Voice Over
Ladies and Gentlemen pray silence for the next act of mystery and sleight of hand; the Labour Economic Policy.
Magician
Ladies and Gentlemen, what I should really like is some extra money from the audience. £35bn which I will miraculously change into an astonishing fall in unemployment.
Voice Over
This Labour trick does not work. Last time Labour spent huge sums of money, they succeeded in nearly bankrupting the economy and ended up by doubling unemployment. Every Labour government since the war has increased unemployment.
Magician
Ladies and gentlemen, we shall now ask for more money from the international banks, and, with a wave of the wand, we shall produce better, social services.
Voice Over
This Labour trick does not work either. Last time Labour put Britain into debt by borrowing it ended up by having to pay more in interest on all its debts than it was spending on the entire National Health Service. Every Labour government there has ever been has increased our overseas debt.
Magician
Ladies and gentlemen, for my next trick I will not ask for any money, I shall produce it out of thin air.
Voice Over
This Labour trick does not work either. The last time they could not tax any higher or borrow any further, they printed the money they needed, causing the highest inflation the country had ever seen, and, in just four years, cut the value of the Pound in everyone's pocket by a half. Every Labour Government there has ever been has increased inflation.
Magician
Ladies and Gentlemen, for my next trick I shall produce out of this hat an improved Health Service.
Voice Over
This Labour conjuring trick does not work either. Because Labour always make a mess of the economy, last time they ran out of the money to maintain the Health Service, waiting lists went up by 250,000. Hospital building was cut by a third, nurses' real take-home pay was allowed to fall by 20%;.
Magician
Ladies and gentlemen and kiddies, I shall now produce before your very eyes, better schools.
Voice Over
This Labour trick also doesn't work. Under the last, Labour government spending per pupil actually went down. [end p1]
Magician
Ladies and gentlemen, under my cloak I shall take these union bosses and make industrial unrest completely disappear.
Voice Over
This Labour trick does not work either. Under the last Labour government, more than 50 million days were lost in Britain through industrial strikes. The Labour government was brought down by its own unions after a ‘winter of discontent’. … . strikes left rubbish piled in the streets, the dead were left unburied, and cancer patients turned back from hospitals.
Magician
Ladies and gentlemen, I shall now send my assistant round to collect your share certificates in British Gas and British Telecom and, we shall now produce new and efficient nationalised industries.
Voice Over
Everyone knows this trick does not work. 99%; of British Gas workers took up the offer of shares in their own company yet Labour will take back these shares and return control into the hands of the bureaucrats with the result that everyone remembers. Since Labour invented nationalisation in 1945, the British tax payer has had to pay out over £40bn in subsidies; compensation, written off debts and so on to support our nationalised industries, that is £40bn of your money, wasted, gone.
Lord Young
We have just seen the economic policy of Labour. Of course, all politicians want to improve life for people, otherwise we know we wouldn't get re-elected, but if all we had to do was to take more of your money in tax, borrow billions abroad, print a few billion more and then wave a magic wand, we would have done it already. But we didn't do it because it has been tried by Labour not just once, but time and time again, and it simply does not work.
Voice Over
Every Labour government there has ever been has run the economy into an economic crisis.
Margaret Thatcher MP
Governments had failed to tackle the real problems which afflicted us, they dodged difficult problems rather than face up to them. The question they asked was not, ‘Will the medicine work?’ but, ‘Will it taste all right?’ Well, we Conservatives said this is the way, they said forget it. We were told you can't reform trade union leaders, you can't reform trade unions, their leaders won't let you, but we did. We were told you can't abolish price and wage controls, inflation will go up, but we did and it came down. We were told you can't give council tenants the right to buy, but we did and the houses sold like hotcakes. (APPLAUSE) They said you can't de-nationalise, the unions won't wear it. But we and the workforce positively snapped up the shares. (APPLAUSE) Step by step we are rolling back the frontiers of Socialism and returning power to the people.