Peter Murphy, IRN
You were clearly moved by your reception today in Gdarsk, were you surprised?
Prime Minister
I was amazed at the numbers of people who came out, both in the old town and round the Solidarity Memorial. There were just thousands and thousands and thousands and all such orderly, you could not call them demonstrations, but orderly groups of people and of all ages, it really was wonderful.
Peter Murphy, IRN
Were you impressed with your meeting with Lech Walesa? [end p1]
Prime Minister
Very. I found Lech Walesahim a very quietly impressive person, a very reasonable person and very very fluent and articulate and we had extremely good talks and you know you really do begin to understand them much more when you see them and see some of their colleagues and see so many of the people as we saw them today.
Peter Murphy, IRN
You said you went to Gdansk to get a feeling for the spirit of Poland. Do you feel you have got that?
Prime Minister
Very much so. It is a tremendously Polish spirit, they are tremendously proud people, tremendously proud of their nationhood, of their nationality. Their problem now is I think having no official opposition, like us, and I always do say when I am in this country: “Look, I was once Leader of Opposition who became Government because I was elected” and then they have to find a different focus for expressing their own views and Solidarity is not just a trade union movement, important as that would be, it is also a focus for people who feel differently about the political situation, and that came through very strongly. [end p2]
Peter Murphy, IRN
You have spoken to all shades of opinion, government, the opposition and Solidarity. Do you feel that the government will change politically, economic reforms, political reforms?
Prime Minister
I think the government is trying, through what is called the Round Table, that is through discussions between government and Solidarity and possibly some other groups in the State, to have discussions to enable people who take a different view from the government to make their views known.
There have been such discussions in the past and we do not know whether those will take place in the future, although we do know that invitations have gone out to go to such a Round Table conference.
Peter Murphy, IRN
Do you feel there is a new impetus though for those talks to re-start?
Prime Minister
I think many people would wish those talks to re-start. Solidarity is a very powerful movement. The emotions, the feelings are such that they undoubtedly have a very considerable effect and significance in the life of Poland and that is a tremendous fact of life which just cannot be ignored. [end p3]
They most earnestly wish to take a greater part and they will be answering soon the invitation which they have had to take part in the Round Table talks.
Peter Murphy, IRN
At the end of the day, do you think at the end of this visit there is any help Britain can give to Poland and what help?
Prime Minister
I think we can have far more contacts, I think we can give quite a lot of help with regard to management. There is a fantastic amount of State-control here. If you want to release it up you will just have to train more managers, as indeed we had to, and we are very willing to do that wholly at our expense or to set up courses here which, if they wish to have them, would help.
We want more contacts between schools, we want more contacts between teachers. I think more financial help will not be released until they have come to an agreement with the IMF. You know we had to do that many years ago in 1975, not under the government which I have led and one does say to countries that ask for more financial help, look it is not likely to be released, whether it is in the form of credits or rescheduling of debts, new trade credits, until you have come to that agreement because that means that you will [end p4] take a new economic path, which means that your affairs will be run more soundly in the future, and once you have got that, then you say right we will help you with rescheduling past debts.