TV Interview for ITN (General Election victory)

Michael Brunson, ITN

Prime Minister, congratulations on your win. Can we be clear, we can expect you to serve the whole of your third term?

Prime Minister

I would like to. As you know I have to be re-elected every time by my own party every year, so it is not wholly up to me, it is up to them as well.

Michael Brunson, ITN

No thought of handing over to a successor as it were to break someone in?

Prime Minister

Good heavens, no.

Michael Brunson, ITN

So we can expect to see you fighting again in 1991, 1992.

Prime Minister

You do not break anyone in. There are plenty of people who could take over if anything happens to me, as it could. There are plenty of people who could take over. [end p1]

Michael Brunson, ITN

Can we move to the subject that you raised last night in your speech in Central Office, the inner cities. What exactly have you got in mind there?

Prime Minister

Well, as you know the problem with some of those inner cities is that some of them are run by the militant left. I mean take Liverpool for example. I never forget, and I have frequently quoted in the House of Commons, the Robert Kilroy-Silk point. In fact the militants and their ilk in Liverpool are the biggest deterrents to job creation on Merseyside there have ever been.

Now, that has happened in a number of inner cities. The left state [sic] —and over, they have put up rates to a very high extent and they are not attracting business there, indeed they are hostile to business. Now, if you are hostile to business you are hostile to job creation, that has been a problem and we are asked to have more and more urban development corporations. I think the one we have had on Merseyside has been very good, but it is very small. Now, we are creating more urban development corporations, that is one thing. We are certainly having city action teams, we have created an increasing number recently.

But, our whole policy on housing and education in the manifesto was designed to help those who live in inner cities who feel they are trapped. With this hostility to business which they have, many many business people and many of your professional people they move out of those inner cities, and this again is a problem. So we have got to tackle it on a number of fronts, but the real thing is to see that those inner city councils are not hostile [end p2] to enterprise. We are tackling one thing, of course, with the rates.

Michael Brunson, ITN

But is it going to be direct action, as it were, by means of injection of cash into those inner cities, or is it the sort of political action working through individuals, individual's parents, opting out of schools? What kind of action is it really going to be?

Prime Minister

Look, a lot of cash has been injected into those inner cities. It has not always gone to the things which are likely to gain most confidence and the rates have gone up and up and up, and that is hostile to business. It is not just a matter of cash. If it were it would have been solved, but it is not, it is much more fundamental than that. It is this hostility to enterprise and therefore a fundamental hostility to what creates the jobs. Therefore, we have to tackle it by the urban development corporation …

Michael Brunson, ITN

But will you be having as it were special target teams along the lines of the UDC's and that city action, more of those? [end p3]

Prime Minister

We have got about sixteen city task forces now. We increased the number recently to try to see if we can break through this hostility, but as you know, Liverpool, even after all it had suffered, still re-elected, and that is democracy, its own council and it is not easy to break through that. That is their right.

Michael Brunson, ITN

There has been a lot of comment about the north/south divide as a result of the election results. That is something that you have always said you do not accept, but do you accept that there is a great deal of disquiet obviously among voters' minds in some of those regions about the prospect of a full Thatcher term again?

Prime Minister

No, I do not necessarily accept that. Look, we have just had the most fantastic triumph. The third term with the same Prime Minister with a full franchise and a majority of about a hundred. It would have been a triumph the first time, the third time it is remarkable and this is because people realise that our financial policies, our enterprise policies are gradually tackling the fundamental problems and that prosperity is spreading. And it is spreading further north, we did extremely well in the north west. We have held a number of our other seats in the north and unemployment is falling fastest in the north and the north west, and also, as it happens, in Wales. That is good, but it is the policies that are right, that are gradually spreading jobs and a higher standard of living further and further north and gradually dealing [end p4] with some of the deep seated problems. Yes it will take time, but it is spreading in that direction.

Michael Brunson, ITN

But you say, Prime Minister, it will take time. A lot of people will probably be asking this morning, when is all this prosperity going to come my way?

Prime Minister

Look, as you have heard me say during the election campaign the big multiple stores are building in the north. The biggest shopping centre in Europe has just been built where—not in the south but in the north at Gateshead. They are not going there because there is no money to spend, they are going there because there is a lot of money and a lot of prosperity as well in the north and it also, in doing that, raises the morale of the north and they are doing well there. And, I think if we start to boost them, Gateshead is the biggest shopping centre, far bigger than anything else we have got, it chose to go to the north.

Michael Brunson, ITN

But you would accept that there are plenty of people there who do not feel they have got a lot of money to spend in those bright new shopping centres?

Prime Minister

Yes I do. But equally I accept that a lot [words missing?] money, who not only have but are, and also you look at your …   . like Marks & Spencers, you will find that it is their northern stores that do [end p5] well. And you will find that prosperity is going north, you will find that unemployment is falling quite fast there, not as fast as we would wish, and you will find that the enterprise alliance is also being taken up there, and companies like Nissan chose to go to the north, that is good. Let us boost its good points.

Michael Brunson, ITN

Finally, Prime Minister there is plenty of sunshine outside this morning. Was there a fairly sunshine feeled atmosphere around the breakfast table this morning?

Prime Minister

Yes, we are obviously very quietly pleased but now we are just rearing to go. We have not a lot of time just to sit around, we must get on.

Michael Brunson, ITN

Back to work this morning?

Prime Minister

Back to work. Thank you.