Interviewer
What a week for you, off to Madrid with all the gloomsters predicting failure and back really with just about everything you wanted to get back. How would you sum up this week Prime Minister?
Prime Minister
Quite an exciting week preceded really by very deep preparation because I knew in the end the only way to try to put your view across is to know your case thoroughly and try to think what arguments you might meet. So we did it and it worked. [end p1]
Mind you, when you put the arguments and go to the Reports and pull out some of the detailed points, sometimes you find that people are considering not the general thing but how it might affect them for the first time. And that is really what enables you to get more and more people with you.
Some of them were deeply concerned, as we were, about the extent of transferring the fundamental financial control from your own Parliament to somewhere else. And so we already had a number of them half on our side and then, as you know, it was just very successful.
Very very concentrated, I thought it was one of the most concentrated Summits I have been to. By that I mean that once you were really involved in the argument you did not think about time, you did not think about the weather outside, you did not think about anything else but total concentration on the argument and the task in hand.
Interviewer
What is your vision of Britain's part in Europe, Prime Minister? Clearly it differs from that of Mr Delors but how do you see us, in what sort of partnership? [end p2]
Prime Minister
It is quite an influential part in Europe, of course it is because it has been throughout history and also because let us face it many of the other countries really do not want everything to be determined by a kind of German&slash;French axis, which was really the foundation upon which the Community was built and they do not like it to happen that way, a number of the smaller ones, and they do realise the enormous part that Britain has played both in Europe's history and in her liberation and still plays in having very open markets, still plays, is now a successful country, one or two problems but so has every country, a successful country and with open markets, open financial markets and they do realise, as Julian Amery said yesterday in the House, we have run a sterling area, we have all kinds of experience which is tremendously useful to Europe and we are part of Europe, Europe has been the dominant factor in our history. So we have a very important part to play.
Interviewer
If you saw a concentration of Europeans with financial interest in any one particular place would you hope that that would be the City of London?
Prime Minister
Yes, but the fact is that the City of London is the biggest financial centre, it is the freest, it is the most open, it does I think more trade in foreign exchange than anyone else so it is in fact the biggest financial centre and we want it to remain so. [end p3]
Interviewer
Are you surprised by yesterday's move by Germany to increase interest rates which has been fought across Europe? Is that a worrying situation, are we going to have another hot money situation?
Prime Minister
No, it was a small move and I think they took it because they have looked at their own figures and found that their economy is starting to go slightly faster than can be sustained and so they have taken corrective action.
Interviewer
Is it a worry to us in this country?
Prime Minister
No, I think Germany would be likely to take corrective action if she felt that monetary conditions there warranted it and the economy was starting to go faster than they anticipated, so she started to take the corrective action fairly early.
Interviewer
And do you feel our economy has turned its back on its recent bits of troubles, that inflation is on its way down? [end p4]
Prime Minister
I believe that certainly towards the end of this year, in the last quarter of this year, that inflation will start to come down and that the steps that we have taken will begin to take effect.
You know there is quite a time lag between taking those steps and them working through but I believe they will start to work through in about the last quarter of this year and we shall start to get inflation coming down.
Interviewer
And are there any other proposals other than interest rates, Prime Minister, to help the Balance of Payments situation?
Prime Minister
I think that the interest rate itself does that because the interest rate makes borrowing more expensive and saving more attractive, it does the two things together. And as you know, one of the unexpected features in this country has been, if I say a low personal savings ratio, that is true, but there is a reason for it, it is that a lot of people have been putting as much as they can into purchasing their house.
Now that gives us short-term problems because if you buy a house you call it investment but it goes into the national accounts as spending but it is a very good long-term investment so although it gives us short-term problems in a small personal savings ratio, it is long-term a very very good thing and people will be very pleased that they have done that. [end p5]
The companies savings of course has been really quite good so that has counter-balanced it. But we are undoubtedly spending rather more than we should on importing consumer goods and so if you put up the cost of borrowing people do less borrowing, if you put up the cost of saving people do more saving, and so there is less money actually then going into consumer goods.
Now you will find that Germany has a very high savings ratio and so has Japan and therefore they have a very very good balance of payments because they are not spending all their money, they are saving a large portion of it and so a good deal of your Balance of Payments depends upon the habits of the country.
Interviewer
Do you think the industrial base of the country is vibrant enough to fill the demand?
Prime Minister
Yes I do, I think that is one of the really encouraging factors that investment in manufacturing industry was an all time record last year and investment in business as a whole, because why should you just isolate manufacturing industry, there is a massive amount of saving industries, there is construction industry, there is the oil industry, there is the coal industry, they are not classified as manufacturing but they are big earners. [end p6]
The investment in both has held up really very well because we had good profits so they have been able to invest the profits which means that they are really preparing to do more export and import substitution in the coming years. That is really a very good feature.
Interviewer
So you are happy with the response that British industry has given?
Prime Minister
I think British industry have given a very very good response. I think it is working very much better, I think the design of things is very much better and the exports, as you know, are rising, it is not as if exports have fallen, exports are still rising. Unfortunately we are still importing too much.
Interviewer
We of course have to import quite a considerable amount of raw material.
Prime Minister
Yes we do, and of course quite a lot of the highly sophisticated machinery is imported because our engineering industry is not one that specialises in the most modern machine tools of the automatic kind on a large scale so we have to import that from [end p7] Japan, the United States, Germany and Switzerland.
In a way, one wonders quite why it happened. We lost the terrific impetus of our car industry and with it a good deal of our engineering industry. I suppose it would be difficult for young people to realise how foremost we used to be in the car industry, what marvellous car designers we used to have and then we put far too much together, you know British Rover-Leyland, and they lost their fantastic, their own dynamism.
Now we are going to have far more cars produced, British Leyland and British Rover have been privatised, Ford are doing well, Vauxhall are doing well, they are not British based but they do very well here. And then Nissan are doing very well and will increase their output here, they find the workforce excellent in the North-East. And Toyota when they come to near Derby they will find precisely the same thing.
And so we have to be able to look forward to producing more cars in this country and then of course Peugeot too. So we will have about six car manufacturers and the number of cars that are being produced here is rising, which is good. It is not rising enough but when we get the extra Japanese companies here they will produce more so we will not have to import them and we should be able to export here. [end p8]
So what I am saying is that the amount of investment and coming inward investment is a very good basis for future optimism.
Interviewer
So you are really quite sanguine about the future as far as the economic side of things is concerned? [end p9]
Prime Minister
Oh yes! Some of the adverse balance of payments is going into investment, which will do well, and some of course, of the spending is going into purchasing houses, which is a very good thing for the future.
Interviewer
Some of the less responsible papers than the ‘Sunday Express’, Prime Minister, have occasionally speculated on a dissension between yourself and the Chancellor about which way we should go and what happened. Is that one you would like to lay to rest entirely? [end p10]
Prime Minister
There is no difference at all between the Nigel LawsonChancellor and myself about what we have to do, none at all. Get inflation down! Investment important! And this kind of enterprising, exciting, new ideas, young people opting to go into self-employment, starting up on their own. Young people coming out of university, going into the new science-based industry - this is a vibrant, active, vital society. It is not one which says: “Let us tie everything up in regulations so you cannot get on very fast!” It is one in which we have marvellous young people, they have ideas, they have training, they want to get on and they want to get up and go and this augurs very well indeed.
You can never stand still in business. You know that in newspapers. You always have to be a step ahead, but that is an exciting way to go about things and it is the only way which gives you great satisfaction as to what you have achieved and also, it is the only way which produces profits for Government to tax, to look after people and look after the future opportunity, look after giving more opportunity in the inner cities, giving more training, doing more research. It is the key to everything.
Interviewer
And does that also mean that the raising of thresholds and income tax cutting is still on the agenda? [end p11]
Prime Minister
Well, you know, if we had not in fact got income tax levels down, people would not have had this tremendous incentive. People are human. Some - like myself and others - will work whatever happens because we like work, we cannot imagine any other way of life; also in a business where there is a fascination for it.
But for other people the amount of work they do will depend on whether they feel that too big a proportion is being taken away from them, particularly sometimes if they are working in great conveyor-belt industries without necessarily a great deal of interest, and why shouldn't they?
Surely this is what life is about? That you look primarily to your own effort for your own standard of living and for responsibility for your family. You brought the family into the world; you are the prime person responsible. You want to give them a better way of life - you look primarily to your own effort. But if you feel that too much is being taken away from you - an unjustly large amount - then you do not have the same incentive, you do not have the same zest. If you do, then by your own effort you can raise the whole standard by which you live and raise the whole standard of your neighbourhood similarly - and give your children opportunities you never had: above all, they can travel, see things do things and they can have chances which to us were just a dream. [end p12]
Interviewer
Do you think that the ultimate aim of 20p in the pound might be achievable?
Prime Minister
We did not set a time on that for very obvious reasons. We believe in being prudent financially, which is why we have got now a colossal budget surplus. We would not dream of altering the tax rates unless it were prudent - wise - to do so, and at the moment the top priority is to get down inflation and, of course, there is a time lag so that takes a time.
Interviewer
Prime Minister, could we turn to the environment now?
I think, rightly, you have been credited personally with putting Green issues on the map - even Mr. Porritt, I think, publicly said so.
Do you think that the Government's record and plans are ones to be proud of?
Prime Minister
Yes. We have done more than any other party but you know, we have been doing it for a long time. It is partly in our history. Do you remember when Disraeli went and looked around Manchester and the new industrial towns as people had left the [end p13] country and gone and crowded in the towns and cities, and saw really terrible sanitary conditions and came back and said: “We must have a real proper Public Health Act; we must have the drainage right, the sewage right!” and he was castigated by his opponents as having a “policy for sewage”?
He knew that if you wanted to get up health and working conditions, you had to have proper public health, proper drainage and so on and he started it and gradually things were improved and various other people did laws and Acts on improvement in factories and working conditions. Long before that, I suppose it was Shaftesbury who was well known for that.
So there is a history in the Tory Party of doing this. In the post-War period, we did the Clean Air Act. London was filthy because we had all burned coal, there was soot, and it looked awful. Sometimes we have forgotten how filthy it was until you look at an old building. St. Margaret's is just being cleaned and look at it as the stone reappears beneath the soot! So we had that and gradually the air became much cleaner and we have not had a smog since that one in the early 1950s.
We started to do the Clean Rivers Act and people have known now for some time that salmon are back in the Thames and in the four or five rivers that come into the North Sea, so it is in keeping with our beliefs that we do some of these things. [end p14]
Then, I think, all of a sudden we looked at the scientific evidence when I had to go and do a speech at the Royal Society. We got it all out and realised that in addition to the clean air and the clean rivers and what we are pouring into the North Sea and our anxiety to keep the animals and the birds - we simply must keep them as they were dying out and they were part of the heritage of our world. All of a sudden one realised that this remarkable world itself, this planet which does bear life, is really a most beautiful thing and quite remarkable and you know, some of those pictures one has seen, for example, of the dryness of the Moon, the dryness of Mars, the dryness and aridness of the other planets, then you look back and you see pictures of this one, with this atmosphere around it which enables it to sustain the plant life, which enables it to sustain animal life and what a valuable and beautiful thing it is; that we have this atmosphere around which enables us to support life with all its beauty and support animal life, support bird life, support human life. And then you read that the reaction of Man now we have got such a much bigger population - so many more people, much more food, so much more industry - might be damaging this precious most beautiful system which gives us all the beauties of the Earth.
The world population is increasing and we cannot just stand back because we are damaging our own nest and we might be damaging it irreconcilably or in a way the consequences of which we do not know. [end p15]
So those are the big things that you have got to add to the others we have been doing, so yes, of course, we have to go on and get the rivers that we have not yet got clean cleaner and it is all related to the trees because they fix a lot of the carbon dioxide and stop too much from going up into the atmosphere and the food chain in the seas, the small plankton, the small fish, the bigger fish - the whole food chain - that, too, fixes the carbon dioxide which goes down to the bottom of the ocean and one day will come up - some new white clifs of Dover, the chalk, that is where it is. So yes, it is vital.
Can I just sum up! There are three things:
The dirt around us which is there because we throw it down and do not pack it up and take it home as we should. That should be a matter of personal pride. You clean your own small nest and you clean your own area. Because you like your own nest clean, you like the area in which you live to be clean and that is up to us. There is nothing eco-system about that - it is because we throw it down. We must see that it is properly taken home and gathered up and taken away properly to be destroyed. And the graffiti. So there is that immediate.
Then there are the things which are localised in the North Sea. All of us have a duty because great rivers flow into the North Sea. Fortunately, the North Sea is swept by the oceans and so we had the North Sea Conference and we are doing a great deal about [end p16] that and our own rivers and our own beaches. We identified the beaches in our time. We have now got two-thirds of them clean. We should have the other third done by 1995&slash;96 and of course, much of the replacement of the pipes and sewage and higher standards. That is the other local thing.
Then there are the big eco-systems, of which your tropical forests are a part and of course there are also the marvels of Antarctica where we have been very active because we have got a marvellous survey team - it can tell you so much about what is happening and we do the research.
So it is not an exciting part of the Wonders of the World, but it is a bounden duty for the next generation, but I think, you know, sometimes you should just stand back and look at the remarkable beauties of our planet now that you know the spaceships have gone and you know, they went dashing through Halley's Comet and then went on to look at some of the other things and see how arid they are and how luxuriant life is here and that we have a duty. The physics just is not there - it is Man's response to nature and nature responding to Man and the constant reciprocation and reaction that we simply must try to keep in balance and really conserve the things in which I believe. Conserve and add our contribution to what we have inherited.
Interviewer
You have a Green Bill - an Environmental Bill - coming up! [end p17]
Prime Minister
A big one coming up to bring up-to-date the last one, the Control of Pollution Act 1974 and I do not think we shall have any difficulty with getting it through. Some of the things we are doing are quite expensive but as people, of course water comes down from the sky but gathering it in great big reservoirs with great big dams, purifying it, taking away the drainage and the sewage, cleaning that, purifying that, all of those engineering works are very very expensive, getting it in the pipes to every house is very very expensive and keeping it all free of bacteria and so on is very expensive.
But in a more prosperous society people have more money to get up the environment, it is the poorer societies that do not have the money, it is some of the East European countries that pour some of their effluent into the great big rivers that eventually come down into the North Sea. [end p18]
As we get more prosperous so people are demanding, and rightly demanding, those higher standards.
Interviewer
Turning to the many reforms that you have introduced and improvements in our society, some people say that we have gone too far too fast. Would you accept that as a criticism?
Prime Minister
Well, they do sometimes, but you know if we had not had a very exciting manifesto last time because we were trying to extend opportunity and to extend the area of enterprise, then they would have said we were running out of steam.
So one day you are accused of running out of steam, the next day you are accused of getting up steam and it was very interesting this week you know, British Rail and the people have gone on strike with absolutely no thought for their fellow citizens, all the damage, harm, inconvenience that they are causing their fellow citizens.
So people say: “Privatise it”. Now privatisation is something worthy in its own right. Governments should not be running business, they do not necessarily know how to and you put it over to the people who really know how to. If it is a monopoly then they have to have certain regulations and public duties which they must work within. [end p19]
But that is a good thing in its own right, it is not just a response to a particular situation and when it is done it has to be properly prepared and people who work in it must know the new opportunities that they will have and you cannot just do it in response to a particular situation.
But it has been significant that the privatised buses kept going, of course they have to, if they do not earn any money that is the end of them. The tragedy is a double tragedy about British Rail, first the thoughtlessness and callousness towards their fellow citizens and secondly people know that you cannot rely on rail, you cannot rely on British Rail so you had better make your own other arrangements to try to get to work, it may be that we have to stagger the hours of coming into work, provide more parking places, etc.
And I believe with the newspapers, the last time we had a bad strike on railways they said: “Well we cannot rely on rail, we will have to take them out by lorry or van” and did. And so they will get less business and what they really need is more.
We were just all thinking, goodness me, you know we should with the Channel Tunnel, the freight can come in at Liverpool, go right down, right down to the Channel Tunnel, right across to Paris, to Rome. Just when they have the opportunity they are throwing it away. [end p20]
I hope that the saner voices will be heard and that they will realise the chances they are throwing away.
But you do not just take a fantastically good idea like denationalisation and apply it to a specific situation because it has to be very carefully prepared and thought out and how you do it.
Interviewer
What, Prime Minister, do you feel in view of the strikes, the NUR, NALGO, the tube strike, what do you feel about Mr RonToddMr. Todd's request that the Labour Government, should there ever be one, returns all the old Trades Union amenities to them?
Prime Minister
That is typical, it is going backwards. You see, having got rid of some of the old trade union legislation has enabled us to do two things, quite fundamental. First, give more powers to the ordinary decent person who only wants to come and do a decent day's work for a decent day's pay. That has given him much more freedom to control the unions. Certainly sometimes they vote to go on strike but most of them do not want to.
But secondly, it has allowed industry to take a great leap forward into all of the latest working practices, all of the latest equipment, all of the latest machinery, so we can hold up our heads and say: “We have some of the best, latest machinery in the world. We have come up front and we are going to stay up front.” [end p21]
So it enabled them to get rid of the restrictive working practices of yesteryear. I remember in my early days as a Member of Parliament some young man coming into my interview evening and he said to me he had some difficulties with the place where he was working, there were unions, and he said: “Look I want to go to a place where there are no unions, I do not believe in them, they stop us from getting on, they cause problems, they cause troubles, they call us out”.
Now we have got rid of a lot of that, you do not want to go back to it because it is stopping the modernisation, it is stopping us from being the best.
It happens to be a characteristic of some of the British unions and we have very nearly got rid of that. We still have not unfortunately got a feeling that there are certain essential services and you really have a bounden duty to your fellow citizens to keep them going.
So never go backwards, we are really going forward at quite a considerable pace and really we have had good profits, they will not be as high in the years coming up, but really your workforce should be the people who are demanding the latest investment. And you know you have seen from the newspaper industry, when I go round now it is not clanking, dirty, horrid, noisy, mucky conditions for people to work in, they are good conditions. Is that not part of raising the working standards of living, is that not what it is all about? [end p22]
Also it means that when you want to start up something new a lot of it is push button and quiet, it is not this enormous colossal industrial thing, certainly when you are producing your newspapers it is quite big but a lot of industry is smaller, push-button, much quieter, much cleaner. And that means you can start many things up in villages that you could not possibly have done before so it means that you have a chance to revivify your rural life not only with the typical crafts that you expected but with some of the latest electronic industries which are quiet and clean.
Interviewer
Would you contemplate further legislation to curb strikes in the public sector?
Prime Minister
We are having a look, we are having a look now to see how we can stop some of the most difficult strikes where they can dislocate a great deal without losing very much themselves because that really is the most callous approach, that you do maximum damage to your fellow citizens without losing very much yourselves, of course we are having a look at that.
Interviewer
And what have you felt about the doctors' campaign against the NHS reforms and improvements? [end p23]
Prime Minister
We are very deeply concerned. As you know, we have poured money into the National Health Service. I often say to people the day I walked in here in 1979 Britain was not very prosperous and under Labour the top amount that she could spend on the National Health Service was, and I give you the figures, not with the nought, but £8 billion, just under £8 billion a year.
This year we are spending £26.5 billion, that is because we are much more prosperous, we are able to do much more, able to build more hospitals, we have been able to increase the nurses' pay so that they have got something like 40 percent above, in real terms, over and above inflation. We have been able to increase the number of doctors, the number of dentists, the number of midwives and it is a much much better Health Service than anything we had before.
And yet all I got in the House of Commons was complaints, complaints, complaints and complaints, that in spite of the fact that 80 percent of the people who used it said they were very satisfied. So I said: “All right, if you are just complaining and complaining and complaining, we will do a review of it to see what we can do”.
We took a whole year doing a review and what we are trying to do is right in keeping with everything we believe, do not centralise everything, devolve responsibility to the people on the ground. That is the people who are running a hospital probably know far more about how to run it better than any management committee further up so let them have a go. [end p24]
The teaching hospitals used to be self-governing so a big hospital has to provide certain services so that they are there, let it become self-governing, let it have control over its own money, control over how many extra patients it can take, control over how it runs its operating theatres and what it does.
And, if you have a really good doctors' practice, let them have control over it. Disperse, devolve responsibility. Usually the people nearer to the scene of action know how to do it best. And then we get a tremendous amount of complaint but then I have to remember that of course the doctors opposed the Health Service in the first place bitterly, bitterly and they opposed when we said: “Look, when you are dealing with drugs it is the actual chemical that matters not necessarily the packaging and the particular brand name, it is the chemical inside that matters so as long as you get the chemical, it is not the brand name.” They saved £75 million, they opposed it bitterly but they saved £75 million, I think, and that goes straight back into the Health Service to do more things.
And now they are saying: “Oh, but look we were doing it all very well” and so I said: “Well it is a pity that you did not say that before isn't it?”.
So yes I do feel that a lot of the people who are complaining have not really read the White Paper and the other papers and insofar as we have not get to the detailed plans right, of course we are consulting with the doctors, you cannot do without the doctors and nurses to run a Health Service. [end p25]
But you know quite a lot of the doctors are very interested in what we want to do and recognise and think that they and the local management could run their hospital very much better. And we had an experiment with five hospitals on how to do the financial management to get best value for money and it does not matter who you are, if you are working with taxpayers' money you have a bounden duty, a kind of stewardship to get as much out of it as you can because otherwise someone is in pain who could have an operation.
So we are just having a look at the future way ahead. But you know from £8 billion to £26 billion in ten years and only to be kicked around for it and then suddenly to have them say, as some of the doctors said: “But for forty years we have been able to do this, this and this, and people have been able to have it just at the point of use”. And I say: “Yes, and that is going to continue but you are going to have more say. What a pity you did not say how good it was two or three years ago and how good it is now. What a pity. It employs one million people. What a pity when all of a sudden something happened and you could not do a particular operation you blamed it on the Government. Because let me say this, if we are to be asked to take responsibility for a few very very difficult and sad cases then you must also and you are at last doing it, giving us credit for the massive amount of work that is done, all the things that go right”. [end p26]
So it has just got a bit out of kilter and a little bit out of balance. But believe you me, we do not want to get at odds with doctors, they have a far bigger income after ten years of Tory Government in real terms, so do nurses. We want them to have circumstances and conditions in which they can do most for the patient. We want the patient, if the patient is not satisfied with the local doctor, to be able to change the doctor more easily, it is very difficult now, you have to get the permission of the doctor.
We know that there are some hospitals which do not have waiting lists and we know there are waiting lists elsewhere and we do not think people should be in pain if they can get a very good surgeon in another hospital. We do not think that people should be called into hospital for out-patient treatment, they should be told to turn up at nine o'clock in the morning and not seen until half past three or four in the afternoon. We think that is a matter of good management, a thoughtfulness for the patient and care. At least you ought to be able to say: “We will see you in the first half of the morning or the second half of the morning, or the first half of the afternoon”.
Of course there will always be emergencies, everyone understands emergencies, but it is the general regular thing. So we are very pleased that at last they are saying: “What a good Health Service we have got under Tory Government”. We think it is a great pity they did not say that before and we are now seeing how we can go forward to make it better. [end p27]
But you cannot do it without the doctors, we admire the doctors and we think that some of the campaigns have gone absolutely overboard and so do quite a lot of the doctors. These are professional people and there are certain professional standards and ethics and that means there are certain things you do not do and say.
Interviewer
You are then, Prime Minister, totally committed to a healthy Health Service?
Prime Minister
Totally committed. Look if I were knocked down in the street tomorrow or in one of those terrible accidents, we all rely on, whatever we need, there being a Health Service there. Yes, when I have small things, tiny small things which I need doing, I can afford to have it done myself. The time will come when there will be a big operation or something needed when I cannot and I, like everyone else, shall rely on the Health Service.
But the tiny little things that I can afford to have done myself, why should I bother the Health Service with it, I can do it myself. [end p28]
Interviewer
Prime Minister, there are quite a lot of voters now who do not remember the dark days of socialism, have no experience of how it was, do you therefore regard Labour's attempts to paper the cracks, smarten up its image, get a new defence policy and all the rest of it, as really being quite dangerous for the country?
Prime Minister
Not really because they chop and change and chop and change with every changing wind. I think people know you do not know where you are, particularly with defence. The thing you have to be certain you have got is a sure defence. With finance you have got to be certain that your finance is sound. But you cannot go and promise the people everything and say: “Look, you have got all rights and no duties”. Life is not like that, it does not add up to common sense, it does not add up to conscientiousness, it just does not.
Interviewer
What are your priorities over the next two years Prime Minister, things that you feel should be done?
Prime Minister
As you know inflation down and the finances always have to have a stable basis and your defence sure. Great attention to law and order and I think some of the things that worry me most and I think worry Western nations most now are what I would call some [end p29] of the behavioural problems which have come with a prosperous society: drug taking, some of the violence, some of the football violence, this is not people who have but little money, it is people who have quite a lot.
We used to think that if you had got good housing, good education, a good Health Service, a reasonable standard of living that most of your problems would go away. No, you are up against the real behavioural problems, the terrorism, the violence, the crime, and for that you need a great combination of everyone and that we are managing to get. You will find that burglary is really down where you have good Neighbourhood Watch schemes.
The next thing, about which I feel passionately, is seeing that education is really good and that every child, whatever the child's talents and abilities, has a real opportunity. That is why we are putting so much emphasis on education because we believe in opportunity. Every child will have some talents and abilities, some of them are not always necessarily those that show at school, sometimes the people who do best in outside life are the people who do not shine at school. On the other hand you have got to have your science-based industries and those who shine. So why we are putting so much into education is because it is enlarging opportunity. [end p30]
The next thing is to spread ownership of capital because everyone has the right to own some private property, gain by their own efforts and therefore you will find that in about twenty years time every grandma or great-grandma will have something to leave to oncoming generations. It gives them a stake in the future as well and gives people a little bit of capital on which to start their lives. [end p31]
I believe greatly and passionately that you not only have entitlements, but obligations and therefore we must talk about a sense of responsibility, a sense of community because no-one has any rights unless they accept obligations and with those obligations, not only to your own family, but you get a sense of community. If you like things nice and tidy and up to standard, you are likely to be the kind of person who does things for your community; you are likely to be the kind of person who wants to build a better world, who is keen on the environment and that, as I have said, is part of a better world and higher quality.
This thing - the extra prosperity - is giving us opportunities for better environment; to do things personally for ourselves towards others. It is an enormous enlargement of opportunity. [end p32]
When I was up at the “Express” yesterday, you will remember I said something which had occurred to me because I was thinking about the “Express”. The old Lord BeaverbrookBeaver was a great advocate of the Commonwealth - Empire and Commonwealth - and what a fantastic thing the British Empire did for many countries. It took them standards of administration, of law.
But when we were thinking of going into Europe it was as if there was an antagonism between the two, that “Oh, you have dropped interest in the Commonwealth because of Europe!” Now, no-one in fact can deny geography. We have, in fact, been close to Europe for centuries. Then I went on to say, you will remember, that things which outwardly seemed antagonistic now have becomes kind of partners. Each of us - the French had an empire too and the Dutch - we are the better, the more knowledgeable, more able to do things as Europe in the wider world because we still have contacts with an empire and so those things which looked antagonistic have become partners which enable us to have the influence on the wider world between us and if you look at Europe - and this is why I am a passionate European - the values of civilisation have been the values which have gone the world over through those empires, through this sense of adventure with which people went out from Europe to the wider world; they are the values which went from Europe. [end p33]
Democracy and human rights, which came from ancient Greece and the human rights which came as Christianity developed and became Christendom in Europe, they are European ideals.
The idea of developing the Industrial Revolution started first in Europe. And the integrity of science started first in Europe and then became an industrial revolution. The fantastic gifts of art, culture, literature developed and extended to the world from Europe. All of these things quite remarkable, and here we are, lucky.
We had a sense of adventure in the 16th century in which we went out the world over, so did Portugal, so did Spain, so did others. We had an empire, so did the others. All of this experience is coming together, which gives us contact and a special value in the wider world and the chance of really working together in this remarkably beautiful planet of which we are privileged to be citizens.
Interviewer
Prime Minister, knowing our Scottish interests, may I ask you one about Scotland in conclusion?
What do you feel you have to do to get back support in Scotland, because we are lacking representation there? [end p34]
Prime Minister
I am not quite sure. Scotland is a lovely country and it is now doing very well. As you know, the earnings there are the second highest in the United Kingdom and they are in fact profiting so much from the policies that we brought into being. It is not surprising, because you will see on my desk there Adam Smith, “How to Create the Wealth of Nations”. They came with a sense of personal responsibility, with a sense of commonsense, with a sense of how to create wealth, with the importance of education, the importance of a sense of community. It is all there. In a way, it started with commonsense and Adam Smith knew how to work with the grain of human nature, so it all really came from that and I hope that gradually they will realise that the achievements which they have - and they are massive - could not have come about but for the policies that we have created and I hope that they will realise that we have really done enormous great things together, this remarkable United Kingdom of the four nations - the Scottish, the English, the Welsh and the Irish. We have done remarkable things together. We have travelled around freely, we have done things together.
We are very proud of everything Scottish and I hope that they will see that these things could not have happened without the policies we brought about. There is certainly no need to change them. Change those policies and Scotland will be less prosperous. [end p35]
Interviewer
Devolution, of course, would mean there would never ever be a Labour Government in Westminster again.
Prime Minister
Maybe that is so. I think it is important to remember this is the United Kingdom - each of us playing a rather proud part, complementing one another, travelling freely, easily, through the countries; going out the world over, coming back - that we have achieved great things which are highly relevant to the world now and to the future.
Interviewer
You would not contemplate any form of Assembly or anything for Scotland at this point?
Prime Minister
I feel once you go that way, you are going on the way to being separate. I do not find a stopping place at all.
Interviewer
And separation is really impracticable in the end? [end p36]
Prime Minister
I think that not many people, when they thought about it, would really want it, but do not forget we have had two massive devolutions already. Malcolm Rifkind in the Scottish Office has colossal administrative devolution. He runs the Health Service - it is run from there. They run their agriculture from there. So there is already a massive administrative devolution.
There is a second devolution because we believe in devolving powers - not to any other government agency but as near to the subject as we can. Hence, denationalisation has meant that for the first time some Scottish industries have become Scottish-owned instead of being whole nationalised industries. So we have devolved very much and we have devolved houses to the people - they can purchase.
I was so excited when I saw the other day a poll in Scotland, which would never have happened ten years ago - 80 percent of young people want to own their own houses. Now that is Toryism at work, Scottish Toryism at work in Scotland! Many of them now are starting up their own businesses. That is marvellous!
It is working there too. Do you think Glasgow would have done so well - of course she would not - without Conservative economic policies operating and now she is the city of culture. There would not have been the resources to do the things that have been done in Glasgow.