Stephen Jessel, BBC
Prime Minister, yesterday's result is a striking triumph - to use your own words. I did not think since the universal suffrage was introduced that a Prime Minister has won - an individual - has won three consecutive terms. It must be a source of great personal pride to you.
Prime Minister
Well I am thrilled obviously but I am thrilled not so much for me, I am thrilled for the policies which I believe in - that was my main concern - and obviously I am very pleased that one was able to lead the campaign, together with Norman Tebbit who was fantastic in the team. I would not be human unless I were really very thrilled with the result and I am.
Stephen Jessel, BBC
Looking back at the campaign, there was a certain amount of criticism of it - I suppose it is difficult to argue with a hundred seat majority, but was it a little lack-lustre; are there things you should have done but did not do? [end p1]
Prime Minister
No, it is very strange. We were accused of not having a slick campaign. It is an accusation to which I plead “Guilty”. I do not think Governments which have been in two terms, which have really solid, sound, secure policies but also policies for the future in increasing opportunity, should go for slickness, they should go to say these are the policies, we are the party of the future. We had all the content, we did not need the slickness.
Stephen Jessel, BBC
At Central Office earlier this morning, you identified the inner cities as a major priority for Thatcher III - if we may call it that - what form will that take, this emphasis on the inner cities?
Prime Minister
The inner cities we have been trying to put a good deal more resources and new task forces in and start urban development corporations for some time but particularly in the last year. We stepped up the number of urban development corporations because look at the fantastic success of Docklands and also stepped up the number of action teams because we found that some of the monies we were allocating to inner cities were not going to the projects which we felt would revifify and regenerate those cities. There is a much more fundamental problem: many of those inner cities are dominated by the militant left or by very very left-wing councils. They are hostile to enterprise, they are hostile to the private sector. You have only to look at what Mr Kilroy-Silk said in his own book ‘Hard [end p2] Labour’: the greatest deterrent to job creation on Merseyside was the militant council and it is not easy to get over that problem except perhaps by urban development corporations and by targetting money where we think it should be spent but you know the whole of our radical part of our manifesto was directed to giving the people in inner cities more and more opportunity: more and more opportunity in education, more and more opportunity in housing and we shall make those things top priority in our first session in Parliament.
Stephen Jessel, BBC
It was said of the last Labour manifesto, the 1983 one, that it was the longest suicide note in history. Your manifesto at seventy-seven pages is perhaps the longest proposal of marriage in history. You cannot do everything at once; what are going to be the priorities?
Prime Minister
We must have a major housing bill. We shall have to have the major community charge bill and that of course is again designed to help business to go into the inner cities in the north. You see, you look at them: your Liverpools, you look at your Sheffields, you look, at your Newcastles - high rates, very high rates in Newcastle, Sheffield - Liverpool has a financial problem - and very high rates in some of the inner cities in London. Do not think that inner cities are only a northern problem. Now those are deliberately designed to help businesses to have more confidence in those areas because those who have suffered from very high rates will have lower rates in the future so that too, the rating bill, the community [end p3] charge bill, a major housing bill and a major housing bill and a major education bill and that is going to be a very big and long major session.
Stephen Jessel, BBC
Prime Minister, during the campaign that has just finished, your style emerged as something of an issue with you opponents seeking to portray you as lacking in compassion, basically not being a very caring individual. In your third term, will you go some way to meet this criticism? Will you be rather gentler with us than you have been in the past?
Prime Minister
I think I might talk more about caring but the fact is that no-one has been able to match our actual record on caring. They complain about it, they talk about it, they none of them have been able to match it because Labour, when it was last in, brought the country rapidly to financial crisis and had to cut the hospital programme and nurses’ pay went down in real terms, so although they talk about it, we deliver. We shall go on delivering but maybe we will talk about it a little bit more and I hope you will not say, cast any reflection on my personal caring because I think that it will stand comparison with almost anyone's.
Stephen Jessel, BBC
During the campaign you were asked, although I do not think you actually answered the question, about the corrosive effects of power. You have had eight years as Prime Minister, another ten, twelve, thirteen perhaps in all; is that good for the country, is it good for the [end p4] party, is it good for you to be in charge for so long?
Prime Minister
It is not corrosive effect of power. Certainly you require stamina, certainly you require experience but I must say you acquire very, very great humility. The great thing about our system is you submit yourself to the judgement of the people. The other great thing about our system is that twice a week I have to go to the House of Commons to face a very noisy session with more and more militants in the House of Commons - I think there will be quite considerable problems - I have to go and face them and if I might say so, I do not think any previous Prime Minister has taken the questions at full tilt and full toss in precisely the way I take them. You cannot really have any toffee-nosed ambitions with that. No, you are kept in your place.
Stephen Jessel, BBC
And will you be going on and on?
Prime Minister
Let us just take life as it comes. I have to be re-elected by my party every year as leader and that is a very good discipline and it makes one the stronger. Fortunately they have never put anyone up to run against me but it makes one's position the stronger. You cannot foresee what will happen in life. Just make it a very very active and intense life and be very grateful for it while you have it. [end p5]
Stephen Jessel, BBC
Given you ambitions to see off Socialism, are you disappointed that the Opposition split the way it did; that the non-Socialist alternative retreated while the Labour party did gain, albeit but modestly?
Prime Minister
I thought the gains in the Labour party were very very modest indeed. The thing that I thought was extremely disappointing was that the militants were returned in a vigourous way. That, I think, is because of the phenomenon of the inner cities. You see more and more business people and professional people move out of those inner cities and they leave them to the extreme left. That is a problem and you know my views on the extreme left: they want to control people's lives. That is why they do not want business in cities. That is why they are hostile to purchase of council houses, that is why they are hostile to people having more say in their own education because those militants want to control people's lives as they are controlled in east European countries and of course we will fight that all the way.
Stephen Jessel, BBC
Will your new Cabinet look like the old one and will Mr Biffen and&slash;or Mr Walker be in it?
Prime Minister
There will be a substantial commonality between the new Cabinet and the old one. There will not be an enormous change. [end p6] There must of course be a few changes because just as once long ago we were given opportunities to come into a Cabinet and as you greet people and say “Look, would you like to join my Cabinet?” they are always thrilled - of course as I was thrilled many years ago. Before that you have the hardest job any Prime Minister has to undertake of saying to true friends and trusted friends who have performed extremely well, “Please will you surrender your portfolio in order that someone else &dubellip;?”
Stephen Jessel, BBC
And how many people will you be saying that to?
Prime Minister
Well, I have not quite decided yet. Give me a little time and a little time for consultation. There must be some but please do not say that they have been sacked, please. It is very hurtful, not only to them, and it is not fair and it is not just. It is also very hurtful to their families. Please do not say that. This is not the way politics goes on.
Stephen Jessel, BBC
Finally Prime Minister, the south was absolutely solid for you, but the further north you went, especially when you got to Scotland, people did swing against you. What does this mean in terms of one nation Conservatism?
Prime Minister
Look we in fact held a number of our seats in the north and [end p7] held them very well, particularly in the north west but we also held other seats, we held the Burys and I felt we were going to hold them but could not be sure, so please do not overdo this. I think that the prosperity is gradually spreading further and further north. We have had good inward investment. Nissan went to near Sunderland. I felt that was a tremendous boost. But also you know, self-employment is increasing in the north and the enterprise allowances are being taken up. The very enterprise that built the north is coming back and we want more of it but do not just say that because you have a Labour party and a Conservative party that is divisive. If we only had one party then you would have cause to worry wouldn't you? You would know there was no democracy.