Peter Sissons, Channel Four
Prime Minister, how much of this is because you are really deeply worried about the survival of your party in the inner cities?
I recall on election night you saying: “We want them too next time!”
The voters did not come your way in the cities last time.
Prime Minister
Yes they do, but it is not only that. I do not like the heart being taken out of those cities and not being revivified. After all, so many of those cities were built because of the enterprise, the ability, the business acumen, of the people who built them up originally.
But they were not only businessmen. They were the city fathers. They took part in the life of the city. They saw that it had the right buildings, the right municipal buildings. They saw that it had the right hospitals frequently. They contributed to building schools. They realised that to build a great city it was not only a question of jobs—that you also needed the music, the choirs, the art galleries, the libraries. [end p1]
These great cities, some of which have lost their heart temporarily, were built by people of enterprise. That enterprise is still there. The question is how to stimulate it and revivify it—and it is happening!
Peter Sissons, Channel Four
But our poorer cities, despite what you say you offer them, do not vote for you. Why?
Prime Minister
Well maybe they do not. Maybe quite a lot of people have moved out from them. I hope they will. I hope they will, because I hope that they will see that years of Labour government did not do anything for them. It did not set out to solve their problems. It set out to complain about them and it set out sometimes to spend money in a way which controlled the lives of people.
I do not think that brings dignity to British people and I think they deserve more than that.
Let me tell you a little story:
When I was up in the north-east, I went to an office which we run trying to help young people to start up on their own if they want to and there are places they can go to get the enterprise allowance.
One young man said to me—he had got completely the wrong idea— “I do not know why you think we have not got just as much talent up here, Mrs. Thatcher!” [end p2]
I said: “But I do not think that! My message is that you have. My message is: how can we help to enable you to start up and do what some of your forebears did!”
But there you are, there was the answer.
They have the talent, they have the ability, we know that and we are just there to help to enable that to come out.
Peter Sissons, Channel Four
But if, as you said, your principal concern is to respond to people's aspirations, what if there is inertia? Are they to be left to stew in their own juice?
Prime Minister
But there is not inertia. Look! Where we found that there were areas of dereliction and local authorities were not dealing with …—they either had not the structure to deal with it or the will to deal with it—we invented a new idea: Urban Development Corporations.
We had to bring in legislation to have them. You have seen what has happened in London Dockland and do not forget, that was a very deprived derelict area. The local authorities did nothing about it for years. It is thrusting, thriving, has new buildings, new offices, new roads, new railways. Government in partnership with the private sector, and it is thriving.
We did the same with the Albert Dock up in Liverpool and the Urban Development Corporation is thriving. [end p3]
The same on Salford Quays and that too is thriving. That has an enterprise zone on each side.
Have you looked at Glasgow? Really, it is a different city from what it was when we came into power.
Peter Sissons, Channel Four
And yet there is not a Conservative MP in Glasgow!
Prime Minister
No, but I hope one day they will realise that a lot of the money which has in fact been spent has come from the tax-payer, not from the rate-payer, and also come from the private sector, and we must get the message across, because I will tell you sometimes what happens:
You will find that they think the local authority has done it and, in fact, it has been Urban Development Corporation, enterprise zone, urban dereliction money, new railway stations, revivifying an old station as in Manchester with the great new conference centre.
Ah, we have to get over that it has been largely due to the energy and initiative of this Government that has brought about that change, but never mind! If we get them revivified, that will be something. [end p4]
Peter Sissons, Channel Four
Much of what you say has taken place has taken place on the back of a general period of growth in the economy. What if that ceases? What if we go into recession? What if firms take fright? Does it stop?
Prime Minister
Yes, but it is our policies first which have enabled Britain to grow faster than Europe. It was not just growing on the back of an increase in world trade. We have grown faster than Europe because we run the finances well but it is not enough just to get inflation down. You have to give people incentives. People work mostly because they want to do better for themselves, for their families and to live in a better community, and so it is this policy—sound central finance plus incentive to effort—that has brought about the very growth which is enabling people to expand into areas where they have never been before.
So yes, that is Conservative government.
Peter Sissons, Channel Four
My point is that if we had a recession which was beyond our control, would the inner cities, along with the rest of the economy but more so, be plunged back into the old slump? [end p5]
Prime Minister
No, I do not think so, because what we are trying to do is to get much more variety of business there than they have had before and that is really happening in some areas.
It has been most difficult to do, I think, in the north-east because the north-east was later in some respects than some other areas to grow.
Liverpool Merseyside grew in response to the trade from America and the trilateral trade with Africa. The north-east was later and really was founded on coal, iron ore and the heavy engineering and shipping that followed. They never had quite the variety although they have got ICI up there now, but they tend to have been very big companies that started up there and big organisations and the smaller ones were only related to the larger ones. We have not had so many independent smaller companies starting up there which were not related to the big business and that, I think, is one of the most difficult to tackle.
As you know, we have just started a new Urban Development Corporation up there and I read in the newspapers this morning that even in that area there are more people wanting to come in and start up business there than we have got older factories to offer. That is very good, because it means that those derelict sites—and you saw me standing on one looking lonely … what I was trying to say was: “Here is a site that has been cleared ready for construction!” It means that people will come in and build on those provided the rent per square foot is enough—I think it has [end p6] only been about £2 at the moment compared with ten to twenty times as much in London—that is a little bit low, but if you get £3 or £4 a square foot it is still worthwhile people going there and starting up. But it is coming! It has taken eight years of the right ideas, the right legislation and more legislation to reinvigorate Britain!
Peter Sissons, Channel Four
You have spoken in the past about almost a mission to see off socialism.
As a first step, is it your intention to limit the days of municipal socialism?
Prime Minister
I cannot do that. It is for people themselves to choose who governs them and sometimes, you know, I have said to people when they say: “Look! You will never do this unless you get this!” I have said: “It is for the people to choose who they want!”
What we can do is restructure local authority finance so that they cannot pursue financial policies which positively stop new jobs going there; so that they cannot get people absolutely under their thumb too much. Therefore, we give more opportunity; that schools can opt out of local councils; that council housing can opt out of the municipal landlord; so we can give people more opportunity and if they still choose to have a Labour council, then [end p7] those who wish to opt out of being controlled by them have the chance to do so, so that way you will get new business starting up because they are not put in shackles by a local authority.
Peter Sissons, Channel Four
What will be left for local councils to do in five or ten years time?
Prime Minister
If they do well, they will still have education. No-one is going to have a school opting out of a local education authority if they are very satisfied with what is happening.
If people are very satisfied with what is happening in the council estates, all right, they will continue to stay there and we are putting a large amount of effort into renovating some of them, because some of them are run down and not fit for people to live in. It is we who are putting the money in to say “This will not do!” .
So if local authority is good and what I call “living up” to the British character, to its dignity, to its enterprise, to its ability, its willingness to take responsibility, then they too will get the message. It is if they are not, if they are using like little socialist fiefdoms, more and more control over the lives of people. [end p8]
I do not think British people like being pushed around like that and I think they will prefer—even in the heartland of those socialist inner cities—a new way, because many of the areas that have great difficulties have had Labour governments for years—and they have not solved the problems.
Where they work in partnership with us, like Glasgow, as Salford is doing now, there you are being to see the solution of the problems.
People choose the local government they want.
Peter Sissons, Channel Four
Does it not worry you that private industry, by the law of the land, company law, its first obligation is not to the local people but to its shareholders?
Prime Minister
But the shareholders put up the money and more and more ordinary people are becoming shareholders now. They put up the money to enable people to get the buildings, to get the equipment, to get the machinery, to get started.
You know, in future, you are going to have more and more income coming from having the latest equipment and machinery, the new electronics.
The new big industries are not clanking big industries. You have seen them. They are much more micro. They are much quieter. They employ actually fewer people on the manufacturing side and the people are being employed in the services. [end p9]
So what you are going to have is people wanting to get their money in two ways: first, directly from their own job and then they will get some savings and put those into industries which need a lot of capital to get the production, but then you either draw the income from your work or you draw the income from your savings and those businesses could not do without the savings with those savings becoming shareholders, so of course, if you put money in that way you want a good return.
If you put money into National Savings you expect to get a good rate of interest. We do not always want it to come into National Savings although we do want quite a bit. We want some of it to go into revivifying industry. It is opportunity for your sons and daughters and they are going to be shareholders as well in the new Britain.
Peter Sissons, Channel Four
If you cannot produce the new Britain in the inner cities, will you deserve to be re-elected next time?
Prime Minister
We are producing the new Britain in the inner cities by the ideas that we have already had and it is that success—we have seen it. Go and see it! Go and look at it! See the new buildings! See the derelict sites getting new factories, new offices. See the new housing! It is extending that success in certain areas to [end p10] others and taking the old recipe and adding it to that. The people who built Manchester were the businesses, the city fathers. The people who built your Leeds, your Sheffield. These people, this talent still exists.
Oh yes, our great ambition is always not only to distribute capital more widely as a capital-owning democracy, but constantly to enlarge opportunity so those young people, who as that young man from the north said to me “We are just as good!” and I said: “Yes, you are! That is why I want to see that you have the opportunity that other people have to show it, to show what you are made of!” and that is why we have got cracking anew.