Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

General Election Press Conference (eve of poll)

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: Conservative Central Office, Smith Square, Westminster
Source: (1) Thatcher Archive: CCOPR 548/87 (opening statement) (2) Conservative Party Archive: transcript
Editorial comments: 1030-1100. MT was joined on the platform by John Moore, Nigel Lawson, Norman Tebbit, Willie Whitelaw, Douglas Hurd, and Lord Young.
Importance ranking: Major
Word count: 5021
Themes: Autobiography (childhood), Autobiography (marriage & children), Executive, Union of UK nations, Conservatism, Defence (general), Employment, Elections & electoral system, General Elections, Public spending & borrowing, Taxation, Family, Health policy, Private health care, Labour Party & socialism, Liberal & Social Democratic Parties, Leadership, Media, Society, Women
(1) Thatcher Archive: CCOPR 548/87

Extract from a speech by the Rt Hon Margaret Thatcher FRS, Prime Minister, at a Press Conference, at Conservative Central Office, 32 Smith Square, Westminster, on Wednesday 10 June 1987.

The choice at this election is clear. Indeed, at no election in my lifetime has it been clearer. The Conservative Party stands on its achievements. Living standards in Britain are higher than ever before. Our economy is providing the wealth to pay for a better Health Service, higher pensions, more help for the disabled, the sick and the elderly. Income tax is coming down. Unemployment is falling. More people are in work. There are more police, better equipped, in the fight against crime. Our defences are stronger than ever before. Our policies are spreading more widely the fruits of our growing prosperity. Home ownership, second pensions, share ownership, choice in education—all these were once the privileges of the few. They are now being extended to the many. We believe our achievements in government stand any comparison with the record of Labour. [end p1]

Labour's plans have now been exposed. People are afraid of the prospect of a Britain left defenceless. They are afraid of a return to roaring inflation. They are afraid of the union bosses running the show again. They are afraid that the militants would take over our country as they have taken over much of the Labour Party. In contrast, building on our achievements, we offer a confident future for a Britain already great again. It is a future of greater security and growing prosperity—in other words a Conservative future. [end p2]

(2) Conservative Party Archive: transcript

Q (Mr Tony Bevins)

Do you accept that after a four-week election campaign there is still a great gulf between you and the public on the issue of the National Health Service? There seems to be a breakdown of understanding and communication on what you say about the money that is spent, and between what the people say about the level of service. Would it not help you understand the problems of the Health Service if you, yourself—not out of compulsion, but as an act of faith—used it?

Prime Minister

There is not full understanding, although I think that there is now an acceptance that enormously increased resources have been put into the Health Service, in money, nurses and doctors. It is not always easy to get the message over, you are quite right. For example, this morning on election call, a consultant from the south of England complained that he had not got everything that he wanted. When I explained that it was our policy to see that more of the increases in health care went to the north, Scotland and Wales, he was not overpleased. The next question was from a nurse who happened to come from Mold in Wales. I happen to know that Mold has a brand new hospital and it has been on the receiving end which, in a way, demonstrates exactly what we have been trying to do. But there is no way, Mr Bevins, in which one can convince a person who is waiting for an operation and is in pain. All I can say is that the waiting lists are smaller than they were when we took over, and that we are having a special drive on those waiting lists, not only with the allocation of specific money, but through better management. I think that some of that message is now getting through.

Q (Mr John Cole)

After your 1983 election victory, some people, including some Conservatives, felt that you had tied your hands too much by not being explicit enough about your [end p3] plans, for example, for reform of the welfare state. In two areas this time—first, your desire to move from direct to indirect taxation, and, secondly, your desire to encourage people to make more provision for private health care and for private education—do you think that you have been explicit enough to leave your hands free?

Prime Minister

Are you accusing us of being too explicit, or not explicit enough?

Q

Not explicit enough from the point—what was said about the Fowler Review was that, when he looked at the various benefits you were giving so many pledges in the course of the campaign, that there was not much room for maneouvre. This time, you have done rather the same with VAT.

Prime Minister

I think that we have got it about right.

Q

Am I right in saying that you have a specific commitment during the campaign not to extend VAT on to energy and fuel? Are you aware of giving any other specific commitments beyond those in the Manifesto?

Prime Minister

On VAT—zero on food, and on gas and electricity prices. And, of course, the thing continues with children's clothes and shoes.

Q

Is that a commitment?

Prime Minister

Yes. We have not, as far as I am aware, given any other specific commitments. Indeed, I think that you would have been with us on the day when we had a question from somewhere over there—I cannot remember quite from whom—when I said that I was not prepared to give any more specific commitments, because, in fact, you cannot tie a Chancellor and no responsible Government possibly could. But we have in this Manifesto no strategic shift as we had in the 1979 Manifesto.

Q (Mr Peter Allen)

Will you, or Lord Young, comment on a story in The Independent today on the rundown of Jobcentres? In particular, the allegation that in future they will not [end p4] handle general job vacancies?

Lord Young

It is curious story. I think that it is a report that is about to be published in the Labour Weekly, which always runs scare stories of that sort. I deny it absolutely. The document, itself, I did trace. It was a planning document from the south-east region of the MSC, which was sent to its head office on 11 May, and they were told not to think about any plans for the future until after the election. I confirm unequivocably that there is no intention to privatise the Jobcentres. There is every intention though to help those out of work back into work, and that we will do in the new employment service. In doing so, we will be encouraging employers to give us vacancies and not, as the story rather oddly suggests, turning away vacancies.

Q (Mr Peter Riddell)

Prime Minister, all the polls suggest that the public regard Labour and Mr Kinnock as having fought a better campaign than you. What lessons do you feel that you have learnt over the past four weeks?

Prime Minister

I really would like to see the result first—the result of the big poll—because our campaign has been steadily positive. We were positive, positive, positive. Of course, we have had then to turn to the alternative and the way in which we see it. But our campaign started with quite the most outstanding Manifesto of all the parties. We have been very detailed in the things in which we have put in it. We have been open to questions the whole time. Had I or we done some of the things—repeated a Party Political Broadc* suddenly said that the Leader of the Party was not going to take a sudden meeting—or had I not been as open to questions as I have been, you might have crucified me. As it is, some of you might have had a go——

Mr Norman Tebbit

The proof of the pudding will be in the eating, so shall we assess the campaigns on Friday?

Prime Minister

I think that I have been here every morning, save one. It has been a very good campaign. We fight on policies—the achievements and the policies—because it is they that count. [end p5]

Q

Mr Kinnock has just recalled that, in 1983 you said to David Frost that if you went into another General Election with unemployment at over 3 million, you would have to explain why you were seeking re-election. Could you give that explanation now?

Prime Minister

Yes. We have been doing it for about the past three weeks. We expect unemployment to come down below 3 million, but the point is that it has been falling for the past 10 or 11 months. I can give you a long explanation if you wish. The technological change is going faster than one has anticipated. We are still in a period when the demographic numbers are such that we are still getting a rise in the population of working age, but the proportion of people in work in this country is higher than in any other Community country, save Denmark. The jobs are being created and it is because we have an enterprising economy that they are being created fast, and I believe that people understand that the economic prosperity that has been produced has been this combination and partnership between the Government and people: of Government running the finances of the country very well, cutting the controls, giving incentives to enterprise, and it is that combination which is producing more jobs, reducing unemployment and producing a higher standard of living than ever before.

Mr Nigel Lawson

There is not short cut to getting unemployment down. If that were so, there would not only be much lower unemployment in this country, but in every other country in Europe. It was agreed yesterday, when we discussed it among the Finance Ministers at the Venice Summit, that the only way in which you will get unemployment down is the way in which we are going about it—to free-up the economy and get industry and business to prosper and create job opportunities. That is what is happening.

Q

Prime Minister, if you are still Prime Minister at the end of the week, are you thinking in terms of a major, or minor, Government reshuffle? [end p6]

Prime Minister

I do not believe in counting chickens before they are hatched, so we will get them hatched first!

Q (Mr Andrew Neil)

In 1955, the Conservatives took over 50 per cent. of the vote in Scotland—the only party to have done that since the war. Yet in 1983, you took 28 per cent. I am told by senior Tories in Scotland that they would find themselves lucky if they take 25 per cent. this time and would be relieved if you take 20 per cent. One senior Tory who had been campaigning in Scotland told me that the day he had spent up there was the most miserable day of the campaign. What has gone wrong with the Conservative cause in Scotland?

Prime Minister

When I was up there, I found our people in very good heart and meeting a very good response. We certainly had a fantastic meeting. I find it very ironic if we do not get a bigger proportion of the vote, because Scotland, after London and the south-east, has the highest income per head of any part of the United Kingdom. Indeed, independent television say that when they are touting for more advertising. So it is just very ironic. The Health Service is doing very much better in Scotland, and some industries are doing extremely well.

There was a whole list of the 50 top companies in Scotland whose profits had gone up enormously since the last election in 1983 headed by the Glasgow Herald, which had gone up 2000 per cent. in profits in that period. The second one was The Scotsman, then there were engineering, leather and textile companies. So it is ironic because Scotland has done very much better. Yes, she does have problems with unemployment, partly because of her shipbuilding industry—which also applies to the north-east—and also because of the fall in price of North Sea oil just when it should have been picking up. It happened to coincide with a hesitation in some of the increasing numbers of electronic factories that they were getting there. But on the whole, the Scottish economy is very much better and has good prospects. Yes, it is ironic. We shall just have to go on trying to put the message across. [end p7]

Mr Tebbit

Back in those days, it was a two-party contest. Now in most constituencies in Scotland, there is a four-party contest and it is jolly difficult for anybody to claim 50 per cent. of the votes in a four-party contest.

Prime Minister

We are all minority parties in Scotland.

Q

A couple of days ago, the Labour Party claimed that the independent analysts whom you said had broadly confirmed Mr MacGregor 's estimate of the cost of Labour's programme of £35 billion a year did not exist. They said that you were refusing to give the names of those analysts. Can you now do that?

Mr Lawson

I did mention them at the press conference on Saturday. But I shall gladly give you the names. They are Phillips and Drew. If the Labour Party thinks that Phillips and Drew do not exist, that is more commentary on the Labour Party than it is on Phillips and Drew.

Q

Prime Minister, in 1979 and 1983 during the election campaign, you visited Bristol. This time round you have not. Is there any reason for that?

Prime Minister

No there is not. But I have been out every day. There is no particular reason; I am sure that Bristol will do as well as if I had visited it.

Q

We have had some confusing smoke signals in the past few weeks about your plans for the future. First, you were going to go on and on, then you had not quite made up your mind, then you thought that someone might come through in the same way that you did. Just for the avoidance of doubt, could you assure us that if you were re-elected this week—leaving out possible ill-health and so on—you will see through a third term?

Prime Minister

I am very fit, and would wish to see through a third term. My Party insists that I am re-elected as Leader every October/November. I hope that they will continue in the future as they have in the past. [end p8]

Q (Mr Peter Jenkins)

I wonder if you think that there are any lessons to be learnt from this campaign about the way in which we conduct our arguments. I have in mind particularly whether you are pleased or proud of the level at which some of the arguments have been conducted or presented in the popular newspapers which have given you support?

Prime Minister

I am not getting involved in the freedom of the press—of any part of it. I confess that I have been very grateful indeed for the clear way in which the press have put the arguments. Our task is two-fold: first, to get across our positive case, our achievements, the reason why and our plans for the future. As you know, our whole policy has fundamental reasons and it is because we believe that if we manage the finance of the nation well, if we cut controls and if we gave incentives that the spirit of enterprise would come through. It is a partnership between Government and people that we did the things we did. So we have to try to get over positive points plus the reasons. You are not always interested in reporting the reasons; they do not make such scintillating headlines, although I am always interested in giving the reasons.

We are duty bound to say how we see our opponents' case. We have done that this time and I returned to it last night, because the Labour Party we face now are totally different from the Labour Party of Gaitskell, Attlee and even of Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan. I think that people have a fear of it now that they did not have of any other Labour Parties. That fear is enhanced by the fact that they know that the Militants have been kept down, kept quiet, and not allowed to rear and show their policies, or the way in which they would do things, because the Labour Party knows that they would strike fear at people's hearts. Whether we have got that over enough, or not, I do not know. But that has been our purpose. Ours is a partnership between Government and people which is spreading the benefits ever more widely. I shall put it this way: Communism is a system which gives privileges to the few at the top, and none to the many. Capitalism and enterprise is a system that only works by spreading ever more widely to more and more of the population what used to be the privileges of the few. Capitalism could not exist otherwise. It gets its [end p9] profits and its investment for the future by spreading to the enormous number of people the benefits, whether in terms of consumer goods or capital. It has to be with the people because it is a partnership of enterprise and other kinds of effort. It is working. There were times, Mr Jenkins, because you are interested in reasons, during the past eight years when—believing passionately as I do on the things we were doing—I began to wonder whether there still was the enterprise in Britain that made her the country she was, or whether having got the ball to people's feet whether they would somehow still have that vivacity, verve, the energy, the vigour, the dynamism, the merchant ventures that they used to have. I know now that they have. It has worked. It is still there. It is going on. And it will continue.

None of that will appear in the headlines. I doubt whether very much will appear on the front pages, although I am grateful that it does appear on some of the main feature articles in the internal pages, but it is what it is all about. It is about what I believe is the British character. How did we get on to this? You asked me about the campaign.

Q

Prime Minister, are there any circumstances at all in which you would be prepared to give up Britain's independent nuclear deterrent?

Prime Minister

I see no circumstances at present. I see no circumstances up to the end of this century for reasons which I have already given. Beyond that, I am not prepared to look at the present moment. But we shall have to look when it comes to replacing Trident. By the end of the century, we shall be having to take a new look at it again, but I very much doubt whether it will be me who is answering questions at that time.

Q

Prime Minister, do you agree that if you win the election the present Leader of the House of Commons is the best person to be the Leader of the House of Commons after that election?

Prime Minister

I have a very good Cabinet; I do not propose to re-make it in front of this audience. As I indicated, [end p10] before making any decisions about any of those things, I like to know that we have won. I hope and believe that we shall win, but I still like to know.

Q (Mr Robin Oakley)

Can I ask Lord Whitelaw, as a former Chief Whip, if he agrees now, in light of the experience, with Francis Pym 's warning before the last election that landslide majorities were not necessarily a good thing. Can I ask you, Prime Minister, if you want another one?

Lord Whitelaw

The landslide victory that we had in 1983 has given our party, the Prime Minister and the Government a great opportunity to do much for this country. They have used that opportunity remarkably. I do not remember a time going into a General Election with a stronger economy thanks to what Nigel Lawson has done. I do not know when I went into an election with a better case to put before the people, and I do not know when I went into an election where I thought more fear of what might happen if we found the Labour Party wrecking the whole thing, which I believe they would if anyone was unwise to vote for them tomorrow. If I have not said anything else in this election, that is rather a good thing to start with!

Q

Do you want a large majority?

Prime Minister

Yes, I do want a large majority; I want it to hold confidence in the future of our country. It is very necessary for indicating to all other countries—many of whom who are thinking of investing in our country—that we have a strong majority.

Q

Prime Minister, the battery of polls with which we are being presented continually tell us that, as we go into the last 24 hours of the campaign, the majority of those people who are still undecided as to how they will vote tomorrow are, in fact, women. They are a group of the electorate which were courted widely in the Manifestos of the Opposition Parties, but not in your own. Those Opposition Parties pointed out that they in Government would not have the seeming reluctance that you have to appoint women to senior posts in the Cabinet? [end p11]

Prime Minister

Such as Prime Minister! The TUC is so full of women, isn't it, at its top table?

Q

Do you feel perhaps in retrospect that you should have addressed yourself within your Manifesto to that group of the electorate?

Prime Minister

No. As I indicated before, policies are for all the people. I respectfully point out that we really do not live in wholly separate compartments. We live in families. Our policy for housing has brought benefit to many families. Our policy for cutting income tax has enabled people to do more for their own families. Our policy for education is enabling people who are dissatisfied with education, and those who are thoroughly dissatisfied with the strange things that some children are taught in Left Wing authorities, to have greater choice. Our policies for all of those things are many others are for families. People live in families.

As I indicated, you do not have a policy especially for women. Women now have opportunities we never had before. I would not be here if we did not. I just want more women to take advantage of those opportunities. We still do not get enough on either side of the House coming forward for Parliamentary work—there are nothing like as many women on our lists as men. Women work for local authorities; they are magistrates. I understand the reason for that. I could not have done it myself unless I was lucky in having a London constituency and working in London and my husband had a job in London. I am the first to understand why a woman with young children would not want to leave them on a Monday, come down to London and go back on the Friday. I would not have wanted to have done that, and could not have done so, because I would have missed them, and they would have missed me. That is one of the problems why we do not have enough women in Parliament. The same thing happens in the United States, but you are not going to do it by having a Ministry for Women.

Q

Prime Minister, you have presided over a revolution in the last eight years in which millions have gained and millions have lost. How do you justify to the millions of people who have had to make financial sacrifices and live in misery, when you, yourself, live with no financial insecurity and are [end p12] probably—along with your platform—in the wealthiest position that you have been in your life?

Prime Minister

What a strange question. With all due respect, I think that that would apply to most Prime Ministers. I do not whether you are suggesting that we have a system of anarchy, but I would be against that.

May I also point out that the Lord Chancellor and myself have not taken our full salary for eight years. That was a little bit of leadership that we could give.

Mr Tebbit

There are two Ministers on the Platform who do not take a salary from the taxpayer either!

Prime Minister

That is right. We are very grateful to David Young.

Q (Mark Schreiber)

Given that, obviously, your objective is to win this election, do you nevertheless feel any sense of disappointment that the Alliance has not emerged as a non-Socialist alternative to the Conservatives?

Prime Minister

The Alliance is a collection of miscellaneous views. It goes from CND from some of them right up to one or two who might be very near our views. It is more a miscellaneous collection than a party, and I think that people have spotted that.

Q (Ian Waller)

You gave in answer to Peter Jenkins your view of society. Can I just put another view of society?

Mr Tebbit

Can you ask a question please?

Q

I am asking a question. Do you not detect in this society today a sense of moral anger at the deep divisions there are not only between north and south, not only between rich and poor, but between those who earn and those who do not. For example, in Kensington flats are changing hands for £500,000 when people are living in B&B slums. There is a deep sense of moral anger. We have both been brought up deeply under the influence of the non-conformist church. Do not you detect that yourself? [end p13]

Prime Minister

I shall not tell you what my father taught me because it would take too long, but it was very good and a perfect answer to your question.

Mr Douglas Hurd

If you look at the policies that we have been trying to put through, and having been getting through, on the quality of education; the change in housing, particularly to benefit people who are council tenants; on the promotion of jobs, particularly in inner cities; and in crime prevention, again, particularly in the inner cities. Those four distinctive Conservative policies are not actually going to benefit the rich in Kensington nearly so much as the poor and the occasionally discouraged in North Kensington. That is what it is all about. That is the novelty of a force of the Conservative message in this campaign.

Q (Edwin Roth)

Prime Minister—this is for you.

Prime Minister

You ask the questions; I am not allowed to hand them out in the Front Bench of the House of Commons, but I can here!

Q

Prime Minister, I attended the last ever coronation of a Pope, which was an absolutely magnificent ceremony. Even without lasers, it was fantastic; it will never happen again. The most impressive moment at that ceremony was when a black-dressed monk—very simply dressed—three times approached the Pope, burnt some flex and shouted out: “Sic transit gloria mundi.”

Do you think that when, for the first time in history, a Prime Minister wins three successive elections, one might set a precedent for a similar adaptation of that in the House of Commons?

Prime Minister

I am sure that you will suffer withdrawal symptoms when we no longer have press conferences every morning, Mr Roth. [end p14]

Mr John Moore

Prime Minister, I will do so much for you in our country, but wearing a dress and muttering odd implications in Latin is, I am afraid, one of the very few things I would resist!

Mr Tebbit

In mild anticipation, Prime Minister, you should know that we have invited the press back here for drinks at 12.30.

Q

Prime Minister, you speak with great conviction about freedom, choice and opportunity. You have just described sympathetically your own good fortune in having a London seat, and a wealthy husband which enabled you to pursue your career——

Prime Minister

I do not think that I said that.

Q

I did, Prime Minister. But you implied it.

Prime Minister

No, I am sorry—look——

Q

The question is a simple one. I beg your pardon, your husband had a job in London. I did not mean to be tendentious on that point. Do you regard the description of your own good fortune that enabled you to pursue a political career as a matter of luck or judgment?

Prime Minister

Oh part of it was obviously luck. Most people need a little bit of luck in life. I do sometimes say to young candidates who are trying to get a seat that the first seat I fought was in 1950; the first time I got into Parliament was in 1959. It is known as resolution, persistence, perseverance, consistency etc.

Q

Although you look as beautiful as you did eight years ago and I hope that you will go on looking like that for the next 12 years, you must be aware that a time will come when you will pass this up to someone else. I am not asking for a name, but I wanted to ask you whether you have someone in heart whom you would like to succeed you, or whether you are nursing (?) someone to come after you after the next 20 years? [end p15]

Mr Tebbit

It has to be somebody who is just as good looking.

Prime Minister

I do not choose, and no one could have predicted that I would come just as exactly up as one did. I do not choose. I am certain that whatever happens to me—and one never knows quite what may—there will be plenty to choose from when the time comes, whoever that might be. I mean that quite seriously. I had a chance; other people will have a chance. That is the way that the system goes on.

Q

Given your stress on enterprise and wealth creation, would you agree that while Mr Kinnock appeals to the voters' hearts, Dr Owen to their minds, you appeal directly to their wallets?

Prime Minister

No. I appeal to their wisdom and to their judgment. Words have never been enough. Deeds count. Deeds in creating the wealth, which the people have done and deeds on how, when that wealth has been created, it is distributed. The most important motivating factor in human life is the desire by your own efforts to do better for your own children. That is in tune with the deepest instincts of the British people. To me, it is in tune with the deepest morality.