IRN Reporter
Mrs Thatcher entered the last full week of the election battle well aware that Labour were going to turn her personal style of leadership into an issue in its own right. And when the attacks duly came, she was ready. She's imperious said Mr Kinnock, she's surrounded by assorted sycophants and doormats, to which the Prime Minister's reply was …
MT
Well, he doesn't actually sit in my Cabinet, does he, thank goodness.
IRN Reporter
And later she attacked Labour's attack when she addressed an open air meeting of the Tory faithful on a gloriously sunny evening in the luscious green fields next to Boxley village church:
MT
There has been an effort to deflect the campaign from policies to personalities. Let's stick to the policies, it is the policies [hear, hear]which have led to eight years of fantastic achievement and have transformed the whole prospects of our country. [cheers and applause]
IRN Reporter
Earlier Mrs Thatcher had been given an even more ecstatic reception by dozens of screaming schoolgirls at Walderslade Secondary School near Chatham. [audio of cheering schoolgirls]She brushed aside suggestions from the press that the “I love Maggie” paper hats the girls were wearing looked suspiciously like the political indoctrination she often complains about in schools run by left-wing Labour councils. No, Walderslade Secondary got Mrs Thatcher's complete seal of approval, especially after the deputy headmaster, Roger Short, revealed its thinking about becoming a self-managed, self-financed school.
Roger Short, Deputy Headmaster Walderslade Secondary School, Chatham
We have been asked if we would like to be considered self-financing as an experiment and I think that the head is quite happy for that to be considered.
IRN Reporter
What would that mean for the school in practice? [end p1]
Roger Short, Deputy Headmaster Walderslade Secondary School, Chatham
That we don't really know yet, but it would mean that we would probably have a greater control of where money went in the general term, but details have yet to be worked out.
IRN Reporter
Later Mrs Thatcher became somewhat hostile when a reporter from a local newspaper quoted another teacher from the school as saying it only had £250 to spend on school books last year.
But then the Prime Minister was off on the more familiar routine of her campaigning day. First the photo opportunity so mutually enjoyed by both press and Prime Minister. Yesterday it was a trip down the River Medway on a vintage paddle steamer, Mrs Thatcher of course at the helm. Then the almost daily trip to a booming local industrial estate and one small but burgeoning factory in particular. Finally the open air rally where the message is always the same, night after night: the Tories have brought the unions to heel, have turned the economy round and have defended the nation.
MT
Because if anything went wrong, or if a government had not got enough weapons to deter a potential aggressor, or if any government ever thought you could deter an aggressor with nuclear weapons by conventional weapons, or if any government thought “well the chap in charge there looks a nice guy now, therefore we can let down our guard” , [laughter] then this country could be in jeopardy and if anything went wrong it would be the young generation which bears the brunt. [hear, hear and applause]
IRN Reporter
But last night Mrs Thatcher also started exploiting her forthcoming visit to the Venice Economic Summit next week, where the Tories hope she'll come across as a world statesman in the final run-up to polling day.
MT
I couldn't go on your behalf to an economic summit and command any kind of respect unless at the same time they knew we'd tackled our economic problems here and tackled them successfully. And they do know, and we have. [applause]
IRN Reporter
And with that Mrs Thatcher made her way home in her bright blue battle bus, a little battered after a nasty accident with the Walderslade School gate posts. But she won't mind that too much as long as her lead in the opinion polls remains undented.