Interviewer
Are you satisfied after ten years with what your Government has achieved?
Prime Minister
I think we have done reasonably well and I think people realise that the standard of living is higher, Britain's reputation abroad better, and that a great deal is being done under the social services that we just could not afford before.
Interviewer
But do you worry about the evidence in opinion polls and elsewhere that the country is more divided between north and south, between rich and poor, perhaps about your policies and your personality than it was before? [end p1]
Prime Minister
Leave aside my personality, that does not matter if we manage to deliver the goods. And you know the prosperity has spread north, all over, every region has falling unemployment, every region is doing better and that is very good.
And you look at the house prices, they are going up all over the country too. It really has spread north, it took a time but it has. We can only work through people and the areas where they were not perhaps so enterprising and relied on big employers, they too are getting more enterprising and much greater opportunities for young people.
Interviewer
But what about the downside? People with enterprise and skill have done well but have the unskilled and the poor and the unemployed not suffered badly?
Prime Minister
If you look, people at all levels of income have done better and that is because as the prosperity has gone up so we have been able in fact to give far more help, for example, to the disabled. The day I came in here, let me just give you one figure, £1.8 billion was being spent on people who were disabled. Now it is £7.6 billion, from nearly 2 to nearly 8. [end p2]
That is just an example of how much we have been able to do for one particular group of people.
Interviewer
Turning to economic matters, you had a very good period when unemployment was coming down, as it still is, but after a prolonged period of unemployment and all the trade union legislation, inflation is going up again, you have got a trade deficit, what has gone wrong?
Prime Minister
After the Stock Exchange crash a year last October, I think we were a bit fearful that it might put the world into a recession. I think we thought that many many people's savings, if they were in stocks and shares, were down from what they had previously been and they might therefore spend a lot less and you could in fact go into a decline. So we did correct to ensure that that did not happen and I think that was right. I think we might have over-corrected and things got going much too fast and people began to spend not only their earnings but also to borrow very extensively.
In some cases that borrowing was to buy houses, which will stand them in good stead in the longer run, but in the shorter run it meant they not only bought houses but furniture and all the other things. So there was just a bit too much money about with the borrowing and we have had to take corrective action. [end p3]
We can take that and it will soon work through the economy and inflation will start falling again.
But naturally we did not want to get into recession, that would have dashed so many people's hopes, including ours.
Interviewer
Now even including critics within the Conservative Party, there is a general view that one of your achievements has been to deal with the trade unions. Are you not surprised that inflation is still a problem, even acknowledging what you have just said?
Prime Minister
I have indicated why I think it is and of course why we are taking corrective action now. One says deal with trade unions, what in fact we did was to give the ordinary member of the trade union more power over his future. No-one wants to be shoved around or likes being pushed around, they were a bit you know by some of the trade union bosses.
Interviewer
But they seem to be using that power now to vote for strikes. [end p4]
Prime Minister
No, not always to vote for strikes, many people vote not to have strikes and if they vote not to have strikes then they must be able to go into work to keep their families. What we brought the vote in for was that if people do vote to have a strike, and sometimes they do, they know what they are doing and they choose to take that course of action. They must face the fact that they might be depriving their families of some income, they might in fact be depriving and hitting out at their fellow workers.
Interviewer
But from the national point of view and your Government's point of view, have you another weapon if things go wrong, if inflation continues?
Prime Minister
You are talking about things going wrong. There have been far fewer strikes. We have lost far less production by strikes and it is very very much better and each trade unionist now matters far more in the life of his union and the life of his company, far more because he has more say.
And that has been very beneficial to people in work.
Interviewer
Turning to Europe for a moment, you seem to be taking a somewhat different line about 1992 from some of your colleagues in Europe. Are you on a collision course? [end p5]
Prime Minister
No, we are not on a collision course. We do reveal some of the things that are happening. When I got all of the evidence together about the number of regulations which have not yet come before the House of Commons, but they are preparing for them, then I began to realise that the Commission is going far beyond what we ever believed in when we joined Europe.
It is doing standardisation for the sake of standardisation in things which are not necessary to have freer trade and fair competition in Europe. And that will cause a lot of trouble at home and therefore we must take steps to stop it.
But as far as getting fair competition, we have always believed that if we get fair competition across Europe we will do very well. But we simply cannot have other countries subsidising industries and we not because that is not fair. Now it is up to the Commission to get those subsidies down because they cannot say therefore fair competition unless they take the action.
So we do the things which we believe in, that we really believe we can do better together than separately and I think that is the right way to go about it. But we do not believe in submerging our independence as a sovereign state, we are rather proud of being British. [end p6]
Interviewer
Prime Minister, a personal question, you are seen by many people either in praise or in blame as a workaholic. Could you eventually handle life outside Downing Street when that arrives?
Prime Minister
Yes, I do work hard, I was brought up to work hard. For us it was the only way up. We had to climb the ladder and worked and my Alfred Robertsfather had had to leave school at the age of thirteen and I have a great theory that as parents you always try to give your children what you feel you have missed and so I was encouraged to work extremely hard at almost everything, and did, and it became second nature.
You are quite right, one can become so absorbed in work and everything to do with it that you think, my goodness me, when I have not quite so much to do. But then you think that I shall always find something to do because people who are like that will go out and do work voluntarily.
And in politics you know you are always part of something and you can never really give it up.
Interviewer
We saw the pictures of you with your grandchild.
Prime Minister
Wasn't Michael Thatcherhe marvellous, isn't he lovely, lovely? [end p7]
Interviewer
Very nice, are you ever tempted by the baby-sitting?
Prime Minister
Oh, I shall be tempted by baby-sitting, of course, isn't every grandma? It helps your son and daughter-in-law to go out a little more. But I think not just yet.