Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
Prime Minister, undoubtedly, the great success of your term of office has been in reducing inflation, but there are times as a housewife, quite frankly, when I do not feel better off. I seem to have less in my purse at the end of the week and I am puzzled when I am told we are part of an economic recovery.
In what way precisely am I better off because of your policies?
P.M.
Well, I think the figures just show - and I do not think you are disputing them - that average earnings have gone up. They have gone up quite considerably, and they have gone up over and above inflation because we have got inflation down and therefore people who are in work usually are better off and when both of you work, then it does usually help.
I think, you know, there was once a survey done - I remember it vividly because it seemed to have applied to me throughout my whole life. Everyone says they [end p1] could really get on a lot better if they were paid about 20&pcnt; more than they had and that applied at almost any of the reasonable incomes.
I think many many people do spend their house-keeping by the end of the week. It is the customary thing. You might decide … I think you often have to decide before what you are going to put aside in savings, because if you wait and see if there is anything left over there probably will not be. You will probably spend it.
It has applied to me most of my life that what you allocated for your housekeeping money you did spend. I think this especially applies to us housewives.
If you go out to buy something which is not in the usual weekly budget - if you for example go out to buy some sheets, some pillow-cases or a winter coat or something special for the house, a toaster, something you have not bought for several years, then you do notice the increase in price, of course you do, because you have got several years to look at and that does seem expensive &dubellip; or a piece of furniture. On the other hand, sometimes you go to a sale and you get a very good reduction, but also very good value; quite apart from the reduction, very good value.
But the figures do show that and that is good, because a higher standard of living … usually, most people's expenditure is to put it on to a higher standard for the home, maybe fitted carpets, maybe [end p2] they are doing up kitchens, they are having marvellous things done to their bedrooms, central heating, and so on, and that is a good thing.
But I think you will find that most people, whatever their income, would find it much easier to cope on a little bit more.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
I just wonder, though, has it been worth it that the battle against inflation, when you consider the social cost in deprivation with job losses?
P.M.
Look! If we had not won the battle against inflation, we would have far more job losses than we have got now. You imagine! Germany's won it. Japan has won it. The United States has won it. We have to compete with them and we are a country, taking the United Kingdom as a whole, which has to export one-third of its income to live. Now if they tackled and beat inflation and we had not, we would lose out all the time on our export orders and that would mean a lot more job losses.
It was vital for exports to beat the battle against inflation, but it is vital for something else too. Scotland is a nation of savers still and just supposing the year when you had inflation at well over 25&pcnt;, so a pound at the beginning of the year was worth [end p3] only 75 pence at the end, when that was going on, your savings just dwindled and it was not fair and it was thoroughly dishonest of any government to run it that way.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
The trouble about this is that I feel there is a kind of feeling of a very hard-nosed society which is fine if you are in work and you can buy your home and you can buy your shares. …
P.M.
Well in Scotland, most people who are in work probably do not own their homes and we are trying to make it possible for more people to own their homes.
I think, you know, materialism is not everything. Of course it is not. Being kind to your neighbour and receiving kindness from your neighbour means a great deal, so that you you know if you have got a spot of bother you can rely on your neighbour; someone who will come in to help you; you can rely on your friends.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
As this cold weather spell has shown.
P.M.
Yes, indeed. You go to church and they will want something to re-do their church and all right, there is [end p4] nothing wrong in saying: “Yes, well I can afford to give you something!” There is nothing wrong in saying: “Yes, I am doing better. I can afford to support the arts!” Good Heavens, Glasgow is now the city of culture, but isn't that wonderful?
But, you see, having extra money is not only materialism. It is more than that. It is doing better for your family than your parents were able, in spite of their very big efforts, to do for you. It is having something over to give to your church; something to go to the many arts things, to support the arts. Some to support the voluntary societies or something out of your own pocket just to lend a hand or give an extra unexpected gift, Christmas present, to someone you know who needs it; to give a helping hand to someone else.
But materialism is never enough, but there are some things that you cannot do without a few odd pennies in savings or in your pocket, and so do not look at it as just being hard-nosed. It is not what you have got; it is what you do with it.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
I have read that the term “the North-South divide” is one that you dislike, but all around in Scotland I really must admit that I see real jobs disappearing and old industries vanishing and it frightens me that my children are growing up in an industrial waste-land. [end p5]
When will the job prospects really improve in Scotland?
P.M.
I think it is wrong to call it an “industrial waste-land”. Certainly, some of the old industries are having to change and some of them, like your shipbuilding for example, like quite a bit of steel although mercifully not all because we have modernised our own steel plants like Ravenscraig, have moved from the older industrialised countries to the newer ones. They have moved to Japan; they have moved to South Korea; they have moved to Taiwan. Some of those industries have become those people's prosperity and they then use those to buy different things from us, and so, yes, where we have got those industries - and heavy engineering was one - in which it is not so much that they have moved to the Far East; it is just that we have not always kept in the forefront of change, so if you go round a factory that is modernised, I always go and look not only at what they are making but the machines with which they are making it and I am afraid far too many of them &dubellip; you are right &dubellip; come from Germany, come from Swizterland, come from the United States.
Now, that is nothing to do with things going to the Far East; it is just we were not fast enough on change and the latest design, and it is up to us to change that; but then, we were very fast on developing [end p6] the North Sea. That is one of the biggest accolades to private enterprise that ever existed.
I remember being taught at school weren't we unlucky? If we had any oil it was under the North Sea and we would never be able to get it, and if intellectually, you had looked at the problem forty years ago, it was unbelievable, and that is one of the biggest compliments to Scotland - that it did it, and that it had the people who could do it and of course, it did not shrink from taking advice from the United States because they knew how to do it. But it is fantastic.
And also, the way in which the new electronic industries have come to Scotland. That too is terrific.
You have got got excellent, very successful pharmaceutical industries.
Textiles. They have changed. The designs are superb. I just said: what a marvellous design! As you know, I buy some of my things from Elgin with lovely design. They have a shop there with lovely things, and they have been doing very well in exports as well.
Yes, you are hard hit in the amount of shipbuilding you have, but Yarrows are excellent and my goodness, they get a goodly proportion of the orders because they are so good. Gartcosh yes, I know it was a great blow. People were worried that it would have an effect on Ravenscraig. I did not take that view at all because I know how much Ravenscraig means to Scotland but I never forget when people have fantastic [end p7] courage and keep going in face of intimidation and difficulty and the courage of the people who kept Ravenscraig going during the Coal Strike is such.
You see, there we are. Is it materialism to want a Scottish steel plant in Scotland? No. It is a lot more than that.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
It is a life blood in Scotland …
P.M.
It is not only life blood but it also means a great deal to Scotland, but then, when the people who work there were not going to be told what they were going to do and said: “No! We will keep it going!”, you do not forget that because that is the spirit.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
How do you account though for the fact that 94&pcnt; of the jobs lost in Britain since 1979 are in the North and 6&pcnt; are in the South?
P.M.
Because you have more of the older industries in the North. Of course, mind you, people also call Wales “the North”. It is not really, but it is classified.
For example, you have more of your coal mines in the North and a number of them are worked out. You have [end p8] had more of your steel in the North, if you include Wales as the North, which is not technically correct.
You have more of your old heavy engineering in the North.
If you analyse it differently and say: You have got problems. Where you had your local areas heavily dependent on the older industries, then you will see that when a coal mine closes down in Kent they have the same problems round there that you had in Scotland and in part of Wales.
When a tin mine closes down in Cornwall you have the same problems there as you have if everything depends on another industry.
In Vosper Thorneycroft, in the South, a lot of jobs are dependent upon shipbuilding there. They have the same problems that you will see at shipbuilding in the North, so if you get the analysis that where an area is heavily dependent on an older industry and you have not yet got enough newer ones coming to take its place or it is not modernised sufficiently or it has been dependent upon one particular big company and that has closed down - for example, Linwood. Linwood made a loss eighteen years out of nineteen. When it closed down, of course it was devastating for the area and also, of course, it is an area where there is shipbuilding, so it had a double blow.
That is one of the reasons, but of course you will find that some of the numbers of long-term employed, the [end p9] proportion of unemployment is less in the South. Number of course can be bigger because there are more people in the South.
But you will find, if you look at the figures, for many years now there has been this North-South problem on jobs and you will find that the gap has not got wider at all. In some areas we are doing well with getting either inward investment, which we have been very successful at in Scotland and we want it to go on; or getting the new electronics. Or, of course, in Aberdeen a whole new industry, and that too is having a problem with the price of oil.
But Scottish people have taken the latest engineering the world over; the latest entrepreneurial skills, the latest initiative, the world over, and I think we are beginning to get more smaller businesses in Scotland and more enterprise - people taking advantage of enterprise allowance - so it is coming back.
But please do remember that well over 80&pcnt; are in work. What are we in Scotland, about 14&pcnt; unemployment - 13.8&pcnt; - and we all think about those because it is not merely the numbers, it is the families as well. Of course we all think of that.
But if you want people to come there and start up and say: “Look! Let us go to Scotland!” then you have got to say: “Look! Scotland is a marvellous place!” [end p10]
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
We are hoping next year Glasgow will come. …
P.M.
The changes I have seen in Glasgow! Every time I come I look around. It is a different city.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
Beautiful city.
P.M.
It has been wholly revived. It is lovely. Go and look at the railway station. That is one of the best modernisations in the whole of the country.
You look at its culture. It has now had this tremendous boost, and then, of course, you go to Edinburgh and it is really one of the most beautiful capitals, if not the most beautiful capital city, in Europe.
I had an interview when I last came up on Scottish television and I &dubellip; because what they were saying to me was quite different from what they were saying to people whom they were trying to get to advertise on television or advertise in their newspapers.
Look! The financial business in Scotland is a largely unpublicised success. It is second only to London! A major focus of financial activity in the United Kingdom, providing 80,000 jobs. [end p11]
The Scottish nation - it went on to say - does not have the same problems as Tyneside, Merseyside and the broken industrial heartlands of the North.
My goodness me, Tyneside picked up that! Tyneside say: “Look! You have got a Scottish Development Agency up there. Look what that does for Scotland!”
And then it went on: “Look, for example, wages in Scotland are well above the British average, excluding London and the South East and the Scots have a greater proportion of weekly earnings that they can spend on themselves. This is reflected in the increased ownership of retail store cards and current accounts.”
So they, when they wanted people to advertise, were selling Scotland, and that is the way to do it and there is so much to sell, when you think of the farming in Scotland. We all have problems with farming because the success has been so great that we are all producing more than people can eat, but it is fantastic and it gives so much to Scotland. You know, it gives such a strength.
Fishing. We have tried to do a good deal for fishing in the Common Market.
Farming and fishing will go on and on and on in Scotland and are an enormous strength.
The financial sector. Some of your very successful industries &dubellip; and the only problem, if I might put it that way, is to try to get more to start up or [end p12] come in, because this is the way to get jobs, new jobs and a future.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
I am worried about education. Scottish education, as you know, was once second to none.
P.M.
Yes, you and I are passionate about education. I would never be here unless I had had a good education, in my case in a grammar school.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
And my son this year is just about to apply for university and it is so important that children get this chance.
But schools at the moment are very full of unrest. It has been a dreadful time with the teachers' strike.
P.M.
Oh absolutely terrible. The strikes were greater in Scotland and more widespread than they were here which, if I might say, in a way - I hope you will not take it the wrong way - rather shocked us further south.
I will tell you why: because to us, Scotland was the absolute acme of good education, absolute example of good education, and we were very shocked that so many teachers did not put their pupils first, but we did set [end p13] up the Sir Peter Main Main Committee and it did come out with what was a very reasonable result, which as you know we are implementing in two phases and it seemed to us very reasonable to do that.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
Why do you think the teachers are so dissatisfied? Why do you think they are so militant and so angry and they feel they do not have enough money for books; that the curriculums are being cut; the university places … that their job is undervalued… that they do not think teachers are recognised as important enough in society?
P.M.
That is one reason which worried me about the strike. If teachers go on strike, then parents do not think so highly of them. That was very tragic, because again, in our young day, teachers were really one of the most important people in society and I would still expect them to be so, and I think always in some of the smaller towns they still are, and I hope that their importance will continue to be recognised, but the strike, I think, held them back.
As you know, education is under the power of the local authorities. Block grants, as you know, go from the tax-payer to the local authorities and they have included increasing amounts for books. How local authorities spend that money is up to the local [end p14] authority and it is sometimes very very worrying to us that the money which we calculated to go to one purpose is not necessarily spent for that purpose. That is what happens with the local authorities, and that is one reason why we are looking now to see whether it would not be better, as there is more per pupil than ever before, whether we cannot get more powers to the school itself and to the governors, because frequently I hear head teachers saying to me things like this: “Do you know out of the whole budget for the school, I only have the say-so over, say, £3,000!” and that is small, and we are beginning to think would it not be better, out of the whole budget for the school, if the headmaster and the governors - and they will have the interests of that school at heart - did not have the control of the overwhelming majority of the budget, so they decided how many teachers they had; whether the teachers had more free periods or less free periods, so they could spend more on books; or whether they could spend more on taking children to see things for themselves or more on outings or more on having a petition or more on having some equipment. Because we think that that would give enhanced importance to the head teacher, but not only that, we think that it would give a better education and you know, if you want the best results you really have to try to involve people in the decisions, because then you get extra responsibility. [end p15]
Now, it is happening. There have been a number of authorities that have done this and what they have found is that the head teachers and the governors and the parents were very much better pound-stretchers than a local authority.
I owe my whole career to having had an excellent education and I am eternally grateful for it and terribly conscious that our children, whatever their background, it is our job to try to see that they get the education which brings the best out of that child, because there is something talented and able in every child.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
I have come to the question that there is a feeling that women have been driven back into the home and some people say it is ironic that under the first woman prime minister, working women are having a harder time of it in that a lot of nurseries are closing down &dubellip; there is less money for pre-school play groups; many women are now having to say at home to care for their elderly relatives because the home help service in many areas has been cut down. It just seem to me that you have asked women &dubellip; (overtalking) &dubellip;
P.M.
I think we have got more home helps actually &dubellip; and we have got more nursery schools. Do you know, I find [end p16] it desperately worrying and very bothering when for example in education there has been more money over and above inflation, allocated for each pupil. We have got a bigger proportion of young people going to universities.
Nursery schools was always one of my great things as Secretary of State for Education, because I reckon that it matters very much to try to get children to nursery school before they go to primary school, first so that they get used to being with other children and therefore they have got to think of them; and I thought that we had more nursery schools. Just let me look it up.
The number of home helps … is this in Scotland as well as in the United Kingdom? &dubellip; the number of home helps is now greater than in 1979 and the number of people who are using the service of home helps has risen by nearly 20&pcnt; and for children's services, the places available in play groups, nurseries and in child-minding have risen by 5&pcnt; more in play-groups, 16&pcnt; more in nurseries and 150&pcnt; more in child-minding. That is since 1980, against the background of a fewer number of children in the population.
Of course, there are not places for everyone and we have to go on making progress, of course we do. But I believe we are making progress, but you see, when you have more home helps and when you have more places in play groups and nurseries and child-minding, I think [end p17] that what happens is that the people who have not got them do not say: “Well look! There are more people having the service!” What they say is: “I have not got it!” and that is understandable isn't it? And sometimes, when you are gradually getting more, the people who have not got them feel more resentful than they would, and that is understandable.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
But do you feel that women have carried the biggest brunt of your policies, or do you not feel that?
P.M.
Carried the biggest brunt of my policies?
Let us just see what the policies have done!
A higher standard of living than we have ever had before.
Yes, we have quite a lot of women working on part-time work. Indeed, I am tackled about it in the House of Commons - “But you have got so many more part-time jobs!” to which I say: “But that suits a lot of women!” Many women want part-time jobs. They have their children at school, but they want to do something, both to add to their income and to add to their social life, to add to their contacts, to add to their interest, and there do seem to be rather a lot of part-time jobs and women do them very well.
So you have a higher standard of living for most [end p18] people; you have got a wonderful Glasgow, an excellent Edinburgh.
We have got the older industries, but for the people who are working we have a higher standard of living.
I think women obviously always worry about their children. There would be something very strange if we did not, and I think women also worry not only about how they are going to manage, because every housewife is a manager. A housewife is a very skilled, important job, and it is a managerial job. Every woman who is a housewife is a manager, so she is worried. As you say, she has got to get through this week and got lots of decisions to take and she is worried about the long-term future, so if you are looking at it and you say: “Well, it is a higher standard of living! There are more doctors, nurses and things in the Health Service and more money!” No-one is saying everything has been done, but there are more. There is a bigger proportion of teachers compared with pupils and more money. No-one is saying everything has been done. What I am saying is we are going in the right direction.
I recognise we need more jobs. Those cannot come from the creation of Government. Insofar as they can, we do have a lot spent on Community programmes to get people in, but for that we depend upon prosperous industry providing the taxation and money to enable us to do that. But it is up to business to provide the [end p19] extra jobs and they may come in unexpected ways and in different sort of jobs from those we have been having, but we are making progress and do not forget when you say “borne the brunt”, look and see what the media is saying when they are not talking to politicians!
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
As regards the Health Service, there are endless stories of people with great long waiting lists waiting for operations. My son went in, he had a broken arm … it is dreadful.
P.M.
I read that and you must have suffered the agony with your son, because I reckon mothers suffer very much. “If my son is in pain, why can you not X-ray him straight away?”
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
Well why is this Health Service not more efficient? Why is it not better staffed? Why is it like this?
P.M.
Again, I can only say to you - and Jim CoeJim [a No. 10 Press Officer] will give you the actual figures broken down for Scotland. I have got them. There are more doctors, more consultants. Let me give you … I think I have got it [end p20] here. I looked through it just to make sure because I know it is true of the United Kingdom as a whole and I looked to see, because I had them all at my finger tips when I came up to Scotland last … since 1979, consultant doctors have increased from 1,757 to 1,886 - that is an increase of about 7&pcnt;.
Qualified nurses and midwives have gone up by 26&pcnt;, that is by an extra one for every four - from 26,000 to 33,000.
And the professions, like your X-ray people and your physiotherapists, have gone up from 3,200 to 4,020, so there are more, and those are the facts.
And as you know, the amount spent has gone up way beyond inflation and it is the tax-payer who spends it and every family of four is spending now about £25 a week towards the Health Service in their taxes, either direct or through VAT.
So we have got more doctors, more nurses, more of the radiologists and professions supplementary to medicine and more money.
The management has to be done by the local hospital. It certainly cannot be done from London. It cannot even be done from Edinburgh. You have to get more and more responsibility delegated to the hospital and they have to make best use of money, and I think this is the new revolution that is coming. They are doing it. [end p21]
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
I would like to move on now to small high street shops in Scotland.
Many of them are closing down because of the huge rate bills and we feel this feeling that we are going to be left with hyper-markets.
I wonder how you feel about this.
P.M.
Some of the big multiples are complaining too, because they say that they pay more in rates in Princes Street, Edinburgh, than some big multiples do in London, and we really felt this could not go on, as you know, and that is why we are having a whole reform of the rating system.
Scotland had a slightly different rating system, different law, and also you get problems with relation to sports grounds in Scotland because of a different rating system.
Also, because Scotland had a revaluation which produced very unexpected results, because we were told Scotland wanted a revaluation. It is not for me to override that advice, but it produced unexpected results which caused real hardship to rate-payers and to small businesses which is why we are getting the Scottish rates reform first - because people felt, and rightly so, that it was unfair. [end p22]
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
I mean, houses in Scotland are rated so much higher than a comparable house in England.
P.M.
It depends where the house in England is. We have variations here too. In some cases it certainly is so.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
I know house prices are cheaper.
P.M.
I know house prices are cheaper.
P.M.
Yes, the rateable value and the rate poundage. A comparatively small house in Helensburgh will have a very very high rate, and some small businesses. I remember Mike Forsythe coming to me and saying: “Look at the rate bill for a small business in my high street! It cannot go on!”
Now we had immediately to try to do something about it, as you know, by reducing the immediate burden, but we just have to change the way in which it is done and it does take a time and I wish we could do it more quickly.
But it is not fair and it was coming very heavily on about one in five of your people in Scotland, because everyone pays taxes but some were paying heavy rates as well as heavy taxes and it was unfair and we are accelerating that because we just could not leave it. [end p23] It was unjust.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
I would like to move on now to old people. I think that … the question … my mother worked for &dubellip; served in the war &dubellip; always voted Conservative, yet at the last rise in pensions she was very disappointed only to get forty pence and she said …
P.M.
Ah well, there has been a rise since then hasn't there?
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
&dubellip; and it comes nowhere near meeting the rise in heating bills.
P.M.
There has been a rise. That was an interim rise, you see, and looking back on it, it was because instead of having the increase from November to November, we were doing it from April to April, but had we not given an interim rise, you would have had nothing from November one year right over the following year, nothing, to a following April, and so what we did was do an interim rise and I am beginning to think that it would have been better if we had not done it, because it is linked in absolutely to inflation and I come to the [end p24] conclusion that it would have been better if we had not done it; if we had just added it to the rise that came in November. Then people would have been very much more satisfied because they had got one bigger rise, and indeed what we did was have three rises within sixteen months. It would have been better if we had only had two rises within sixteen months, and then people would have seen the increase. But in fact, you know, the forty pence I think for a single person caused more resentment and yet we did not know what it was going to be, you see. We said: “By whatever inflation has gone up, by that you shall have!” Well, inflation was low, which helps old people with their savings, savings do not lose their value, but I accept it would have been better I think if we had not had it and that amount had been added on to much a much bigger rise which they got in November, which would have been bigger still if we had had that amount added to it.
You are quite right. It did cause resentment. Done with the best of intention … an interim rise … but did not in fact come out. It would have been better to have done it the other way: to have held it up until this November and then it would have been added to the November rise and they would have been pleased, whereas in fact they were not!
Three rises within sixteen months &dubellip; the three rises came to … £3.70 per week. [end p25]
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
Do you feel this goes near meeting the heating costs?
P.M.
Well, let me tell you about heating costs. Heating costs really are for pensioners on supplementary benefit, particularly those over the age of sixty-five.
Now, if you are a pensioner aged sixty-five on supplementary benefit, you get your heating costs in three ways:
In your ordinary supplementary benefit, there is something allocated to heating costs; and then you get on top of that a weekly extra payment known as a heating addition. It amounts in all to £400 million a year, and we divide that up among the supplementary pensioners over sixty-five and it is paid every week in the year, including the summer months, because sometimes during the summer months you see you can buy your coal more cheaply. So that is why we also put the heating addition during the summer months.
So if you are a pensioner on supplementary benefit, a householder, and sixty-five, you get about £8 every week, especially for heating, and then with your severe weather payments which we invoked you get an extra £5, so it would go up to £13 a week for heating, of which £8 is every week and the extra £4 is for severe weather. If you are over eighty-five, your blood is thinner … we stepped up [end p26] the amount. So if you are over eighty-five, you get, I think, £11, of which some comes from your supplementary benefit, some is the special heating addition which goes every week, and you get £11 every week in respect of heating. Then, when you get the severe weather payment added on, it gives an extra £5, so it comes up to £16 a week for heating. In respect of heating. Now that is not bad.
Without severe weather payments you get £11. It is very nearly £600 a year for heating you see, and I do think it is important to get those figures across.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
I would like to ask now about food mountains; how they grow, while the housewife is paying more for the particular item and why these food mountains cannot be sent to the Third World.
P.M.
Well now, the food mountains. What the housewife pays is, of course, the cost really of what has gone to the farmer or, if we import it sometimes from overseas in order to protect our own farmers, there is a certain levy on it.
But the farmers are producing more than the housewife can eat, but the farmer is nevertheless paid for the extra amounts that he produces and you are quite right, what is happening now is the mountains are [end p27] getting so big that the tax-payer not only pays for the food he cannot eat, but he pays for storing the food he cannot eat, and the tax-payer therefore is paying quite a lot which does not go to the farmer this year.
But if we just gave it away, then people would not … it is tempting to say: “All right, open the door and give it to the schoolchildren and to the old folk!” Well then, of course, none of what the farmers produce this year would be bought and we would have even bigger problems. Quite a lot of it does go to the Third World, but it costs you about £40 a tonne to store the butter. If you send it to the Third World it will then cost you something like over £200 in transport costs … I think it is £200 per tonne &dubellip; and that is one of the problems … you know … the food is where you do not want it.
Also, for example, the butter mountain is the biggest. There is about a year's supply. But butter is not a thing that goes to the Third World in very great quantities because they do not have it; it is too hot. Butter oil; I think we only sent about 2,000 tonnes of butter oil to Africa, because there was not a demand for it.
They prefer rice to wheat.
What they can have is milk powder, but it is again a real problem, because the farmers, even though their production is down, they are still producing more than we can eat and we are still getting these, and what we [end p28] are trying to do is to make the changes at a speed which the farmers can adjust to.
When it comes to lamb, it is a different system. We do not have lamb mountains. Those are for special payment; a kind of deficiency payment for lambs and the housewife gets the advantage of a lower market price and we do not store it, and in a way it would have been better if we had more of that system.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
I was wanting to move on now to council houses. Lots of people are now enjoying having been able to buy their council house for the first time, which is a great thing for a lot of people, but there does seem to be a need for an increase in council house building for the people who just cannot buy. Lots of people are homeless because they just cannot afford to buy as house, nor can they get a house to rent.
P.M.
One of the problems is that for a given population now you are having to have a bigger supply of housing than you did previously. Some of it is automatically that marriages are younger and so you need more houses because you are getting four generations in the time when you used to have three. Others, of course, are broken homes. We are having to provide more. [end p29]
But some people move out of their council houses to buy other property.
What we are finding is the real need, not so much in the ordinary house because we are very anxious … you will find you know in so many newly developed countries they will say: “Look! We will help people to buy their homes, not build them for rent!” and that really is very good, because they then finish up with an asset.
What we are trying to concentrate on is often sheltered housing, often for old folk, and for disabled, and of course, now and then you do need certain housing for larger families, but not more in general because with bigger incomes I think there is quite a desire for people to purchase their own.
It is just one of those tragedies that in the post-war period a lot of the houses we built and these enormous blocks …
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
&dubellip; were such a disaster …
P.M.
&dubellip; sometimes people say: “I really do not want to buy a flat on the sort of eighth floor!” and done again with the best of intentions and it grieves me greatly when I learn from architects now that we could have got almost the same amount of homes on the same amount of land. [end p30]
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
Glasgow is particularly good at refurbishing old property which is so much nicer than the &dubellip;
P.M.
&dubellip; it would have been so much nicer. What we did was take these communities where people knew one another, because you had to walk past your neighbour to get to the shops, and then what they did was bulldoze them down and think they could get the same result by taking a row of houses and tipping them up vertically and, of course, you do not have to pass your neighbour in the same way to go shopping.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
I think people are much happier living in a red sandstone tenement flat &dubellip; than a multi-storey flat.
P.M.
Lovely. They look gentle, don't they. Sandstone. If only we had kept some of them and modernised them.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
I think now we are beginning to get it right; that there has been great &dubellip; [end p31]
P.M.
Yes. Was it in Easterhouse someone modernised one block there with great success?
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
And in The Gorbals in Glasgow.
P.M.
And in The Gorbals, and I think we will have to try to do more of that.
We will have to try to get what I call “gentler housing” and housing where the architects think: “Well now, with the housing arrangements in this way are we going to form a community where they know their neighbours and are we going to have &dubellip;” &dubellip; very important … that you design housing so that you give the vandals no opportunity for vandalism or less and less, because you know, some of those walkways, some of the catwalks, they are just temptations, and we have got to think of this much more. We must learn from experience.
I think we must recognise that the people who put those flats up were trying to get the maximum amount quickest, but you see, sometimes we are finding that some of those blocks have to be taken down and if, in due course, you know, we could afford to take some of them down at the same time as you are building what I call a “gentler”, what shall I call it, warmer kind of [end p32] housing arrangement, but you have got to get the two done together.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
I am coming now to the end of my political questions. I would like to ask you later a few general ones.
Many of the women I talk to seem to think you are simply not aware of what some people are suffering as a result of your policies &dubellip;
P.M.
Steady! One moment! As a result of my policies?
Let us go back on it! The standard of living of those in work has never been higher. For those out of work the standard of benefit and help we give has never been higher. The tax-payer gives. Has never been higher.
Glasgow has never been better.
Scotland has many flourishing industries.
So just let us talk about the successes of Scotland as well.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
If we are on the brink of an election, what can you offer Scotland this time? Will it be more of the same or is there going to be something better? [end p33]
P.M.
Well one moment! More of the same? The standard of living has gone up for those in work.
We, insofar as we have problems on unemployment, have spent more per head in Scotland than we have in England, because we recognise that Scotland has problems. £128 of tax-payers' money is spent per head in Scotland compared with £100 in England, and it is more than spent also per head in Wales.
So that is met.
Scotland has its Scotland Development Agency and its location bureau for industry which is doing very well, so it has been a steady higher standard of living for those in work.
The Scottish Development Agency and inward investment is doing very well in getting more businesses and, my goodness me, I am the first to hope that we will get more. I am the first to hope that the enterprise allowance will persuade more people to start up on their own.
For those out of work - and I am the first to feel it - I did not have any advantages starting in life myself. We had to earn our way up.
For those who unfortunately are out of work, the benefits are better and for the young people we have got training schemes they have never had before. We will go on with those. [end p34]
And out of the higher earnings we have allocated more to health than has ever been done before.
Of course, we know not everything has been done, but we are going on, more doctors, more nurses, more patients treated.
It is a good story. We have tackled some of the teachers' problems and I hope the teachers will feel now that money comes not from Government. Let me say this. From the tax-payer. When people say they want more they are not putting a proposition to me; they are putting a proposition to their neighbour and saying: “Look! You have got to pay me more!”
So just tell that story!
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
… the Government cares. I think this is what has been lacking … the Government cares about problems …
P.M.
We have cared enough to do those things and do everything that we can to enable business to create more jobs, because look, if I might put it this way: I believe that prosperity is on my side in politics. Poverty has nothing to do with any part of my belief in politics. My whole thing is to help people get on in life according to their talents and abilities and to see that they are not under the thumb of other people. [end p35]
I do not want people to have to go to local authorities for their housing and have to stand in queues.
I do not want people to have to stand in queues for permission to do this, that or the other.
I want them to have their own independence, their own dignity, their own savings. To know that their savings will have their value. To be responsible for their own children. To have much more say in the education of their own children, in how their school is run.
And also I want more management to the local hospital as I reckon they know better than we do in Edinburgh and certainly better than we do in Whitehall.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
These are just a couple of general questions and not political ones.
On Saturday morning's “Superstore”, you mentioned always choosing two books from the library when you were a little girl.
It went very well the programme, I thought.
P.M.
You know, I was quite frightened, quite nervous, because I did not know what I was going to have, but the children were marvellous and, of course, it was very good for people who take part in pop and we politicians [end p36] to get together. We got on like a house on fire.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
… great questions …
P.M.
They are so fresh in the questions they ask.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
What I was wondering was if you have time to read now and what kind of books you read.
P.M.
Yes I do read now. I still read now. I tend to work late into the night and sometimes, if you have got problems, you cannot get the problems out of your mind - they will go round and round - unless you deliberately say: “I am going to read something else!”
What am I reading now? I am re-reading, because I did not finish it at the time, Freddy Forsyth's, “The Fourth Protocol”. That is a fantastic story. That is my sort of fiction, although it has a lot of lessons to learn.
I am reading a fantastic book called “The Seeds of Change” which is my sort of general interest one, by Harold Hobhouse is it? I am just going to dash upstairs and get it so you can see it. [end p37]
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
Do you keep a few books going at the one time?
P.M.
Yes, always.
&dubellip; tell you here … Henry Hobhouse … five plants have transformed mankind and he has taken as the five the plant from which quinine comes, because that in fact meant that you could beat malaria which led to the opening up of Africa and certain parts of Asia.
The second one he has taken is sugar … the state which the country went from honey, which was the only sweetener, to sugar, and that meant cane sugar had to be grown and that was the start of the slave trade, which altered the whole history of the world.
And cotton was the third and that of course continued … even after they stopped the slave trade there were some that were still in cotton. We still had this exodus from Africa aided and abetted by some people who were selling slaves in Africa, some people who were transporting them.
Those plants changed that history.
And then the next one, which I have just started, is tea. Tea apparently was of course known in China. Not so much in India. It became fashionable as a drink in Europe, so fashionable that unfortunately some of it started to be paid for by trade in opium. [end p38]
And then it comes on to potatoes and the history of the potato. Thanks to dependence on the tuber, the Irish population soared from one million to eight million, then after failed harvests, you know, it collapsed.
But it is very very interesting.
This one I dip into. On food and cooking. The Science and Law of the Kitchen.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
Do you cook much in No. 10?
P.M.
Not a lot, but I do cook. I mean, we have no personal sort of cook or anything like that, but if we are in I go down and do it. I do not do very rich dishes because you know we prefer simple ones.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
About your new house, have you been helped in setting out the decor for that?
P.M.
No. You know what new houses are like. I can tell you. It is fitting in the furniture which you bought to fit in with other things and I have now just about got the things in the right place. [end p39]
I did choose myself, but it is a new house. You cannot have wallpaper on the wall of a new house. I am afraid it is variations on the theme of porridge because of the plaster. It is very inadvisable to put wallpaper.
Porridge - this sort of colour - is the best background colour and then you get different things and colours from your chair covers.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
And you have a wedding in the family next month. Are you looking forward to that?
P.M.
Marvellous!
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
Do you think you will feel a little bit sad at the first one in the family going?
P.M.
I think yes. Sad? I do not know.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
Maybe sad is the wrong word. Sort of motherly feeling that the first break in the family. … [end p40]
P.M.
It is change. You know, you were talking about change. One's first experience of one's Mark Thatcherson going and obviously one hopes that they will have a family. It is a mixture of sad and glad isn't it.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
I hope you have a lovely day. I hope it goes well.
Now, any regrets about things not achieved since you came to No. 10? Not in a deeply political way.
P.M.
I am very concerned about getting education right for every child. This was my ladder. This was a ladder that was present for our generation and you know, there has got to be a ladder for every child, so they climb up as far as they like.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
You have enjoyed your time as Prime Minister?
P.M.
Yes, I love it.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
You have thrived on it. You seem to look very well on it as the years go on! [end p41]
P.M.
I have got tons of energy still. Tons and tons and tons of energy.
Margaret Clayton, Sunday Post
It is really super.