Speeches, etc.

Margaret Thatcher

TV Interview for ITN (10th anniversary as Prime Minister)

Document type: Speeches, interviews, etc.
Venue: No.10 Downing Street
Source: Thatcher Archive: COI transcript
Journalist: Michael Brunson, ITN
Editorial comments: 1545 onwards kept free for interviews. MT left for the House of Commons at 1715.
Importance ranking: Major
Word count: 1141
Themes: Autobiographical comments, Conservatism, Leadership, Social security & welfare, Women

Interviewer

Prime Minister, when you spoke to us outside you emphasised several times, I thought it was rather noticeable, that everyone must share the improvement which you have seen happen in Britain. That suggests that you realise that some people are missing out at the moment, is that right?

Prime Minister

No I think, well there might be some individual obviously, but if you look right across the income groups all income groups have improved. That is as you would expect.

But of course in life there are some people who encounter misfortune, there are some people who encounter disability. We have managed to do a lot more for the disabled people especially.

But you must always, particularly if you are doing reasonably well and I know most people are, you must always have regard for those who are lonely, is not always money they want, it is attention, they want to feel that they matter. [end p1]

Interviewer

Because you see the polls suggest that not everybody in the country, by quite a long way, is, as it were, as keen on the ten years of Thatcherism as you yourself obviously are?

Prime Minister

I think that they have taken the opportunities and they have taken then very well and they have put up their standard of living. It was not we who did it. It was we who removed some of the controls that enabled them to do it, gave some of the tax incentives, and they have responded and that is immensely pleasing.

But it means that it was a joint effort and I think most people realise that the standard of living is higher. I think most people are very grateful for the Health Service and think it is extremely good. I do. I think that many many young people are taking advantage of the fresh opportunities. You know they have more chance for training and better education than they have ever had before.

Interviewer

But some people are still falling through the net are they not? [end p2]

Prime Minister

Some people, through personal misfortune, will always fall through the net and we have to be very watchful of that. And it is not only a job for government. What you need very much when you fall through the net, or encounter personal tragedy, is the help of your near neighbours and friends. And that matters just as much as other things.

We can usually get the money to them but my goodness me you need a lot more than that, you need friends and comfort and sympathy and understanding.

Interviewer

You talked again outside this morning about the greater prosperity that is going in the country and you also emphasised several times Britain's greater standing in the world. All that, I suspect, means that you have allowed yourself a little bit of selfcongratulation.

Prime Minister

Really I come across so many people trying to distort what has been done in an adverse way, or trying to run it down, that I really think that it is my duty to what I believe in and what I believe has been so beneficial to put the positive case. And that has always been the approach, put the positive case, always be constructive. [end p3]

Interviewer

Are you yourself going to carry on with what people now call “Thatcherism” ?

Prime Minister

But of course it is far older than Thatcher. It is basic common sense, honest money, incentives to effort and reward for enterprise, and as you prosper yourselves, helping to prosper and give to others. That is far older than Thatcherism.

Interviewer

But what I meant by that was you were talking there about the year 2000, do you think you will still be in charge in 2000?

Prime Minister

I have no idea, who knows what will happen between now and then? I carry on the way I always have, doing the best I can with each day and trying to do the long-term planning, thinking always of what kind of world it will be in a few years time as young people come up and leave school, whether they will have had the right schooling, whether they will have the right opportunities.

What can we do in Government? You cannot say that everyone shall be equally treated. Equality is not a real objective. Equality of opportunity is. [end p4]

You try to arrange things so that people can make the best of their talents and abilities and the whole nation goes forward when they do.

Interviewer

But if it were left to you, you would like to lead the Party into a fourth term and you would possibly like to be there to see the year 2000 in?

Prime Minister

I should like to continue for some time because I believe that the experience has still a great deal to offer both at home and overseas.

Interviewer

You see when the question of your successor comes up, and you have talked about it on a couple of occasions, you always seem to say that it is the younger ones that you want to bring on, almost as though you do not quite trust the Hurds and the Lawsons and the Howes to go on with it?

Prime Minister

No, no, not, it is not that all. I know because I was chosen somewhere from the back of the Party, if I might put it that way. [end p5] I had been Education Minister, and I had been a Parliamentary Secretary to Pensions, I had done many Shadow jobs, but I, as it were, came from the back and I have always thought that it is my job to see that where there is talent that we bring it forward.

It would not be for me to choose who should be Leader of the Party, nor for me to have any particular idea as to who I would want because that would be fatal to anyone. It is for me to see that there should be quite a lot of people there and you always try to bring on young talent and, my goodness me, if you did not they would get dispirited because we think they are young but they think, some of them, that they are getting on.

Interviewer

Can I just ask you about something which seems to have caught some people's imagination, particularly in the papers this morning, this remark about the tigress, what were you really talking about there?

Prime Minister

You know Kipling's poem, he goes through all the animals of the world and says the female of the species is more deadly than the male. Of course the female of the species looks after her young and you go through one after another and many people will tell you that [end p6] to encounter a lion is terrible, to encounter a lioness is much more dangerous. Well, I was just lightly taking that up.

Yes, women do have to fight for their young, they do have to fight for their future, they do perhaps fight with a combination of a singleness of purpose and a degree of common sense which is not always present in everyone else.

And when you are here, that singleness of purpose always leavened with the common sense and the sort of instinct as to how people will feel, it is really just exactly what you need in politics.