with the strike still carrying on?

Prime Minister

M.Ps can always be recalled very quickly should the situation require it. You'll be aware that we have been recalled from time to time in the past but after all we've been in session for some twenty-two weeks of the strike but I'm afraid that hasn't been able to get the strike over.

P. Murphy

Do you foresee an emergency arising that would need to bring Parliament back?

Prime Minister

You cannot prophesy. All the procedure is there. If Parliament needs to come back, it could be recalled.