Interviewer
I just wondered, as I think this is your first newspaper interview of 1990, how you view the coming year. Do you think it is going to be a better year, an easier year, than last year which was quite a difficult one?
Prime Minister
I think in politics no year is easy but I think that some of the worst forecasts, the most gloomiest forecasts, will not be correct and I think people are beginning to realise that. I think they are also beginning to realise that there is a great underlying strength in the economy we have now.
The worst problem we have at the moment is unit labour costs. Ours are rising faster than those of our competitors, in Germany, in Japan, in the United States and also in France and that of course is one of the worst things that can happen and that is why one is very anxious that this should be known because otherwise people will get more pay but do themselves out of jobs. [end p1]
Interviewer
Are you particularly concerned about the Ford pay claim?
Prime Minister
They are responsible for their own pay claims. I do not know what they are getting in productivity. All I know is that if the pay goes up faster than the productivity, we shall soon cease to be as competitive with Germany, with France, with Japan and the United States.
We were in the previous few years getting more competitive against them. Now I am afraid just some of the wage claims have taken off and it is up to them what they do. But if they lose business and if they lose jobs then them must be presumed to intend the consequences of their own action. You do not get more business by putting up your prices when your competitors are putting down theirs.
Interviewer
Are you particularly worried about public sector pay?
Prime Minister
As John Major said, we are having to stand very firm. An offer to the ambulance people over eighteen months varying from 9 per cent to 16.3 per cent according to where you work and according to your medical qualifications is an offer that many other workers would think was good and worthy of acceptance. [end p2]
Interviewer
Some of your back benchers do seem a little unhappy that the dispute is continuing on and would like to see it resolved.
Prime Minister
We are all unhappy that the dispute is continuing on, particularly when the nurses settled for about 6.8&pcnt; and other similar workers in the Health Service, of whom there are a lot, settled soon after April/May for figures around that amount.
Now the ambulance people did not but they had their special structural pay award in 1986 and it has held its real value since then and you really have to bear in mind all of those working in the Health Service alongside the ambulancemen - and the ambulancemen are Health Service people - who did accept that amount and are nobly and faithfully working and doing a very good job.
Interviewer
On the ambulance dispute, is there absolutely no question of a review body?
Prime Minister
No, there can be no question of a review body. Review bodies were for people who did not go on strike, who put the patient first. And there are many people who work in the Health Service who do not have a review body, they go through a Whitley process and we must stick to that. [end p3]
They have had an increase, the offer from 9&en;16.3 per cent includes an extra £6 million over and above the previous offer. Now there is no more money. The most important thing, and we have come to it immediately, is to get inflation down and you cannot say the most important thing is to get inflation down and then act in a way which might make it go up. And the public sector, when it is giving that warning, it must take action accordingly.
But then from 9&en;16.3 percent over a period of eighteen months, many people would think was a good offer, particularly when it is backdated to April, and therefore there are for those people who are on a 9 per cent increase they have waiting for them, if they have been working the whole time, arrears of something like £700, those who are on 16.3 per cent increase to something like £1,300, waiting to be picked up.
Now it seems to me that there are many people who settled for less in the Health Service and have not put the patients' health at risk in any way, they have put the patients before themselves. And one has to think of one's loyalty and gratitude to them as well.
Interviewer
So it is something you are prepared to stand firm on? [end p4]
Prime Minister
I am afraid we have to. And do not forget, the majority of ambulancemen are certainly working the emergency and accident service. I think it is sixteen authorities who have help from the Army and police, and things like New Year's Eve, as you know, were done by St. John's Ambulance anyway.
Interviewer
Back on pay, your concern about pay levels, unit labour costs and everything like that, how do you propose to tackle this, is it by Ministerial exhortations and warnings?
Prime Minister
You just point things out. Management now have authority and power to manage. It is no earthly good people streaming in and saying: “We are getting uncompetitive” if they are giving wage increases which go ahead of productivity. If they are getting more productivity than wage increases, so although the wage increase looks high the unit labour cost is not so high, that is all right obviously.
We also have had schemes, do not forget, to enable them to have profit-sharing and the amount which comes from the profit-sharing, because once you have made the profit it gets preferential treatment for tax, as you know. So they can do it in other ways. We have made all that available to them and given them back the power and authority to manage. [end p5]
It does not help the people at work either if they go on strike for it because all they are doing is hitting at other people and they are hitting at their own business.
But that is what I say, the thing about democratic politics is that people must take personal responsibility for their own actions and this is why both Nigel Lawson and John Major said, do not think that the exchange rate will just tumble to make you competitive, there is a limit to what you can do on that, but moreover what it does is put up all the cost of your imported raw materials or your semi-fabricated components. So that would be a very short-sighted view.
Interviewer
There will be no devaluation to help?
Prime Minister
That would be a very short-sighted view. The only way to stay competitive is by your own efficiency. But that, as you asked me where this started was, and that I think is the biggest problem because it is all coupled with the battle against inflation.
Interviewer
But you did begin by saying that you thought it would not be as gloomy a year as people have predicted? [end p6]
Prime Minister
No, because I think that the economy is a good deal stronger. That is to say I think, for example, the investment is coming in faster, the new technology is being absorbed faster, unions are usually absorbing the new technology and being prepared to operate it and that is where you get the increased pay if the new technology gives you increased productivity.
I went to Warwick to open the new advanced technology centre and saw really the excellent things they are doing, they really are on long-term research and getting technology into industry and doing your new product development in relation to the production of that product and costs and testing and I thought it was most inspiring.
Interviewer
So you do you think that the credit squeeze, the very tough action that you have taken over the summer, is beginning to work through?
Prime Minister
If you have got inflation in the system, you have got to squeeze it out. But anyone who in fact, as I say, goes and puts wages up beyond their capacity to sell their product, well they take the consequences. [end p7]
Interviewer
But for your part in that you will keep a very tight limit on public sector pay?
Prime Minister
Well, we have to. We had the last Public Sector spending round, we just managed to hold the proportion of Government expenditure to national income, just about, and we do not wish that to go up because we have got where we are by giving people extra incentives to produce more and one cannot depart from that philosophy because it has worked, and it will work.
Interviewer
Could we move on now to foreign questions? The other big development of 1989 was the developments in Eastern Europe and the complete unravelling. Mr Gorbachev's position, how do you see that now, do you think he will survive 1990?
Prime Minister
I think when you do a change of the proportions that Mikhail Gorbachevhe is doing, of the magnitude that he is doing, an enormous change, do not forget it has never been tried before, firstly because there was never such a thing like the Marxist/Lenin Revolution before which had a total central command and control. Its whole philosophy was that all benefits come from the State and that you do what you are told by the State and nothing else. [end p8]
To accept that that has not produced either any personal dignity or liberty or prosperity and to accept that it was in fact collapsing and to say: “It must be changed” is the biggest turn-around in history and it is a big turn-around coming at a time when industry and trade are very sophisticated.
Do not forget our industrial revolution came and the whole rise of our prosperity came in the days when industry was much simpler and so we came up with it. He is working in a much much more complicated thing and also when you go from no liberty of speech to liberty obviously all the criticisms are going to come out, which I said right at the beginning. And all the things which people have wanted to say and do and which have been suppressed, they are all coming out.
They are just having to cope with all these things and it is easier to get the liberty of speech and a certain amount of liberty of action than it is to get the economic reform because people tend to sit back and say: “Well now you have given us much more political liberty, where is the economic prosperity?” without realising that they have to create that.
So it is a task of enormous magnitude and although you know we all know how the market economy works, I do not think anyone has set down a blueprint for how to go from a central command control economy to a market economy with a people who have not been used, never been able to use their own initiative. [end p9]
Interviewer
Do you still see him in command of events?
Prime Minister
I think he is managing things really very well indeed. He is, I think, a very dominating personality, knows the magnitude of the task, knows what people's aspirations are, but knows the old system did not work and had collapsed. And therefore they have got to go on and that would happen even if someone wanted to oust him, they would have to go on because the old system collapsed and I think people understand that.
Interviewer
You do not see any immediate threat to his position?
Prime Minister
No, no I do not.
Interviewer
Hong Kong, China - the Foreign Secretary goes on Saturday. How do you view the current situation, relations with China? You sent your own Special Envoy there before Christmas, do you see any signs of hope for a better relationship? [end p10]
Prime Minister
It is our task to do our level best for Hong Kong within the terms of the Agreement that we made with China. And under that Agreement we have a bounden duty to try to keep the prosperity of Hong Kong going until 1997, to hand over a prosperous Hong Kong and to introduce more democracy and the Chinese agree that then the way of life in Hong Kong shall continue for at least another fifty years.
And so of course we have a bounden duty to do our level best to keep that prosperity going, a bounden duty to the people of Hong Kong, under the Agreement. And the Chinese people made their declarations in the Agreement and they are drafting the Basic Law. And obviously we watch and consult about the drafting of the Basic Law and there is an appropriate Committee because again do not forget our way of life is very different from the Chinese. For a start it has a basic rule of law of a quite different kind from any law in a communist country.
And all of this we have steadily and persistently to explain and really to explain therefore the kind of thing that makes a free society and a free economy work.
Interviewer
Do you think there is more that can be done to underpin democracy? [end p11]
Prime Minister
That is coming up, I think they would like obviously greater democracy and do not forget, that is our way and the question is how fact they can because we obviously want it to be a steady increase of democracy and a smooth changeover.
Interviewer
Before Christmas you announced the citizenship package for the 50,000 heads of households. Would your aim be to try and get that legislation on the statute book in this session of Parliament?
Prime Minister
We said: “At the earliest opportunity”. Douglas HurdDouglas will go over and look at the situation himself. It is obviously not an easy thing to select the people who are absolutely critical. Some of them who have worked for us in certain positions obviously select themselves. Others, it is a question of those who really, without whose services we could not keep either the prosperity going or the movement in or out and so on. We shall just have to judge that when he comes back.
Interviewer
One of your closest former supporters, Mr Norman Tebbit, has come out very strongly on it and has suggested that the proposals you have put forward will split the Conservative Party from top to bottom. [end p12]
Prime Minister
I hope they will not, I hope they will not. I think some things perhaps were said before one sat down really and worked it through.
We have a duty to the people of Hong Kong. Our administration continues until the last minute in 1997. We really do have a duty to them and we have a duty to their future because if we hand it over in good form, I say hand it over, it reverts because it is a lease. If the ownership of the lease and sovereignty reverts with everything in good order for the present way of life to continue, then it affects all the future generations in Hong Kong and can have a more far reaching effect than that because China will have then as part of its territory a full, free, market economy working. It has special economic zones just behind that and was trying to do them right up and down the coastline.
And I think from my talks with them earlier, that they had hoped that after fifty years, in their special economic zones which would have much more economic freedom, you know they started to give economic freedom first, those fifty years would give them a chance to bring their standard of living up to something of the kind which Hong Kong had realised and therefore that the whole thing would merge together.
But it would be a great asset in that China has now on her doorstep, and then totally incorporated into her territory when the lease comes to an end, a full working market economy with the associated freedoms because you cannot get a full liberal market [end p13] economy without the associated freedoms, and I think that that would be a great asset.
But we have a duty, that is my point, we have a duty and really the thought that Britain might shrink or shirk her duty is to me horrific.
Interviewer
While accepting and acknowledging that duty, the argument put by Mr Tebbit and some of his supporters is that you also have a duty to the British people here and he does lay the charge, and it seems quite a severe one, that by doing this you are going against the pledges of four election manifestos to restrict or not to allow another mass immigration.
Prime Minister
This is not a mass immigration, it is a limited one. It is a people who are used to using their own initiative and by virtue of being very important to the administration and prosperity of Hong Kong would be a great asset to this country.
It is not a mass import at all. If you look at the immigration figures you will find that even now they are about 44,000 a year.
And I just think that British people understand you simply cannot run an administration in what is still a colony and say to the people who are absolutely vital to keep that administration going, absolutely vital: “Look, we expect you to work loyally [end p14] for us but when the time comes we are not going to do anything to help you even though you might be in difficulty for having worked for us in certain jobs”.
And Norman TebbitNorman accepts that, I see that Norman has accepted that. So he accepts quite a part of the 50,000 because he has accepted that. What he then is not accepting is some of the young professionals or those who actually keep the industry going there. How they are people, some of whom may well have invested here, may well have factories here as well, and we do also owe them a duty. But we owe it not only to them but we owe it to all the five million people who will have to stay there because to give some of the others passports here is the only way to keep them going there.
And I think people accept that. It is very strange, I have been accused at one and the same time of being tough - too tough, hard-hearted - because of the attitude towards the non-refugee Vietnamese and too soft with regard to the people of Hong Kong.
It is a rather interesting accusation. First you are too hard and then you are too soft. The one is bounden duty to the people of Hong Kong and I do not think British people will shrink from that. I think that they would have reason to be pretty concerned if, on one of our last colonial territories, the handover was done with anything less than conscientiousness on our part. [end p15]
Interviewer
Are you somewhat hurt or dismayed by the way your former Chairman and close colleague has acted on this issue?
Prime Minister
No, I am not. I know Norman TebbitNorman very well; he is a jolly good, loyal supporter; he is just as much entitled to his view as I am. Norman is and will remain a very good friend and a very loyal supporter. I do not think he has got this one right - he possibly does.
I do notice that he is accepting that those people who do work directly for us in certain jobs do have to come and I think most of them do. It seems to be very strange, therefore, that they should not accept that those who keep the prosperity of Hong Kong going should also be the better enabled to stay there to continue to do that because they have a certainty of a citizenship here. [end p16]
Incidentally, do not forget we have a Joint Liaison Committee - ourselves and the Chinese - up to 1997 and beyond 1997 for three years, so we always felt that that was one of the signs that meant that the Chinese were interested in getting a smooth take-over.
Of course, we have had the recent problems but we are still anxious to get the Agreement implemented which is that the way of life of the people of Hong Kong should continue for fifty years and the recognition by China that that was an advantage to China.
Interviewer
You signed the Agreement, didn't you, so you have a strong personal … to it.
Prime Minister
Yes, with Zhao Ziyang. Deng Xiaoping was there.
Interviewer
On the other Hong Kong question, the Vietnamese boat people, the two parliamentarians who have been out, according to the news bulletins, seem to have supported the British case on two important points: one, that they regard them as economic refugees and that they have not been ill-treated when they returned home.
Prime Minister
I saw that. They have not yet returned, have they, but I thought the early news was good. It was not unexpected because we took endless trouble. [end p17]
Interviewer
Do you think that is likely to mean that although there has been a lull, you will now resume the policy of compulsory repatration?
Prime Minister
There has not been a lull of policy; there may have been a lull in actually implementing it. It is not necessarily always easy to arrange.
The policy has to remain, otherwise you would have hordes of people the world over and have absolutely no right to return them to their own country.
We did not do it until after we had one of the international conferences, which accepted that refugees have to be treated differently from other people and have to be returned home, the only question is how. I think there is another one very shortly within a matter of weeks or days.
Interviewer
So you will probably wait until then one would assume?
Prime Minister
I am not going to say “yeah” or “nay” but the policy continues and the policy, I think, has been upheld and confirmed. [end p18]
But also, do not forget that the life in camps in Hong Kong is not exactly one where they wish to spend the rest of their lives either for the people of Hong Kong or for the Vietnamese themselves.
Do not forget, a lot of those who are criticising us do not hesitate to return economic migrants to their own country of origin.
Interviewer
Such as the United States?
Prime Minister
Yes - I do not blame them - and we return them to China, otherwise Hong Kong would have been swamped years ago.
Interviewer
1990 has begun with some more hopeful news from South Africa. It appears Mr. Mandela may be about to released.
Prime Minister
Yes, it has been more hopeful steadily and Mr. de Klerk made his views very clear during the election and it has been moving. I think he has handled it extremely well, always moving forward, knowing and accepting that the change must come and the only question is how to bring it about peacefully. I think he is steadily moving forward with it and we hope that Mandela will be released soon. Obviously, he will have to have full freedom of speech and so on, so will the ANC, and when Mr. Sisulu came out [end p19] the demonstrations were peaceful; he made his speeches and I think that has been handled well.
So it is moving forward to the objective steadily, peacefully and in a way which keeps the best economy in the whole of Africa sound and steadily improving.
Interviewer
There has been a hope for some time of Mandela's release. It seems to be an expectation now.
Prime Minister
I think it is an expectation. Yes, it is an expectation; the only question is precisely when and how and obviously it needs to be handled very well, as were the release of Mr. Sisulu Umbiki (phon), both by the authorities and by the people themselves. The case of Mr. Sisulu, I think, was handled extremely well and immediately the government said: “Right! Yes, of course, you have freedom!” I think it is being handled so that you get a peaceful move towards the critical negotiations and then I think the negotiations - who you talk with and what comes out of it - will be very carefully prepared and well handled and everyone is thinking about it.
Interviewer
Would the Mandela release and possibly free speech pave the way for you to go there some time this year? [end p20]
Prime Minister
It would enable me to go there. I do not think one should necessarily just dash there. Again, you would have to judge the time when it is best for those in charge of the forward movement and one does not want to do anything that hinders but only to help.
If I might say so, we did once again have the right policy. You never help people by destroying their economy, never, and that is why I, as you know, have been adamant that if you put on sanctions it destroys the chances and prospects of the very people you are trying to help.
The thing will, I believe, go through to full completion and they will have a strong economy, the possibility and probability of getting stronger. The South Africans have built a strong economy. They got apartheid, which they never got from us - it was their own shocking invention and a great step back. Industry has been breaking that down. It is quite absurd for foreign companies to pull out or sell cheaply because it was industry which was breaking down that apartheid.
The education system means that there are far more black South Africans now qualifying on their matriculation, whatever they call their school-leaving certificates; they get many graduates; many extremely successful business people and it must be very very irritating, frustrating, agonising for them not to be able to take part in politics. President de Klerk accepts that apartheid has to end and of course that everyone has a full right to take part in government and I think he is handling it very well in bringing it about. [end p21]
Interviewer
Have you been in touch recently?
Prime Minister
We are always in touch. As you know, we have an absolutely outstanding ambassador there who is respected in the best British sense of the word throughout, I think, the whole of South Africa and Namibia and wherever he is known. He is very highly skilled. I saw him yesterday.
Interviewer
Finally, would you hope to go there this year?
Prime Minister
I would obviously like to go to South Africa. I went, I think, in 1973 on a scientific mission because I was Minister of Education and Science. You probably know we cannot do much optical astronomy effectively in the northern hemisphere, there are too many clouds, and so the whole of the northern hemisphere has observatories in the southern hemisphere and we have one, in partnership with the South Africans, on the Karu (phon), which I went to open. We also have another one in Australia which I went also to open. [end p22]
I went and looked around then and I have not been since. I would love to go because actually it is a very beautiful country with enormous potential and that is why there is such a good future once we get this political situation solved, which it will be, and it is a much better future for all of the Front-Line States too, who rely very much on the economy of South Africa which is why, in spite of what they have said about sanctions, none of them have operated them.
Interviewer
Europe. You are going to see the Conservative European MPs fairly soon.
Prime Minister
Yes. Well, we do see them. They come here from time to time, not enough I am afraid.
Interviewer
Is there anything that you will be able to say to them which might meet their concerns about your approach to Europe? There have been some criticisms, feeling that we have not been committed enough on certain aspects of European unity. [end p23]
Prime Minister
The policy is made, of course, by the Council of Ministers and each of the Council of Ministers is accountable to his own parliament and the European Parliament also has a very important role, as I said during the election. The policy is finally decided by the Council of Ministers and we are accountable to our own parliaments and that is a much closer, more intimate, detailed accountability than we get with the European Parliament which has no ministerial executive and I do not believe can have.
But they are extremely important. They set a tone; they obviously have certain powers; and certainly, if it comes to enlarging the Community, you cannot do it without the consent of parliament; and they are very important.
I think that they perhaps do not understand the feelings of the national parliament as we understand the feelings of Europeans. As I say, the main accountability is to the national parliament and I have to make it absolutely clear that our Parliament, our ancient Parliament without which there would have been nothing like a European Parliament because we taught them a lot about democracy, will not take Delors Stages 2 and 3 and they made it perfectly clear that they will not. Its control over expenditure and control over taxation are absolutely essential and they will not therefore relinquish those and it is no good anyone thinking they will. [end p24]
So yes, we are fully behind Stage 1 of Delors. Heaven knows, we were the people who urged the Common Market. We said: “Look! This is really one of the things we have joined you for; why haven't you got it?” All the barriers were still up when we went in and the Common Agricultural Policy in a mess, budgeting in a mess. They are not now and we are pushing and pushing far harder than some of the other countries to get the barriers down.
There are some people who want the barriers down which suit them and the rest to stay up, so at the moment it is much easier for manufactured goods to flow than it is for services to flow and that suits some people but it does not suit us.
We are all for Stage 1 of Delors and we are pledged to join the ERM when the conditions which we laid down at Madrid are completed and also our inflation is down because we have to get that down to something nearer the average level. But Stages 2 and 3 are not on. The whole of Parliament made that absolutely clear.
Interviewer
Do you think 1990 could be the year in which all these conditions come right? [end p25]
Prime Minister
I do not know. It depends, of course, partly on what other people do. Do not forget, there is a lot of subsidy of industry still on the Continent; there is quite a lot of nationalisation still, which is an easier way to subsidise and cross-subsidise and Leon Brittan is taking this up very vigorously. We have far fewer subsidies than either France or Germany.
Competition is about competing on equal terms. You cannot compete equally with someone who has a subsidy or a hidden subsidy and also, one has to look at some of the other financial restrictions that they have. For example, Germany has heavy restrictions on her pension funds and her insurance funds as to where they can invest. As you know, they cannot invest for example in ECU. I think 95 per cent of their investment has to be in German securities. It is not a common market; it is not freedom.
Interviewer
One of the other great landmarks of your premiership was the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Peter Brooke made a very interesting speech last night in which he appeared to hint that the Agreement could be changed. Some people think it might even be superseded by some form of devolution … [end p26]
Prime Minister
That is not superseding. Devolution is provided for in the Anglo-Irish Agreement and it came up right at the signing of it. Garret Fitzgerald and I did the signing at Hillsborough and one of the questions we got from the press was the agreement provides for devolution and insofar as we get devolved government at Stormont the things which are within the authority of the devolved government are outside the authority of the Joint Inter-Governmental Conference that we have. They said to Garret Fitzgerald: “Do you want devolution or don't you?” because the very fact of devolution takes certain things out of the jurisdiction of the Inter-Governmental Conference and Garret said: “It is our policy to get devolution!” so it is there but we have never been able to get it and you see, I think of the Unionists' fear of the Anglo-Irish Agreement which I found very distressing because we felt we had got all of the guarantees and I think over the first three or four years and we have had the first review of its working, they have realised that many of their fears - as frequently happens - have been ill-founded and I think that realisation is coming through. That is what Peter BrookePeter has detected and therefore said this probably is the most propitious time to try to go forward to see if once again we can get a more devolved government there, because that really was one of the signs to the Unionists that the Union was working in a strange way. [end p27]
Interviewer
Yes. But you see devolution working alongside the Agreement, not taking the place of it?
Prime Minister
Oh yes. It is part of the Agreement and actually, when they take the decision into their own hands as a proper parliament, then obviously the parliament - an Assembly, an Authority - theirs because it is self-government, prevails over the Inter-Governmental Conference.
Interviewer
But you remain committed to the Agreement?
Prime Minister
We still have certain things within the Inter-Governmental Conference. We remain committed to the Agreement, yes. An Agreement can only be changed by agreement between the signatories. The first thing is to try to get devolution which is provided for by the Agreement.
Interviewer
Is there not a lull at the moment in meetings of the Anglo-Irish Council? [end p28]
Prime Minister
No. They seem to me to have met rather often. They are called as and when necessary and either side can call them.
Interviewer
You see that agreement staying and you would not be prepared to suspend or abandon that Agreement? [end p29]
Prime Minister
You sign an agreement, the only way ever to vary an agreement to which you have put your signature is by agreement. But that agreement actually provides for devolution.
Interviewer
But Mr. Brooke did say in his speech there could be alterations?
Prime Minister
But only by agreement, yes, by agreement.
Interviewer
But that devolution could lead to alterations to the agreement. [end p30]
Prime Minister
Well again only by agreement, obviously. Because the thing, I thought, was very skilfully drafted in that it provided for a review of the working of the agreement, which we have had, and it provided for devolution which again is, one thought was hope for the Unionists, but they have got to work with the nationalist minority because the essence of democracy is not merely that the majority is right, it is that everyone has fundamental human rights before the law and the minorities have fundamental rights as well.
Interviewer
But you do not see …
Prime Minister
I would like to see them starting to work together. To us over here, you know for years we have thought it cannot go on, sooner or later they will say: “Look, for the sake of our children we have got to work together”.
But you know these old hatreds have gone on for so long maybe the new atmosphere of trying to solve things peacefully will also affect Northern Ireland - let us hope so.
Interviewer
You mean the breaking of the barriers in Eastern Europe? [end p31]
Prime Minister
Yes, they are coming to democracy. Northern Ireland has democracy. As I sometimes duly explain to them the difference - every single person in Northern Ireland, no matter what their background, in the Nationalist or the Unionist community, has a vote, has a vote for Westminster, has a vote for their local Council. They have democracy.
What you have is a group of people within the minority who I do not think reflect the views of the full minority who do not like the results of that democratic vote and therefore try to bully people, intimidate people out of it by the bomb and the bullet.
So they have democracy. The question is whether there will be enough people in the community, and also whether we will get sufficient cooperation and whether we are able to get at the people in the Republic who are doing the terrorist action, and some of the people in the minority community. And for that it would be much more effective once the minority community has the confidence and you can get a devolved government.
But we hoped that the Anglo-Irish Agreement itself would give them confidence so we would get more cooperation.
Interviewer
But they are not interchangeable, they exist side-by-side?
Prime Minister
Sorry, what? [end p32]
Interviewer
Devolution.
Prime Minister
Is that agreement coming up?
Mr. Ingham
(Inaudible)
Interviewer
If I could look back domestically at your own leadership in the past ten years, what would you describe as the biggest disappointment of your ten years?
Prime Minister
Oh goodness, it is always the biggest joy or the biggest disappointment. Goodness me, I can never say, if you get a disappointment you just go on and try and pursue your beliefs so that you get the result that you think is necessary. Sometimes you have to come at things more than once you know.
First you have to prepare public opinion and it is not necessarily ready for it and then it realises that there is merit in what one is saying.
Biggest disappointment? I am deeply concerned that we have got inflation emerging again and that is why we have to be very firm because that is quite fundamental and we are expected to deal with it and we shall. [end p33]
Disappointment - what are you thinking of when you ask such a question?
Interviewer
I do not know, I usually have one a week and it goes past but we lead such an ephemeral life compared to you. I will let it fructify.
Prime Minister
Disappointments do not fructify.
Interviewer
I was wondering about the style of your leadership. You did face in November the first challenge to your leadership in ten years which you survived by an eight to one majority. Did you draw any lessons or conclusions from that having perhaps given thought about it?
Prime Minister
Look, I cannot alter my beliefs. You cannot alter beliefs, they are quite fundamental. As a matter of fact, if I might say so, the world has rejected socialism because it gives neither dignity nor prosperity. Socialism is central command and control.
If I might say so, I was way ahead, and so were many other people in the Conservative Party, and the beliefs have turned out to give us a much higher standard of living. They have turned out to produce the wealth to give us a much better standard of [end p34] Social Services and to do things and to go on improving things, and we shall, and to go on increasing opportunity, expanding ownership and to restore Britain's reputation.
And the very leadership and style which you criticise has in fact done a very great deal for Britain because I can tell you frequently there are people who will not say things that should be said and yes, I do say them. We have won three elections on these beliefs, not on the beliefs, but on the beliefs in practice.
Interviewer
Your campaign manager, George Younger, did say during the election campaign that he would gather the voices and concerns and pass these on to you. Did he do so?
Prime Minister
Yes, you are always going to get complaints. Look, I have been in the Conservative Party a very long time. You always had a certain number of complaints about leaders of the Party. I remember it even in Winston's time - Winston ChurchillWinston, the greatest leader we have ever had. Because people's views in a Party, I think their fundamental beliefs are pretty well the same, but the speed or the detail in which you put them in operation or the way you communicate, they always think it could be done better and sometimes it could be better handled. [end p35]
But what I can never accept is when people say: “Oh, just do not go any further”. It is like running a business, you only keep a successful business provided you are always going ahead, always thinking of the next policy, always thinking of how to solve the next problem, always knowing that your policies must have two qualities, certain fundamental truths which you believe in and be right up, indeed slightly ahead of the times, so that you have to account for your new technology, it is different working practices, its effect on people. You have to account for what it does in the environment and make provision for that. You have to have different Health and Safety regulations, you have to have your research going on which will give enormous new demands on the Health Service.
This is characteristic of life, the whole essence of it, if you have convictions and beliefs. And after all, we would not have democracy or freedom or justice except on fundamental convictions and beliefs. It is how to blend those things which are always true and which remain true with the contemporary conditions - how to blend them - and it is getting the blend of the two right.
But we have always fought, always enlarging opportunity, always having to think as new facts become available about things about the environment, always having to think. You will get change in the demography, the birthrate numbers of young people, so you have then to think about getting a bigger proportion trained because that is the way the new technology is going and you are going to get a bigger proportion of old people and obviously [end p36] most of them want to carry on doing some part-time work, many of them.
And so you have to be thinking ahead. You have at the moment to be thinking obviously ahead in great historic terms, projecting history forward - searchlights into the future of Europe and the free world. An enormous future, we are all peering into the future. I wonder whether a searchlight or sometimes with a lamp, in Winston ChurchillWinston's words “in which we stumble along the paths”. Because the paths are not made, you have actually to make them.
And looking at it very much historically and anyone who thinks that the day of nationalism or sovereignty is gone should look at what is happening in Eastern Europe at the moment. It has not gone, people have these natural affinities. And the thing is how to take those natural affinities into account and still keep a peaceful regime and not upset the very stability which has enabled us to live in peace but not to reject those feelings of nationality.
Look, I hear lots of things said about Europe. My Bruges speech was way ahead of the others. Do you remember it?
Interviewer
Yes. [end p37]
Prime Minister
“The Community is only one manifestation of Europe. To us, Prague, Warsaw, Budapest, are European capitals.” Way, way, way ahead of all this.
The day of national affinity and sovereignty is gone: look at Germany - gone! look at France, the bicentennial - gone! look at the minorities - gone! They have forgotten about human nature.
You must have more local loyalties. You cannot just have a loyalty to Europe, that is compounded of many local loyalties which actually give you a forward drive and a desire to cooperate in your national sovereign form, not rejecting that which is the most natural loyalty but using it. But this was way ahead, it is happening now.
Interviewer
And we are seeing the resurgence of nationalism.
Prime Minister
You are seeing the resurgence of those local loyalties which have been suppressed. You know what Marxism was. Marxism said we have got a scientific system, we have a planned economy and the government decides what it is, the government represents the people so if you are against the government you are against the people. That broadly was what they were working at. Everything, religion is merely the opium of the people - Marxism was atheist, it recognised nothing else. [end p38]
What it forgot was that people do not exist who could run a planned state successfully. But they also forgot human nature. Marxism took people and moved them around as pawns on a chessboard. It forgot that in human beings they have their own ideas and their own wishes as to what to do. And the task of government is to say those human rights are absolutely fundamental and the task of government is to enable people to live freely with one another and you can only do that with a strong rule of law.
Now a rule of law is about more than government-made law. A rule of law is one which honours certain fundamental human rights and we would say, even though people do not necessarily recognise it, that those fundamental human rights come really most deeply from Judaism and Christianity.
Interviewer
Where are you directing your searchlights?
Prime Minister
We are directing our searchlights to see what happens down central Europe, having the whole effect upon the structure which has kept our stability, which is NATO and the Warsaw Pact, and also that if what happens to Germany will affect the future of the whole Community.
And of course we are looking to see, again I think I first came out with it in a television interview, the kind of agreement that you have between the Community and the East European states. [end p39]
Because the Community is a Community of free market economies. This is why, that was what its founding fathers wanted, and this is why I struggle so hard to see that it does not become a tightly knit bureaucracy with too much determined from the centre. They have a principle of subsidiarity which I am afraid is sometimes honoured in the breach. It was going to be honoured in the breach in the Social Charter but now it will have to be honoured which is again one of our &dubellip;
Interviewer
Yes.
Prime Minister
Of course, we are all watching, looking, seeing how we can influence it because you have to remember that none of this would have happened without Mr. Gorbachev's vision. What one wants is the very best result to come out of it and the very best result is democracy, freedom and a proper rule of law. I cannot emphasise that too much.
We have no idea what it is like to live in a communist country where there is no authority to which you can make a legitimate complaint and no impartial court where you can have your complaint upheld. They have been held down. [end p40]
Now, that is the most important thing, to get democracy and a rule of law and the free economy going. We can get it if we handle it right, right across Europe. But you have to keep the whole security and stability of the thing going at the same time.
And I cannot go further than that because we look at it and we look at it against the background of history, against the background of central Europe, against the background of the minorities of the Balkan States of Central Europe. You have only to re-read the history really from about the middle of the last century to the present day to realise how complex it is and what the pitfalls are.
Interviewer
Your New Year message which you put out, you listed the tasks facing the country, the six tasks, and very high on those were the quality of the environment and quality of public services.
Prime Minister
Yes of course because I do not know whether you ever looked at the Party Conference speech, I usually put a lot of thought and ideas into the Party Conference speech. I hope it comes out because there are so few words for so many ideas because you have to keep the speech moving on the whole time. You might have missed it therefore. One said that the fundamental right of the citizen is for choice. You cannot have choice applied only to the private sector. [end p41]
It must also apply, do not forget a lot of things the citizen pays for, he says they come free, they do not, he pays for it through taxation - education, health - and those public services are services to the public. They are not “This is the system, take it or leave it”.
And the essence again of humanity, of human beings, is to devolve the responsibility as near to the point of action as you effectively can. And so it has been our task to enlarge the choice and the quality of your public services by your fundamental belief that you train people for responsibility, that freedom incurs responsibility.
So you are taking your Health Service with the responsibility for action as near to the point of action where you can - it may be the hospital, it may be the GP - if they wish to take it. That is their choice and by devolving responsibility in that way you get a better service, quicker decisions, more contact between the user of the service and the person who is providing it.
That also goes for schools so you involve your parents and your teachers and your board of Governors much more in the local running of it and then they become more interested in it and it is really having a terrific effect. And you get choice too.
Now the other thing is that as you get more prosperous so you have the money to get the better quality. If you look at Eastern Europe it is not prosperous and its pollution is terrible. They do not look after their people in the same way as we have a Health and Safety Executive. [end p42]
We have been on to things for years: asbestos had to go; certain chemicals had to go; certain fundamental rules. They do not, they pour their pollutants away. In the Soviet Union they have some terrible diseases because of pollution.
But it is only when you get the creation of wealth that you have the money. First we have the realisation and a lot of it we did before we had enough money. But you have enough money to go on to the next stage of increasing quality. So there is a choice factor and the choice applies to the person who pays for the public services through the tax-payer's purse, just as much as if you pay at the point of use as you do in the private sector.
You also simply must have, coming on to the future, the enlarging of opportunity. I would not be here unless the education system had offered some opportunity. We want to enlarge it, go on enlarging it by the method I have indicated.
And also we are looking much more closely at training. Training is not merely to keep unemployment down, training is to get the best of manufacturing industry and to compete. But it is a dynamic thing.
Interviewer
Sir Geoffrey Howe did speak about an element of scruffiness in society? [end p43]
Prime Minister
Good Lord, I have been on to that for years! There is a photograph of me picking up the stuff and cleaning Downing Street. Of course, as you have heard me say, we would not have litter if people did not throw it down.
Interviewer
But he seemed to suggest there was a role for public money?
Prime Minister
Yes of course. We have got a Control of Pollution Bill - do read it. If I might respectfully say so, we have been cleaning public buildings for a long time.
Interviewer
I am not going to ask you how long you are going to go on …
Prime Minister
I do not know.
Interviewer
But your husband has given valiant service to the country as your consort. [end p44]
Prime Minister
Denis ThatcherHe is absolutely terrific, he just says what he thinks.
Interviewer
Do you think he might deserve a time with you when you are both free of the cares of office and that sort of thing?
Prime Minister
We have a very good little flat over the shop.
Interviewer
So that is not a factor?
Prime Minister
I think he has been marvellous. He has made a role and a niche for himself in public life which I think everyone honours, they honour the way he keeps his own personality, his own work. He has always been mad keen on sports, you know on the Sports Aid Foundation, on helping young people to come into sports, and he is mad keen on keeping very high standards, of course he is. It is a marvellous partnership.
Interviewer
Do you see any signs that Enoch Powell and the Conservative Party are coming together again after this rift? [end p45]
Prime Minister
I have always read Enoch Powell's speeches and articles very carefully. He was not helpful over things like the Anglo-Irish Agreement, as you know. I think he has been right about the economy, inflation is a monetary phenomenon, absolutely right. I just do not know, I always think it was a tragedy that he left. He is a very, very able politician. I say that even though he has sometimes said vitriolic things against me.