In Cue
There now follows a Party Election Broadcast by the Conservative Party:
Actuality
Baby
Presenter
Man is born free; that is his natural state. And his God given right. Nowhere is this tradition more deeply held than in Britain. Often in our long history we've stood alone. (Battle Noises) Facing the mightiest armies of the world to defend our freedom. Sometimes at tremendous sacrifice, never doubting that the price was worth paying.
Actuality
Big Ben Striking
Tape Churchill
Hostilities will end officially at one minute after minute tonight, Tuesday, the 8th of May.
Presenter
And if we have a fault, it arises out of our respect for freedom. Our famous tolerance has allowed imported ideologies like Marxism and its step-brother Socialism to creep into our thinking.
Man
We must arm ourselves for the international class struggle, to free the proletariat from the shackles of the bourgeoisie and bring about the glorious [end p1] overthrow … .
Presenter
These ideas are foreign to our nature, for we are a proud nation of individuals; we flourish under freedom, but we wilt under Socialism. In the winter of 1978–79 the infamous Winter of Discontent, Socialism had left our dead unburied, our streets full of rotting rubbish and our national pride only a distant memory. On May 3rd 1979 the British people turned their back on Socialism; we elected a new Government, and a new leader. (Applause)
Thatcher
Let me give you my vision. A man's right to work as he will, to spend what he earns, to own property, to have the state as servant and not as master; these are the British inheritance. (Applause) They are the essence of a free economy and on that freedom all our other freedoms depend. (Applause).
Presenter
The balance of power was to turn from the state to the individual. Give the people back their economic freedom, allow the spirit of enterprise to rise again. Step one was to return to each person the lion's share of his wages. The basic rate of income tax has been cut to its lowest levels for 50 years. The Conservatives are returning industry to the people: British Telecom, British Gas, British Airways, Rolls Royce. Over one third of all former state industries are now owned by the public. Admittedly, some trade union leaders and Labour politicians don't like it but the public seem to. The Conservatives have given council tenants the right to buy their own homes. Admittedly this wasn't too popular with some left wing councils but the tenants seems to like it. Over one million [end p2] council homes have been sold to their tenants. The Conservatives have given the unions back to their members. Secret ballots and trade union reforms have introduced a breath of democracy into Labour relations. Admittedly it was unpopular with certain union leaders but the members seemed to like it. With the result that strikes are now at their lowest levels for fifty years. Having tasted freedom, the British people have no desire to return to the shackles of Socialism. No wonder that over the past eight years the number of individual paid up members of the Labour party has declined by half. The British people are taking up the challenge of enterprise and freedom with enthusiasm. Today, France's unemployment is rising, ours is falling. Last year the United States became an international debtor but Britain is now an international creditor, even Japan is finding it harder and harder to increase its productivity. Yet our productivity is rising faster. Germany has had one of the best growth rates in Europe but ours is even better. It's great to be Great again.
Out Cue
That was a party Election Broadcast by the Conservative Party.