Presenter
Today we welcome the Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, who'll be answering questions put to her by our panel of voters selected by Harris Research. The audience, remember, comes from three marginal constituencies, the sort Mrs Thatcher must hold onto if she's to win a third term. They come from Calder Valley, a large constituency on the edge of Lancashire and Yorkshire, where all three parties think they have a chance of winning. Then there's Cheltenham where the Alliance, or more particularly the Liberals, traditionally battle it out with the Conservatives. Finally our voters from Dudley West, a Black Country seat which has suffered in the industrial recession, but also has some prosperous parts. This is a Conservative seat which Labour would dearly love to wrest away from the Government. And our first question comes in fact from Calder Valley and Sheila Redfern.
Sheila Redfern
Mrs Thatcher, do you think it's a virtue in your quality and your character that you can never admit to say you're sorry or that you've made a mistake?
MT
Oh, I think I must have made quite a lot of mistakes, and one would very much have liked to have done things one's not been able to do. So I don't find any defect in that. I'm just as human as anyone else. I too make mistakes, and I agonise over some decisions. I have to, because they're very desperate and difficult decisions. We agonised over what we should do when Falklands was invaded. We agonised day after day during the coal strike, during the intimidation when they weren't allowed a secret ballot. What in the world were we going to do? We complained about violence, the violence on the picket-line, the bully-boys. Yes, we agonised about what to do, and I'm quite sure I've made my fair chunk of mistakes along with other people.
Presenter
What do you say to that, Mrs Redfern?
Sheila Redfern
I've never actually noticed you've actually said that you've made a mistake. Can you tell me now any mistakes you actually have made in the last eight years?
MT
I think I must have made quite a lot, but you know a general coming up to the final battle doesn't usually reveal her greatest weaknesses to the opponents [audience laughter]. It would not be wise to do so. So may I, may I just not accept your invitation? But please, believe you me, I'm sure I've made just as many as other people.
Presenter
I think the gentleman here from Dudley West. [end p1]
Questioner
Why do you see yourself as a general coming up to the final battle? You've put yourself before the electorate to be elected. That's not a general and that's not a battle.
MT
Well, yes, it is, because it is a campaign. Everyone talks about a campaign. It is a campaign. You have to put your best points forward and you have obviously to criticise what you think are the weakest points of your opponents. So, yes, it is a battle. It is the battles of democracy, and when one is the leader of a party one is right up front, and when you're right up front, believe you me, you're shot at.
Presenter
Is it going to be your final battle?
MT
My final battle? Good heavens, I hope not. Final battle? Do you know, other people have gone on so much longer than I have. That doesn't mean that I shall go on very much longer. Some people came up to be Prime Ministers when they were older than I am, and, as I look around the House of Commons yesterday, there were some people well over seventy, who are still standing to be in the House of Commons. Just let's wait. You know, you never talk about the next battle. You, er … It's the first thing you have to do is to win the present one. And this battle, you're quite right, one submits oneself to the judgement of the people. As the leader of a party, I have to submit myself to the judgement of my party every year, and I could be ousted, but actually that gives one strength, not weakness.
Presenter
Well, let's take …
Questioner
[away from microphone] Can we get back to the politics?
MT
Can we go back to …? Yes?
Questioner
We're talking about mistakes.
Presenter
Very, very briefly, yes. Some of the big issues of this campaign.
Questioner
Well, we were talking about mistakes. As I understand it, the Argentinians were persuaded to invade possibly because of, er, the removal or the pending removal of the protection vessel, of the fishery protection vessel. And this did indicate that perhaps that was a mistake and perhaps that cost lots of lives. [end p2]
MT
This was Endurance. No, I don't believe that … that that was decisive in any way at all. I do think that they thought that if they invaded that we, being 8,000 miles away, would never go and get the islands back. That was their fundamental mistake. But, you know, you'd only to see Galtieri on television that night, and I watched, my heart in my boots …
Presenter
Well, Prime Minister … [questioner interrupts] Well, I'm sorry … We're here to help everyone understand the 1987 General Election, not events which have now passed into recent history, and I'd like to move on with Mrs Kay Bowden from Cheltenham, who is a housewife.
Kay Bowden
Mrs Thatcher, should you be re-elected, would you pass a law to ensure that stronger sentences are passed on rapists?
MT
Er, we have got a very strong sentence on rape. I think it's a life sentence. The … I think the problem which has concerned us is not the maximum penalty on the rape, it is what is the customary penalty. As you know, the Lord Chief Justice did give guidelines and say that for … unless there were really mitigating circumstances, then where there was a rape there should be a severe prison sentence. There have been one or two sentences which given rise to very great concern, because people thought they were too lenient. And what we were trying to do with that in the Criminal Justice Bill was to say that that kind of sentence should be referred, for future purposes, to the Court of Appeal so that they can give their view, with all of the points argued before them, on what would be a suitable sentence in this case. We brought that up two years ago. It did not get through their Lordship's House. We brought it up again. It will be contested vigorously. I hope that, should we win the next election, we shall bring it up again. And I hope it will go through, because it's vital that ordinary members of the public, of whom you and I are two, have complete confidence that, when you get what we regard as a terrible case before the courts, that a full and proper appropriate sentence is given, because it is a deterrent to other people.
Presenter
Are you happy with that answer?
Kay Bowden
Yes.
Presenter
The gentleman here from Dudley West.
Questioner
Mrs Thatcher, why don't you call for a national referendum on the return of capital punishment? [end p3]
MT
I will give you the … the, the, the … what I think is the actual correct answer and say that I believe in it. We have referenda in this country only really for constitutional matters. It was a constitutional matter when we went into the Common Market, a great constitutional matter. We had them on when … whether Scotland wished to have devolved government or Wales. That was a constitutional matter. It's not been part of our custom to have a referendum on particular things. And, I think, if we were to go to that, we'd alter fundamentally our Parliamentary system. Firstly we'd have to put a Bill through to have that particular referendum. I think if we had it on that, then we'd have it on a large number of other things and we'd alter the nature of the debate. I also think that referenda in this country are only advisory, and I must tell you that I don't think it would alter the view of Members of Parliament who are elected and who make up their own views. Now, I say that all with great regret, but I think it's the right answer, because I happen to believe that when some criminals go out and do such hideous, cruel crimes, and in particular when they do such terrible things to children, I think they've forfeited their own right to life [hear, hear] and so I personally have always voted to retain capital punishment. I do not say that as a party politician. That is my personal view, and I shall continue. Some of those things they do are so barbaric, and to the very children. Where else do you look for trust if you can't look to a parent? And I would help bring back capital punishment myself. We shall have a vote on it, and that is the way I shall to continue to vote. Not a mandatory sentence, but a sentence available to a judge for a really barbaric crime.
Presenter
Well, I'd like to change the topic now because we must move on, because time is limited, to, um, a question from Mr Eric Seward of Calder Valley, who's a civil servant.
Eric Seward
Mrs Thatcher …
MT
Mr Seward, I can't see you. Yes.
Eric Seward
Why do we have a health service where if you use private health care you can have an operation when you need it, but if you use the National Health Service you have to wait?
MT
The waiting lists are now lower than they were when we took over. They'd be lower still but for a strike which we endured during our early time, before we changed trade union law. Yes, you do have a National Health Service. Yes, I along with everyone else am immensely grateful for it. And may I tell you why? What most of us really fear is not perhaps the comparatively … a thing from which we may recover quickly and easily. What most of us really fear is we might have an accident, or we might have some fundamental disease, which will keep us sick for a very, very long time. The National Health Service has improved enormously. It is one of my prides. It has improved enormously during the lifetime of this Government. Extra patients [end p4] treated—oh yes, those are the facts—66,000 extra nurses and doctors, more patients treated, and you the taxpayer financing it with nearly three times as much.
Presenter
What would you say to …
MT
But when it comes to—may I just say? As … as … because it was a fundamental point. Yes, people have a right to choose how they spend their own money. I'm very anxious that we should not put extra tax on them, because I don't find people over-flush with income, if they are paying a mortgage and looking after their children. People have a right to choose how they spend their own money. Some will spend it on pure enjoyment, some on improving their houses. Five million of them, including many trade unionists, because some trade unions negotiate private health service, as a benefit in kind, will choose to spend that money on their own health. It's no part of my business to deprive people of choice. It is part of my pride that the health service and the number of hospitals, in the patients, in the doctors, in the nurses, they are better paid and they have better care now. And that will continue in the future, so long as we are re-elected.
Presenter
But what were you going to say to the Prime Minister?
Questioner
No, I'm sorry, Mrs Thatcher. There is no way I can agree with that, and I think perhaps most of the people here would say that is not true. After spending seven weeks in our local hospital, the conditions—the nurses were gold in themselves, but they were so under-staffed, so pushed for beds, no wards to put beds in, beds down the middle of the ward, they were so under-staffed. It was stupid, it really was, and when you get a ward that is full with under-staffing, you're not going to get the care and attention, because they just haven't got the facilities.
MT
Well, may I say to you that the day I walked into No. 10 the amount spent on the National Health Service was under eight—eight—billion pounds. It is part of my pride, now, that we've got a strong economy and the amount spent on it now has gone from eight to twenty-one billion. One moment—also … also there are more nurses, there are more doctors. They are better paid, thank goodness, because unless you have that, you will not get a better health service, and there are more hospitals. Can I just say one thing? I think that the demands of the health service will go on going up. They're bound to. More of us are getting older, and therefore the demands are going up, the treatments are going up. Every new treatment is a new waiting list. And, in 1977, Eric Merrison did an enquiry on the health service. It was not in my time, so I can quote it. And he said, “We have no difficulty in believing that the health service could take the entire national income.” Well, it can't. But, you know, no one's record has … er, is better than ours in Government, from the extra facilities, the hospitals we've actually brought in to rebuilding that were cancelled, and the doctors and nurses, and that improvement will go on. May I invite [end p5] you finally to look back at some of the headlines in the three months before, three or four months before we took over: “Cancer Wards Closed” , “Hospital Chaos” , “999 Service Suspended, Army Has To Be Brought In” , “Save My Son Plea From Mother With Bone Marrow Child'. Go and look at these headlines, as strikes hit every service. We haven't had it during our time, and that too is part of my pride.
Presenter
A question at the back from the lady in green.
Barbara McKeckon
I do think it's time that you did visit some of our hospitals—Barbara McKeckon from Calder Valley—but the question I would like to ask is, do you think it's right that the consultants and the nurses who work in private practice are actually trained on the taxpayers' money in the National Health Service?
MT
But are you saying that every single person who in fact goes to university and gets a degree or gets a training, yes, at the taxpayers' expense, should not be free to choose the job they do? I am not saying that. I am not saying it at all, because …
Barbara McKeckon
I think taxpayers' money is being drained by training. If you want private medical care, you pay for private medical care. Your consultants are paid for. Their training should be paid for out of the private budget of the …
MT
May I say that I pay, just as you do, my dues to the health service. The average family of four in this country pays every week in respect of the health service …
Barbara McKeckon
Mrs Thatcher, I'm not talking about that.
MT
The average pays £27 a week. Now, if you're suggesting that anyone, either a nurse or a doctor, who is trained on the health service or through our universities, now universities are mostly financed on the public sector, should not be free to choose where they serve or even to go …
Barbara McKeckon
They should be free to choose but the health service should be reimbursed for the training in some percentage from the private sector which then pays them.
MT
Can I say this to you? The health service is far far better under this Government than under any previous Government.
Barbara McKeckon
I don't believe that.
[Babble of voices expressing disagreement with MT.] [end p6]MT
It is not irrelevant. It is very relevant. There are a million cases treated a week. I come from a London constituency where our waiting lists now are down, but we have in fact been one of those constituencies where we have had to take a lesser proportion of what was going to the health service. There's been part of what we have run, the policy which we have run, which the Labour party also, that a greater number of resources went to parts of the country which did not enjoy such good facilities. So, yes, I have been to new hospitals in the North East. I have been to new hospitals in the North West. I have been to a new hospital in North Wales. The health service will go on improving under us.
[Babble of voices.]Questioner
Mrs Thatcher, Mrs Thatcher, don't you think you ought …
Presenter
I'll take one more question on the health service.
Questioner
Don't you think you ought to put more money into the National Health? Because I've read in medical pamphlets, through the monetary cuts there's been a shortage of nurse staff, loss of beds, and there's been a longer waiting list for treatment. This has been causing people to be sent out early and then readmitted causing a more expense on the …
Presenter
Keep it brief, please.
Questioner
… causing more expense on the meagre budget that the National Health has got now.
Presenter
I think the Prime Minister dealt with a large part of that when she answered this lady before.
MT
Yes, but let me do it again, because facts do matter. You have indicated some of them, as you see them, and there are a million people employed in the National Health Service and they're are managed at the area level and at the district level. But you say “Cuts” . Look, there is no way in which anyone can claim truthfully that from eight billion to twenty one billion is a cut. [interruption] Please, no you can't. There is no way from eight billion to twenty one billion. That is the extra that you are paying. There is no way in which anyone can claim that 66,000 extra nurses are a cut. There is no way in which anyone can claim that a reduction in waiting lists from what we took over … [end p7]
Questioner
Ask the medical staff.
Presenter
Well, there is enormous …
Another Questioner
Urgent operations are being carried out. An elderly relative of mine had one in six days of admission to a National Health hospital and she is now convalescent in a National Health hospital and she is now convalescent in a National Health convalescent home in …
Questioner
That's only one example. There are normally …
Presenter
Could you all just listen to me for a moment? It's an enormous public concern and everyone in the country has a health service story. I must move on because in your interests I want to cover as many topics as possible.
MT
May I just finally say one thing? I visit … [cries of “No, no” and “It's not fair” ] May I please … Then one fact …
Presenter
Please.
MT
One million cases every week are treated and most of the people, something like 80 per cent—88 per cent, I think—on a poll of people going to the National Health Service are very satisfied with the treatment, and that is what I find too.
Presenter
Mr Michael Peart of Cheltenham has another question.
Michael Peart
[inaudible away from microphone.]
MT
Mr Peart, where are you? Yes.
Michael Peart
BBC television has been accused in recent years of being left-wing biased in certain programmes. Are you satisfied that the BBC is behaving impartially and with balance in report and presentation, et cetera, during this election run-up, and do you have any comments on ITN's coverage?
MT
[end p8][laughs] Look, I take a very straightforward view. If you're the leader of a party, you're puting yourself in the front rank. Then you're there to be shot at with all kinds of questions and you will be, and whenever the questions come I try to take them and I try to answer them with facts. The BBC is totally free. Did you listen to the interview, the interviews I've had on it? Of course they ask me tricky questions. That's part of democracy. Of course I can't argue with that. ITN? I'm very happy with this programme. [interruption] It's not for me, it's not for me to interfere.
Presenter
I don't think you have to say anything about this programme [laughter]. I do know that Mr Weatherley of Calder Valley, it's one of his concerns too the media at the present time.
MT
I think the people are the judges.
Mr Weatherley
Mrs Thatcher, there are some of the Government's recent actions in censoring certain TV programmes and …
MT
Censoring!?
Mr Weatherley
Pressure by Mr Tebbit on the BBC smacks of a dictatorship. If you are returned to power, can we expect more of this kind of censorship?
Presenter
What censorship have you got in mind, Mr Weatherley?
Mr Weatherley
Well, there was the programme about the Real Lives. There was the Zircon film. There was Mr Tebbit putting pressure on the BBC over their coverage of the Libyan bombing, and it was even reported last Sunday week that he shouted down the telephone at a BBC official because he wasn't happy with some presentation or another. Now this is … this is pressure that's being put on people …
MT
He gave … he gave …
Mr Weatherley
… and I for one am very worried about it.
MT
No, I don't think Norman Tebbithe's putting pressure on the media save to say … save to say this. The BBC is run by charter. It is part of the charter and part of the acceptance of the charter and the way in which it is interpreted that they are impartial. Yes, of course, from time to time they will get complaints that they are not and they get it from many, many [end p9] different sources. When it comes to a programme like, what you call the Zircon, then I do urge you to consider this: that if every single thing that one does in defence is exposed, either in the press or in the BBC, it will result in less security, and whom will that help? Oh yes, indeed, if you have absolutely everything open to your enemies. Every party accepts, or accepts in the House of Commons, is [sic] there has to be some things which are secure and secret, because you do not tell your enemies [interruption].
Presenter
I'll come to you in a moment.
MT
That particular programme was a case in point. Yes, we do have … we do have a duty to try to protect the secrets of this state. Do you know there are times when I went in …
Mr Weatherley
Mrs Thatcher, who makes the decision whether it is in the public interest and should be shown or is not or shouldn't be shown and is a secret? You do.
MT
Yes, we do make——
Mr Weatherley
It may be your decision, because you personally, or your Government, don't want this programme to be shown, so you can stop it.
MT
No, we do …
Mr Weatherley
What concerns a lot of people is the number of … how do we know how many other things have been suppressed that we don't know about? And any nuclear state, they say, is a secret state, and this is one of the big worries about this country and the way that it is going.
MT
No, this is just, this is just not true. Yes, we do have to keep certain things secret. That has always been accepted by every Prime Minister, by every Leader of the Opposition, by every Home Secretary. And let me say this to you. There were times when I had to … when we went into the House of Commons and I was on the Opposition benches, I was leader and Willie Whitelaw my deputy leader, when the then Labour Government had to make some very tricky decisions, including Merlyn Rees. And let me tell you this. I went in and said, “This is a matter of security. We cannot know everything about it and the only thing to do is to trust their judgement.” And I said to Willie, “We're going in to support them on that judgement, because I'll tell you something else: they wont get support from their left-wing on it.” And we went in and supported them on what we knew were tricky judgements for them, because, yes, we believed in the security of the realm. When thirty-three of their own [end p10] left-wingers voted against them, yes, when they were in Government they could always rely on a responsible Opposition on matters of security. I wish that were remembered [applause].
Presenter
I have a very tricky judgement to make as well, because I want to move on and cover another topic, and Michele McCartney from Calder Valley has the question.
Michele McCartney
Mrs Thatcher, as a first-time voter, I would like to know what you intend to do about the growing division between the north and the south?
MT
I don't … I think, if I might say so, that that tends to be exaggerated [cries of “No, no” ]. I think it tends to be exaggerated, because in the south too, where you've had a great big factory that's closed down, where you've had coal mines that have closed down, you too have areas also there of high unemployment. True, there are more of them in the north, because that was the original area of enormous prosperity, with coal, steel, and all the heavy engineering that came from it. The industrial revolution started in the north. That was the area of enormous prosperity. As some of those industries ran down, the change did not come fast enough, and there are obviously more of them than there are in the south. But please, I beg of you, don't run down the north. Look, I was in … [babble of protest]. Right, marvellous! Just recently, the last few days, look, I was in … I went to Gateshead for example. I went to Gateshead. The biggest shopping centre in Europe has been built in Gateshead by private enterprise. They haven't gone there … [babble of protest].
Questioner
We don't want shopping centres! We want work!
MT
They haven't gone there because there's no money to spend.
Presenter
Let's have a …
MT
They've gone there because there's a lot. I went to Black and Decker, one of the most successful firms in Europe. I got … managed, was instrumental in trying to get Nissan to go to Sunderland. It's expanding its effort. I went to several new technology factories. The new jobs are coming. The people who go and work in the north, salary for salary, of course have a higher standard of living, because the cost of housing is less. But, yes, there has been a north-south divide. The north was first into the industrial revolution. The prosperous manufacturing industry was there. There are more places like Consett, where we had to close down steel works and so on, but new businesses, new jobs are going there and we have been instrumental in getting quite a lot. Instrumental too—Sunderland. We worked very hard on getting them some orders for their shipyard, but there are too many shipyards in the world. But the divisions, as [end p11] you'll have seen from surveys, are no greater than they were, and we are getting the new jobs. We are getting the technological change, and I hope we'll go on doing it. And unemployment is falling fastest in the north, the north west, and in Wales. It is also falling quite fast in …
Presenter
Lady at the back in the white cardigan.
Questioner
Don't you think a lot of these problems could have been stopped if we'd had correct import controls and protected our own manufacturing industry whilst stopping these cheap imports from coming in and taking all our jobs and everything out of the country, our prosperity, out of the country?
MT
No, I don't, if we'd had overall import controls. In order for us to have the standard of living we now enjoy, we have to export 30 per cent of our national income, 30 per cent. It's absolutely vital that the world's markets are open to us. If we lead by closing them to other people, then they'll close them down against us with far more devastating effect. We export a lot to the United States. We export a lot to the rest, to many many other countries in the world including Europe. We must not close it down. What we do do, where there have been particular industries that needed protecting, of which textiles was one, is through Europe we have made arrangements—the multi-fibre agreement—that we have certain quotas. With Japan we have a certain quota of cars, a certain quota of those latest technological machine tools. We have to have some, because factories to compete have to have the best equipment. So no, please don't go that way. It would be devastating for this country, but let us contain ourselves to voluntary agreements, which can and have protected our own textile industry, and the textile industry's made a great come-back.
Presenter
Well, we have a couple of minutes left, Prime Minister.
MT
Oh dear, it that all?
Presenter
The time has fled by and there's one big topic that we haven't yet touched, so would Mrs Yvonne Wolfenden from Dudley West put her question?
Yvonne Wolfendon
Yes, Mrs Thatcher, would you please clarify the proposed new system of taking schools from the local authority jurisdiction?
MT
Yes, I will try to do it as fast as I can. In some and indeed most areas of the country, schools are working very well. In others, particularly in some inner-city areas, the parents are not satisfied with either subjects their children are being taught or the [end p12] education they are receiving. Some of them in some areas, some under ILEA, some under Brent, some under Harringay, almost desperate. They're trapped. At the moment there's no way for them to get a good education for their children on the state. So therefore, if the parents and governors decide they would like to take their school away from that local education authority, to be under a charitable trust, which they would run, which would be financed by the same amount of money they would have got under the local education authority, will be financed direct from the Department of Education and Science, so there are no fees, they get the same amount of money, and they, the governors and the parents and the teachers, would run it themselves, up to certain standards, because every school is subject to inspection. So they come out of the local education authority onto a charitable trust run by—well, yes, there are many schools run by charitable trusts—but they're funded, they're financed by the same amount of money going to that school, so that they can then determine the education that they have, provided it comes up to certain standards. It's an extra choice. It must come up to certain standards. It must, it must.
Presenter
The gentleman up at the top in the corner there.
Questioner
Yes, isn't that really just saying that you're going to privatise most of the schools?
MT
No, it isn't. The school …
Questioner
You know, it's just hiding behind a …
MT
No, it isn't. It's saying to some parents, who are very, very worried about some of the things their children are being taught, and who just want their children to have a very good sound education. Some of these are trapped in some of these extreme left-wing local authorities. That is wrong. We are saying. “Right, you should come out of that local education authority. The same amount of money per pupil as you would have got, and the schools around get, will come to you direct from the Department of Education and Science, so you can really concentrate on the education of your children.” I am concerned about those children who are getting a bad education, although their parents are paying for it in rates and taxes, and I can't stand a local education authority or a Government who says, “This is the education you're going to get. Take it or leave it.” I want those children to have a really good education. I wouldn't be here … I had a state education. I owe a great … I owe everything I've done in life to marvellous parents and a very good school.
Presenter
And our allotted time is up.
MT
I'm so sorry. [end p13]
Presenter
So am I [audience laughter and applause]. Thank you to the Prime Minister, thank you to our electors from the election battle-grounds.