First words not recorded.
Interviewer
… do you think this is the case?
Prime Minister
They have been popular in Scotland in this sense, that Scotland has taken advantage of Conservative policies and done very well from them. The kind of prosperity that we see now in Scotland, the rising number of people who want to own their own houses and have the chance to do so, the kind of income levels that they are achieving, second only as far as male wages are concerned to the London area itself.
Scotland has grasped with both hands the opportunities that Conservative Government has offered. It has grasped the enterprise. It has realised that you cannot go on existing on subsidies, you have to be successful because of your own skills. It could never have had today's prosperity, it could not have had that success, without the policies of a Conservative Government. [end p1]
So they are popular in the way Scotland takes them with both hands and uses them and does well from them. And those very policies from which Scotland has done well have been policies which the Labour Party fought tooth and nail at every stage, just as they are fighting Scottish enterprise now.
So they would not have had it but for a Conservative Government and a continuing Conservative Government and I hope that when it comes to the election they will think whether they are prepared to throw it all away or whether they really have profited from it.
Interviewer
And yet this has not been translated into political popularity?
Prime Minister
We have to get that message across. This has happened because of three Conservative victories and because we did not fear to tackle the real underlying problems and it is as well we did because the reputation of our whole country abroad has gone up tremendously because they know we tackle the problems.
But there is another factor. We have the Single Market in Europe by 1992. That means that we have to compete in Europe as well as elsewhere but the Commission is looking right across the whole of Europe to see that there are not any subsidies or hidden subsidies and when we do things like selling Government Ship- [end p2] Builders, British Ship-builders back into the private sector, the amount of subsidy that we can give, or the amount of dowry that we could give to get that, had to be agreed with Europe.
So if we had not in this last ten years pursued courageous policies that got Scottish business enterprising and successful, where should we be in Europe by 1992? And let me say, the policies of the Labour Party are not policies which are permissible in Europe.
Interviewer
But why do you think that has not been popular with the voters, at least when they come to vote in an election?
Prime Minister
That is my job to get that across. They would not have had this prosperity but for ten years of Conservative Government. It is working well for Scotland and for Scottish people and the private sector has really had a rebirth. Look what the private sector has done for Scotland. Oil—now there is a new confidence in oil, but the whole of the exploration, the production of oil, was a private enterprise operation.
Some of the things that we had to close down because they were nationalised and not efficient, people like to work for something that makes a good profit and hold up their heads and they know it has got a future. And then, not only working for something which gives them a future, but making a profit they are helping [end p3] to provide resources for things like the Health Service and education.
You know, sometimes I think for personal popularity we could have sat back and done nothing and said: “Well isn't it difficult and of course dear you must have an extra subsidy” and your resources would have gone down and down, the country would have gone down and down. Europe would have become competitive and we should have been a country with a past greatness and no future.
As it is, we are doing well and thank you for helping us to put it across.
Interviewer
Do you view with concern the low standing of the Conservatives at the moment? There is a poll out this week that suggested 16 percent popularity at the moment, indeed that is only one poll but the European Elections were poor?
Prime Minister
Yes of course I do, yes of course I do, and you have said it is our job to get across and say: “Look, you would not have had this prosperity but for the policies of Conservative Government which the Labour Party fought against at every stage” .
We have created the opportunity, it is an opportunity made for Scotland, all the individual enterprise of Scotland and all the community spirit of those who once they had succeeded turned round and benefitted the community of which they were a part. [end p4]
Interviewer
What can you do then to make the Government more popular?
Prime Minister
I think just getting across the facts, getting across the facts. Everyone I think recognises that Scotland is more prosperous than ever it has been. The United Kingdom is more prosperous than ever it has been. But it did not just happen, we picked up a country in decline, lost confidence in itself, and everyone called Britain the sick man of Europe, the sick man! Now we are fit, healthy, enterprising. This would never have happened under a Labour Government, nor would prosperity, the decline would have gone on.
So it is due to a combination of Conservative Government and people taking the opportunities which only a Conservative Government could and did provide.
Interviewer
Is the question then as far as Scotland is concerned of presentation and getting the message across?
Prime Minister
I think it is getting the message across, but everyone realises that things are highly prosperous and I think that many people really welcome the capacity to take decisions nearer the point where things happen, so that you do not always have to refer things upwards, this is what happens with private enterprise, [end p5] you take your decisions near where things happen, your management and workforce can take decisions.
I think people know that the Health Service has never had more money than it has got now, never had more doctors, never had more nurses. It has never been more successful than it is now.
The schools, I think they appreciate what we are doing, certainly parents appreciate what we are doing in schools.
Interviewer
Do you consider any change in policy to accommodate Scottish aspirations or at least as they are expressed, I am obviously thinking particularly about devolution which again, according to Opinion Polls, is a popular feeling in Scotland?
Prime Minister
I think we have done the true devolution. In fact this Government has let go a lot of its own powers and restored them to the people. For example, it is not the business of Government to run nationalised industries, governments do not know how to run industry and that was only too obvious. So we have let go some of those powers as private enterprise takes up. And also we have let go the tremendous amount of housing domination that was done through Government, either central or local. [end p6]
Now for the first time I see polls in Scotland, 70 percent, 80 percent of young people want to own their own homes. This is the kind of silent revolution that has taken place.
Now you see, that is taking away powers from Government and allowing people to exercise them. In the National Health Service, if hospitals want to become self-governing, and it is voluntary, if they want to become self-governing, make more of their own decisions over their own, the budget still comes from the tax-payer, and do more work, for which they would be paid more, they can do so.
This is the true devolution and do not forget the ultimate devolution, on which Parliament should be the watch-dog, is we do not take as much of people's earnings in taxation. We say: “They are your earnings, we will take what we must do to continue the work of Government and do it properly and run a flourishing Health Service, but we are going to have lower taxation” . That gave them more incentive to work more and so we all got more income.
So that is really the true devolution in every aspect. And of course Malcolm RifkindMalcolm would get administrative devolution in Scotland because the whole Health Service is done from Scotland, your education is done from Scotland, quite a lot of your farming. Scottish Enterprise, which the Labour Party are fighting, Scottish Enterprise, where you put the training and the enterprise together, of course you do, what are you training for but for the kind of jobs which industry and the service sector and people like your good selves can provide. [end p7]
So that again is Scottish enterprise, all of these things are administratively devolved and the powers over many things goes right to the people or to the companies themselves.
Interviewer
Are there any circumstances under which you would countenance some form of self-government for Scotland?
Prime Minister
But just look, you have administrative government. Self-government—the Scottish Office—total administrative, you have more self-government in the sense that you have more say over your own lives than ever before.
I do not think you want new big units, new big units mean new big taxes, they always do. Get a new big unit and the first thing they will do is put on a lot of taxes and a lot of it will go in administration and sometimes the bigger the units the more taxes they take. If you had a new big unit inserted, Scotland would be the most highly taxed nation in the whole of the United Kingdom and it would lose its prosperity. You have your local authorities with their powers, Strathclyde is the biggest, and others are quite large local authorities. But a new big slice of government means new big taxes which means taking away power from the people and putting more into the hands of extra government. [end p8]
Interviewer
On one occasion, Prime Minister, the Chancellor expressed the view that Scotland does very well out of the Government, indeed I know that to be the case, and that Scots could be accused of whingeing. Is that a view that you would share, that they do well and perhaps do not appreciate it?
Prime Minister
I do not think I have ever found a whingeing Scot but I think I have found a lot of Scots who take advantage of the opportunities which this Government affords. They are pretty sturdily independent.
You see the policies which the Government which I have the privilege to lead follows were not invented by me. They are called Thatcherism, it is a great compliment, Adam Smithism would be very much more to the point. Everything, and Andrew Carnegie, you look at all these Scottish philosophers and industrialists, and this really was, these philosophies were born for the Scottish characters so it is not surprising to me that Scotland has taken advantage of them. We just have to get the message across that look, had you had a continual Labour Government, Scotland would not be anything like as prosperous as it is now, not have anything like the good future that it does have now, not have anything like such a good future of competing in Europe as it does now. [end p9]
All I have to do is to try to make the connection between the Government we have had and the success which Scotland is enjoying. Everyone else knows it, we go abroad, Malcolm RifkindMalcolm and I, our teams go abroad and we do international negotiation, and we have got a terrific reputation, we are the Government that never ran away from the real problems. We are the Government that analysed the real problems and said: “However difficult, we are going to tackle these” . And we have respect the world over, everyone knows what we have done.
Interviewer
Can I ask you about the Community Charge? It has caused some problems here and is causing some problems in the south. If there are any changes or concessions in the south, would they be reflected or extended to Scotland?
Prime Minister
First, the Community Charge is not causing half as many problems as rating revaluation did cause and would have continued to cause because it was grossly and bitterly unfair, inequitable, and we had to change it. The Community Charge is a way in which people pay for a small proportion of what they vote for. I say a small proportion, the Community Charge does not finance wholly local government, on average in Scotland it finances 14 percent or 14 pence in the pound of every pound of local government expenditure. [end p10]
So your tax-payer does the lion's share and your industry does a terrific share. But you should really have the pride to say: “I am a citizen, I expect to pay my share to the cost of local government” and that is what it is all about and I think it is working very well. I am told that in the borders already they have got up to 95 percent has been collected. You did not expect actually to collect more than 95 percent of the rates. I think people are understanding this and if they cannot afford to pay they get rebates and the tax-payer, again, pays 100 percent of the rebate. So the tax-payer pays twice, for the greater part of the expenditure and then for people who cannot afford to pay the remainder of their Community Charge it is the tax-payer that pays.
Interviewer
If there was to be some sort of fundamental change?
Prime Minister
Look, if we get any changes then it always comes into Scotland as well. But do not forget that Scotland has a bigger tax-payers' grant towards local authority expenditure already. For example, in England the Community Charge payer on average will be paying 25 pence in the pound of local authority expenditure. In Scotland, on average, the Community Charge payer only pays 14 pence in the pound. In Wales it is 18 pence in the pound. [end p11]
Now that does not mean that every local authority pays 14 pence, some will only pay 8 pence in the pound, some 30, but the average is 14 pence.
Interviewer
I hope you do not mind me asking this but you do have an image amongst some people in Scotland of being perhaps a little bit remote, some say uncaring, more interested in the South-East of England, that simply is an image that some people have. Do you believe that is misunderstood?
Prime Minister
It is just not right, is it? I am in and about Scotland quite a bit. I come because I like coming here, I come because I have a duty to come here, but I also come because I like coming here. Really, do you think I would have gone through all the criticism and the flak which I have taken, and still take, if I did not care passionately about the future of the United Kingdom? If I had been that I would just sit back, throw up my hands and say: “Well, really you have some of these industries down and really I cannot get it up again” . Do you think I would have gone through all of the criticism of those policies if I did not care and do you think the Health Service would now be as good as it is if we did not care? [end p12]
You judge us by the fruits of our policies. It would really have been much very much easier for me to have said: “This is too hard, I really cannot go on fighting” . There is no point, if you want to be popular you just sit back and do nothing and are really rather nice about it. We wanted to be successful for our country so that our country could become a partner in that success and we could hold our heads high in the world and we do.
Interviewer
Could I turn now to drugs? It is a big problem in Edinburgh and also in Dundee, sadly. We have our serious drug problems but do you think that we as a society are doing enough to combat drugs and that enough is being done?
Prime Minister
We are passionately interested in it because drugs, as I said in my speech yesterday, the people who produce and sell drugs are really at war with the young generation. It is as devastating almost as firing a bullet at them, some of these terrible drugs, and you have to tackle it at both ends, at the producer end and at the consumption end.
At the producer end we actually are right up-to-date with the United Nations Convention on this, indeed we actually were ahead of it because we said the first thing we must do is see that we can somehow confiscate the proceeds of the sale of drugs because these drug barons are making a fortune. First we have got to get them [end p13] convicted but then you know when they were convicted they were doing about three years in jail and saying: “Well, that is all right, I have got a fortune stowed away somewhere” , so we introduced our own law that we can follow the proceeds of their drug sales, through their bank accounts, and we have led the field on this, this is another thing we have led the field on, it is bilateral agreements with other countries so that we can follow the drug barons' accounts into their banks and they can follow them into ours and we can confiscate them.
Now it has only been in operation a year and we have already confiscated £8 million and there is another £8 million that is being held until we can prove that it came from drugs. We are increasing the number of agreements we have got and it is now in accordance with the United Nations Convention, so we are doing that.
At the Economic Summit we all got together and said the real difficulty is that some of the drug barons launder this money, you know it comes in in cash and then because the cash is traceable they manage to get people to take it into various banks or put it through various processes and then the money becomes respectable. We have done a lot of investigation about the laundering of the money, to stop it, and now the Economic Summit set up a committee because we want the world's best financiers on this to stop it.
So that is one end and as you know we are getting increasing hauls of drugs which the police are finding. This year they have found actually more cocaine than heroin, which is alarming, which means that cocaine is coming into the market. [end p14]
So all of that is going on. But then you have really got to have an effect on young people and I think that we are going to run an international conference here next year as to how to stop young people from trying drugs and we shall do that by showing some of the horrific consequences. They destroy you, they destroy the personality, they destroy life, they destroy your children if you take them when you are having children.
Interviewer
Is it to be a shock campaign then?
Prime Minister
That will be a part of it. Did you see George Bush 's broadcast? They have done a certain amount of shock campaigning. But it is really on all levels, you have got to do it in schools, your doctors have got to warn about it, we have got to do it by getting the message across that drugs destroy your personality, they destroy your prospects, they destroy your future. So we are operating at all ends.
Interviewer
I asked my colleagues in the office, if they could ask the Prime Minister a question, what would it be? And the consensus was, “How long will you stay Prime Minister for? Is there any danger,” they say, “of Lord Liverpool 's record being broken?” [end p15]
Prime Minister
Did you say danger or possibility?
Interviewer
Possibility, I am sure!
Prime Minister
I must thank them for their very nice way in which they put it, because they are assuming that I will be returned again and again and that we might even break Walpole's record. The whole thing does not necessarily depend upon me but there is still a lot of work to be done and we are closing the gap between France's productivity per head and the United Kingdom's and we want to go on and do that and get up to it and then we must challenge Germany because her productivity is still ahead of ours, per head, and this is what your competitiveness is, it is not only the number of hours you put in, it is how much work you are able to put into each hour together with the machinery. We have to challenge that and really we have got these challenges to do and it is only a Conservative Government that would really tackle it.
So there is quite a lot to do but we take it one election at a time, that is what democracy is all about. So I hope the Dundee Courier will continue to be very successful, I hope the Scottish Enterprise will continue to be very successful, I hope that more and more people will have ambitions in Scotland and bring to fruition [end p16] the property-owning democracy which they are, they will own their own houses and lots of bigger opportunities with Scottish homes and that more and more of them will become capital owners because you want every man a capitalist and that would suit Scotland.
And for all of that you need the continuation of good, enterprising, conscientious, hard-working, imaginative, innovative, Conservative Government, which is what we have got.
Interviewer
Thank you very much indeed.
Prime Minister
And please can I say, the Scottish Office are absolutely marvellous and believe you me they keep us very very up-to-date with any problem there may be and I think they run it superbly.